I want to welcome Janice Folk-Dawson and Patty Coates, the vice-president and president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, to the Legislative Assembly.

I’d like to welcome today’s page co-captain Isabelle Casselman and her family, who are here as well—her mother, Melissa; her father, Stephen; and her younger brother Nolan.

I’d also like to welcome Patty Coates and Janice Folk-Dawson from OFL.

I’d also like to say thank you very much to all the education workers, ECEs and health care workers outside who came out in support.

I’d like to welcome Upasna Kumar, my executive assistant—the first time in the chamber watching question period.

It is always a special day when community leaders from Mississauga–Malton come to Queen’s Park. I’d like to introduce Avtar Sandhu and Roshan Pathak from the Council of Heritage and International Peace. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Mr. Speaker, I have a good-news story from Essex county about long-term care. Arch Long-Term Care operates a 75-bed facility in Tilbury, but the building is old, and they want to build a new one only 15 minutes down the road, in the town of Belle River. It’s going to be brand new, state-of-the-art. It will have private rooms. It will have 160 beds—twice as many as the old facility. Of course, the NDP member before me opposed that idea. But because of this government’s progressive and compassionate policies, Arch applied for and received a licence to build the new facility in Belle River. That means the people of Tilbury and Belle River will now have twice as many beds, in a state-of-the-art facility that they didn’t have before.

I want to thank the Minister of Long-Term Care for ensuring that the people of Essex county—and indeed all Ontarians—receive access to the quality long-term care they deserve, in a safe, homelike setting, when and where they need it.

I’d like to introduce the Ontario Bioscience Innovation Organization to the Legislature this morning, and thank them for bringing Ontario-made, innovative health care solution providers Oncoustics, Able Innovations and Huron Digital Pathology to Queen’s Park this morning to showcase their great technologies.

I’d like to acknowledge Aiden Perritt, the legislative page from my riding, who is the page captain today. Today in the members’ gallery, we have his father, James Perritt. We also have his grandparents: Brian Cole, a Knight of Justice in the Order of St. John and CEO of the St. John Council of Ontario; and Sharon Cole, a Dame of Grace in the Order of St. John and chair of the St. John Canada Foundation. Welcome all.

I’d like to give a warm welcome to Patty Coates, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, Carolyn Ferns of the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care, Rachel Vickerson of the Association of Early Childhood Educators Ontario, and the many, many members of CUPE and other child care workers and ECEs who are here as part of the national day of action on child care.

I have a very special guest to present today. I would like to introduce Currie Dixon, the member of the Legislative Assembly for Copperbelt North—and he is the leader of the Yukon Party—and his chief of staff, Danny Macdonald. They’ve come a long way. We’re so happy they’re here.

It’s my pleasure to rise in the House today and acknowledge an extremely worthwhile organization in my riding: Harvest Hands.

Speaker, did you know that close to 50% of all food produced in this country is wasted or lost to landfills? It’s a staggering and unfortunate reality.

That is exactly why Jim and Jacintha Collins founded Harvest Hands in St. Thomas in 2020. Their mission is to rescue surplus food from retailers, bakers and growers to help feed families. Nutritious, bountiful and perfectly edible food is rescued from landfills. Fresh produce, frozen food, packaged and canned goods all end up in homes throughout southwestern Ontario.

As a non-profit food distribution bank, Harvest Hands’s purpose is to help agencies gain access to good food. Funded entirely by donations and volunteer-driven, Harvest Hands provides food that feeds over 24,000 families a year in southwestern Ontario. Since its inception, Harvest Hands has delivered over $8 million—$8 million—of food from Windsor through to Oshawa. The distribution network that Harvest Hands serves is comprised of more than 80 agencies.

With Christmas fast approaching, many food banks across this province will face an even greater need for volunteers and food donations to meet increased holiday demand.

Waste not, want not.

Thank you, Harvest Hands, for a job well done.

Welcome, gentlemen. Thank you for coming to Queen’s Park.

I’ll remind everyone there is a reception tonight in the dining room.

Mr. Speaker, we’re continuing to work for workers every single day in Ontario.

That’s why we partnered with private sector unions, employers and tradespeople to bring in the Building Opportunities in the Skilled Trades Act, to get tens of thousands of people into well-paying jobs in the province.

That’s why we brought in historic legislation in Working for Workers 1 and Working for Workers 2 to ensure that workers have the right to disconnect, and that, for the first time in Canadian history, we’re recognizing international credentials, so when newcomers come to this province they can work in professions that they’ve studied.

We became the first in Canada to give truck drivers access to washroom facilities across this province.

And we are the first in North America to move forward with expanding portable benefits so millions of workers who don’t have health and dental benefits today are going to get those benefits under Premier Ford.

I do have a point of order, Speaker. I am seeking the unanimous consent of the House that, notwithstanding standing order 40(e), five minutes be allotted to the independents as a group to respond to the ministerial statement by the Minister of Labour regarding McIntyre Powder this afternoon.

Speaker, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice threw out Bill 124 in its entirety, ruling it absolutely null and void. Justice Koehnen found that Ontario was not facing an economic situation that “justified an infringement of charter rights,” and that the law was “substantial interference” with the constitutionally protected bargaining rights of hundreds of thousands of workers.

Bill 124 has been bad for workers in Ontario—period. It should never have seen the light of day in the first place.

Speaker, it’s long past time the government started showing workers the respect they deserved from day one.

With the cost of living skyrocketing, my question is, will the government get out of its own way, get out of the way of workers’ protected right to freely bargain a fair wage and finally respect this decision?

I think the member opposite knows that we’re reviewing the decision. We intend to appeal, so I can’t comment further. Pas de commentaire.

I beg to inform the House that the following document has been tabled: the 2022 annual report from the Office of the Auditor General of Ontario.

Mr. Tabuns is seeking the unanimous consent of the House on a motion calling on the Ford government to respect yesterday’s ruling by the courts that found Bill 124 to be unconstitutional. Agreed? I heard some noes.

Point of order.

Interjections.

Yesterday was an historic victory for Ontario workers. The courts recognized what 800,000 public sector workers and New Democrats have been saying for years: that Bill 124 is unconstitutional. That was affirmed by the courts. This is a hard-fought and long-overdue victory for workers, who deserve a government that will respect this decision and work with them to move forward.

Why won’t the Premier respect the court ruling and stop appealing yet another court loss for this government?

Given yesterday’s ruling, will the government finally admit that Bill 124 has had a negative impact on our health care system?

Under the Liberals, Ontario lost an average of 1,825 hectares of wetlands per year, and the wetlands that do remain have very little, if any, protection.

Now nearly half of southern Ontario’s remaining wetlands are at risk of being lost, with no requirements for wetland evaluation before land use changes.

To the Premier: What does this government have against wetlands? Seriously—what do they have against them?

Again to the Premier: The auditor found that along the Niagara Escarpment there is no environmental monitoring because there are no staff. Reports of violations—includeing high-risk incidents of construction of buildings—have gone unenforced. And nearly all development permit applications have been approved in the past five years, even when they went against the Niagara Escarpment Plan.

Why isn’t the Premier doing anything to protect the Niagara Escarpment?

Today, the auditor found that the province is missing in action on addressing urban flooding risks. There is no coordinated approach, no effort to protect against the loss of green space, and basically nothing to address aging stormwater infrastructure—all while this government strips revenue from municipalities and the effects of climate change are felt more every year.

Why isn’t this government doing more to protect homeowners from the devastating impact of flooding?

Thanks for the question.

The other side likes to talk about what could happen, might happen.

Mr. Speaker, I’ll tell you what will happen: We’re going to continue to protect wetlands here in Ontario. We’ve got a plan to build 1.5 million homes in this province over the next 10 years and keep a robust ecological footprint. Home builders will still go through a process. Species at risk—there’s legislation to cover to that. Wetlands are disappearing; we’ve heard that. We’ve got an opportunity to not only preserve them but expand them, and a plan to do that as well.

Don’t believe the hype. Wetlands are here to stay in Ontario.

The Niagara Escarpment is an arm’s-length body that does great work—and we know the Niagara Escarpment is a beautiful and wonderful area in Ontario that we want to protect. We get feedback from the escarpment folks all the time, and we talk with them constantly about what can be done to make things better. We’ll continue to speak with them. But, again, they’re their own body—they make their own decisions, and we respect those decisions.

That’s why I was so excited to see the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry step up their game over the years. Go to Water Street and see the facilities that are there to ensure that Ontarians are protected against flooding. It is amazing. They’re doing an amazing job.

Conservation authorities: We’re asking them to focus on flooding in hazard lands to keep people safe. That’s the focus and the priority.

Build homes, keep people safe, build Ontario—that’s what we’re going to do.

As the Attorney General said, we are reviewing this decision. Our intention is to appeal.

But we will speak to our investments in health care, especially in health human resources.

Since March 2020, we have added over 12,000 health care professionals to the system.

Just this year alone, the Ontario College of Nurses has registered over 12,800 nurses—and we still have two months to go.

Mr. Speaker, we will continue to make these historic investments to support health care workers and the delivery of health care services all across this province.