Good morning. Let us pray.

Prayers.

Resuming the debate adjourned on November 28, 2022, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 46, An Act to enact one Act and amend various other Acts / Projet de loi 46, Loi visant à édicter une loi et à modifier diverses autres lois.

I’m delighted to share my time with my colleagues the members from Brampton East and Scarborough–Rouge Park to speak to our government’s proposed Less Red Tape, Stronger Ontario Act, 2022. It’s a bill that’s necessary and timely.

This bill, if passed, would be yet another step forward in making Ontario work smarter for business and people. The proposed legislation builds on the government’s strong track record of reducing red tape. Since 2018, we have reduced regulatory requirements by 6.5%, saving individuals and businesses $576 million in annual compliance costs.

We have come a long way, but there’s no room for complacency. We know there’s more work to be done. The global supply chain crisis brought on by COVID-19, shifts in demand and labour shortages are impacting Ontarians and our economy. Reducing red tape on individuals and businesses is a key element of post-pandemic recovery and economic growth. To this end, our government is committed to making Ontario better for people and businesses by removing unnecessary, redundant and outdated regulations that hold us back.

The Less Red Tape, Stronger Ontario Act, 2022, outlines 28 new measures to achieve these objectives. They include proposed legislative and regulatory changes as well as policy announcements. I would like to highlight some of the key initiatives in the proposed reduce-red-tape package in two aspects: supporting Ontario’s supply chains and cutting red tape for Ontarians.

Modernization measures for the agriculture and food industry are a central piece of the proposed legislation. Last week, we released the Grow Ontario strategy, the province’s plan to build consumer confidence and support farmers and Ontario’s food supply. The strategy will promote Ontario-grown food, attract an innovative talent pool and stabilize the food supply chain. Increasing commercialization and adoption of innovative new technologies and practices also play a key role in the strategy.

The proposed legislation includes amendments to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Act. Our intent is to help members of feeder cattle cooperatives expand their businesses and create more jobs. This will support the sector’s capacity to deliver safe, healthy food products to all Ontarians.

The proposed legislation, if passed, would also modernize the Agricultural Research Institute of Ontario—ARIO—Act to reflect current and future agri-food research and innovation needs. The proposed amendments to the act will allow for more research that accurately reflects the evolving nature of agri-food research today and in the future.

Speaker, we all know that transportation is an important pillar that supports Ontario’s supply chains. There are several proposals in this package that would make the transportation sector more competitive. Firstly, we are upgrading Ontario’s Highway Corridor Management System to provide a seamless and integrated online platform for approvals and permits along provincial highways. Work is ongoing to allow applicants to submit, track and receive all Ministry of Transportation approvals online, saving time and money.

Each year during the spring thaw, roads become weaker and susceptible to permanent damage caused by vehicles. To help protect road infrastructure during this time of the year, local authorities have the power to temporarily reduce vehicle axle weight limits. We are giving municipalities a new option to optimize the timing of this reduced load period, which will help improve competitiveness while protecting Ontario’s road infrastructure.

Our province has one of the largest and most complex energy sectors in North America. We are proposing to simplify our gasoline volatility regulation to reduce regulatory and administrative burden on the petroleum industry by aligning with national standards. This will increase the competitiveness of our energy sector.

We are also proposing to amend the Oil, Gas, and Salt Resources Act to reduce barriers through carbon storage technology. This amendment, if passed, will reduce red tape as a first step in creating a framework to regulate and enable permanent storage of carbon as a new tool to help reduce Ontario’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Speaker, one of the most common concerns I hear from my constituents is the red tape and regulatory barriers they face in their daily lives and business. Our government has heard their concerns. One of our government’s top priorities since 2018 has been to remove unnecessary, redundant and outdated regulations that are holding businesses back. We know that there are more things our government can do to cut red tape and make it easier for people to interact with the government.

To improve government transfer payments, we are establishing an efficient, transparent and coordinated approach through a standard online digital platform. This will reduce paperwork and administrative burdens for government-funded organizations. Also, we will work with Indigenous businesses and communities to address barriers to accessing government business support programs and procurement opportunities.

To enhance our province’s occupational health and safety system, we are proposing amendments to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act that would improve the operational efficiency of the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board. The amendments, if passed, would ensure injured or ill apprentices receive loss-of-earnings benefits at the same amounts a journeyperson would receive; ensure government documents are consistent with, not duplicative of, other government directives; and streamline requirements for office lease transactions.

The proposed legislation also continues review of the Ministry of Transportation’s co-operative performance rating system in the evaluation of bids for engineering services. Focusing more on the price and technical proposal when evaluating bids for engineering services will make it simpler to administer and fairer for all participants.

For the court system, we will increase court capacity and efficiency to help address the COVID-19 backlog in criminal cases. We are doing this by temporarily increasing the limit of the number of days retired judges can work and allowing court clerks to reopen certain proceedings.

We’re also proposing to make jury questionnaires available online and test the feasibility of moving away from providing a paper version. This will reduce administrative costs and make it easier for prospective jurors to participate in the court system.

Speaker, I wish I could speak more on this important bill for Ontario, but I’m mindful of the time. So, in short, this bill, if passed, will streamline processes and modernize outdated practices across multiple areas of government and multiple sectors of Ontario’s economy. This will lead Ontario to more economic certainty, confidence and stability, and it will help to ensure our province continues to be competitive in the global market.

And may I invite all the members of the House to vote in favour of the bill and join me in looking forward to a stronger Ontario.

I recognize the member for Scarborough–Rouge Park.

I’m pleased to have this opportunity to rise in the House today to discuss Bill 46, the Less Red Tape, Stronger Ontario Act.

From the moment our government took office, one of our top priorities has been removing unnecessary, redundant, outdated regulations that keep people and businesses from reaching their full potential, and we have come so far over the past four and a half years. I know the 28 cross-government initiatives within this proposed legislation build on the progress we have made by increasing Ontario’s competitiveness, building a more robust supply chain and making it easier to interact with government by cutting red tape. Simply put, we are taking swift action to build a stronger Ontario, where people thrive and businesses prosper, now and into the future. We are focused on leading Ontario to greater economic certainty, confidence and stability. And during our uncertain times, these items cannot be taken for granted.

The Ministry of Transportation is committed to reducing the burden on Ontarians, modernizing its programs and supporting businesses in the transportation sector. We know that in today’s world and economy, a well-functioning transportation network is key to helping get products to market and get people where they need to go. A transportation network depends on having the right investments, the right maintenance and support, but beyond that, it also needs the right regulatory environment in place to help respond to the needs of the public and businesses.

I want to spend some time talking more specifically about some of the specific items that the ministry is bringing forward this year. First, we are making improvements to Ontario’s highway corridor management system to provide a seamless and integrated online platform for approvals and permits along provincial highways. The Ministry of Transportation is also responsible for reviewing and assessing land development proposals, permit applications for signs, building and land use, and for entrances, encroachments and utility management adjacent to provincial highways. In total, MTO processes between 5,000 to 7,000 permits for work along provincial highways annually.

In June 2017, we launched the Highway Corridor Management System to support Ontario businesses, stakeholders and members of the public in securing permits to conduct work along provincial highways and save time and money. Madam Speaker, in fact, over the past five years, the Highway Corridor Management System has reduced wait times, and the time to complete the application process is reduced by an estimated 500,000 hours, saving over $12 million for businesses and members of the public.

Work is ongoing on a new land development review module that will enable developers and municipalities to submit, track and receive Ministry of Transportation approvals for their land development applications and all online applications. The targeted release for the land development review is the summer of 2023, which will provide immediate value to users. Following this release, subsequent phases are planned and will include enhancements based on our user base. When released, the module will be available for anyone to use, including municipalities, developers and the public.

The ongoing and planned enhancements of the Highway Corridor Management System will provide a simple, easy, efficient and more convenient way for businesses, stakeholders and members of the public to submit, track and receive MTO permits and MTO development approvals in a manner that is more transparent and more accountable. The Highway Corridor Management System improvements will better support economic development proposals of Ontario’s businesses and municipalities, as well as provincial priorities such as Open for Business, bringing new housing supply to the market, and providing government services faster, better and easier.

We are taking action to improve the ability of municipalities to protect road infrastructure while ensuring that vital goods can continue to move on our roads. Each spring, roads become weaker and susceptible to permanent damage caused by heavy loads. To help protect road infrastructure during this time of year, the Highway Traffic Act provides local authorities the ability to reduce vehicle axle weight limits for a period of time, known as the reduced load period or the spring thaw period. Madam Speaker, reduced load periods are typically in effect annually from March through the end of May or June and are only applied to designated secondary and tertiary roads, including a limited number of secondary highways in northern Ontario. The province enacts reduced load periods on some roads, but, for the most part, the reduced load period is enacted locally by municipalities via bylaws.

The Ministry of Transportation, in partnership with the Ontario Good Roads Association, is creating frost depth prediction models that will provide municipalities with the option to optimize the timing of reduced load periods, including shortening the period when conditions permit. The model uses data from MTO’s Road Weather Information System, including 20 sites with frost depth and moisture sensors across the province and breaks down geographic zones established across Ontario with local adjustments for micro-climates. The model will provide seven-day advanced notice of the onset of reduced load periods using real-time and forecast temperature input for the geographical zones. This will allow municipalities to shorten the duration of reduced load periods, which will help support the supply chain and cut red tape for the agriculture, agri-business and trucking industry, while protecting road infrastructure.

The ministry is also reviewing the use of the corporate performance rating system in evaluating bids for engineering services to improve the fairness and efficiency of the procurement process. Corporate performance rating is a measure of past performance on ministry assignments. Engineering service providers are currently selected based on weighted evaluations of a firm’s corporate performance rating, the price of their bid and the technical quality of their written proposals.

The recent reviews of the corporate performance rating system have found that the criteria for evaluating service providers’ past performance have become somewhat subjective, resulting in little distinction in the ratings between high-performing and low-performing firms. So focusing more on the pricing and technical proposal when evaluating bids for engineering services would make the procurement process simpler to administer and fairer for all participants and help ensure the best value for taxpayer dollars.

Madam Speaker, as you can see, the Ministry of Transportation and the government takes seriously our role to remove unnecessary, redundant and outdated regulations that are holding businesses back. Reducing red tape on individuals and businesses is key to post-pandemic recovery and our economic growth.

Under the leadership of Premier Ford, our government has taken more than 400 actions to reduce burdens since 2018 without compromising service levels, health, safety and the environment. Our efforts to eliminate unnecessary red tape and burdens and open doors to economic activity will ensure the province is one of the best places in North America to raise a family, work and operate a business.

As an individual who has dealt and worked within the courts system for a number of years, I was very happy to see a modernizing of the juror system with respect to the composition. I continuously get calls from constituents asking about this specific issue. So the ministry recently identified two issues that have affected the composition of jury rolls in Ontario. How are you working to prevent these errors from happening in the future? Is this the right time to implement further changes to the jury system?

As I mentioned in my remarks, this bill takes a whole-of-government approach in reducing red tape. This particular bill contains 28 actions, including items that are part of multi-ministry items from 11 different ministries, and that’s why our strong record of reducing red tape is there to protect, starting from health, towards safety, and all the way to the environment. And this bill will definitely have a comprehensive approach that we started in 2018, to make sure that we are making Ontario’s economy more competitive and enabling businesses, enabling public transit users to make sure—

Thank you to the member for asking the question. Our government is on a mission to drive efficiencies and reduce red tape, so moving governments to a digital-first model and modernizing outdated processes are some of the many ways that we are cutting red tape to lower administrative costs. So why does the member not understand that?

And we also need to reduce administrative burdens and lower costs to the taxpayer; that’s good for Ontarians. Cutting red tape across government has many benefits: It makes interactions with the government easier, it reduces our dependency on postage and it improves our environment by reducing our dependency on paper.

Also, it’s not just about eliminating regulatory burdens. It involves modernizing processes like moving programs and services online. These actions being taken by our government will make it easier for prospective jurors to—

As I was listening to the comments from my friends in government this morning, I’m mindful that we are living in a climate emergency. We just had an international conference talking about the need for everyone to take up their responsibility.

I’m looking at schedule 5 of this legislation that’s talking about the capture of CO₂ as a solution. I’m wondering if either one of the members who spoke could comment about what either of these initiatives are doing to meet our climate emergency targets, because what I’ve seen so far is a government ripping up the greenbelt, suing the federal government unsuccessfully around carbon mitigation measures. I’ve seen them literally tear EV charging stations out of GO station transit and now promote them later. I see a government caught in contradictions on climate change.

I’m wondering if either member could explain to me what schedule 5 does to get Ontario back on track to take the climate emergency we’re living in seriously.

This omnibus bill makes changes to the Provincial Offences Act, the Juries Act, the Courts of Justice Act, but none of these items address femicide rates across Ontario—rates that are rising. It is fine to do housekeeping legislation like this; however, it also has to come alongside real and meaningful measures to prevent violence against women.

My question to the member across the aisle: I am wearing this purple scarf today, like so many in this chamber, to raise gender-based violence awareness. So why are we talking about housecleaning bills today when we should be passing legislation that makes life safer for women and girls across the province of Ontario?

Now we’ll go to questions.

Thank you to the member across for his submission—to both members for their submissions.

I guess my question would be specifically to the Juries Act, that particular portion in the bill. In particular, the Ontario trial lawyers, who I met with last year, were calling for an end to the use of civil juries. Civil juries have oftentimes led to exorbitant amounts of time in the delays in the court system. In Canada, there’s no constitutional right to a jury trial in most civil matters. Ontario is one of the last Canadian jurisdictions to grant parties the right to choose jury trials for most civil matters.

So my question to you would be: If most of Canada is actually moving away from civil jury options, why, through this modernization of the Juries Act, are you leaving this behind, when it clearly is a simple way of cutting red tape?

Thank you to the member from Scarborough–Agincourt for the question. Today, the Ontario government introduced the Less Red Tape, Stronger Ontario Act, which, if passed, would implement measures to increase Ontario’s competitiveness, strengthen provincial supply chains and make government services easier to access and interact with. The highlight is about increasing capacity and efficiency to improve services, including for Indigenous communities. Ontario’s agri-food sector has always been a cornerstone of the provincial economy.

I heard the members opposite talking about “smarter for business and for people.” I’m not sure about the “smarter for people” part. Government services faster, better, easier—it depends on which services you’re talking about.

The WSIB is part of this bill, and there are some references made to it. First of all, I’m very proud to say that the very first injured workers’ support group was founded in Thunder Bay in 1985 as a way to support injured workers, because, even at that point, the WSIB was actually undermining the health and well-being of injured workers. It required a support group that is ongoing, and there are support groups now across the province and the country that have become absolutely essential to survival for people with permanent disabilities.

In terms of the experiences of workers who get hurt or ill through their work, we have seen the first part of what was one of the original social safety nets, workers’ compensation, now known as the WSIB, turned into a short-term disability scheme that largely abandons workers who experience work-related permanent injuries.

Created over 100 years ago, Sir William Meredith, the one-time leader of the Conservative Party and father of workers’ compensation in Canada, laid out key principles known as the Meredith Principles. These are compensation as long as the disability lasts; collective liability—the employer pays into the fund; no fault; an independent agency; and non-adversarial.

The reason for this compensation board was to remove the need for employees to sue their employers. It was far too costly for employers and employees, so this compensation system was set up. It was meant to be no-fault and always to be there to support workers so that they could live out their lives in dignity.

Meredith believed that if you treated workers fairly, especially when injured, social and economic stability would be the result. Unfortunately, these principles have been systematically eroded and, increasingly, workers are calling for the ability to sue their employers for injury and disease, so we’re back to where we were 100 years ago. The evidence is overwhelming that people with disabilities face major barriers to employment, with some 50% of people with disabilities not able to find paid employment.

Deeming was introduced into Canadian law starting in 1979. It is a departure from human rights norms on income security. Deeming allows the adjudicators of employment injury benefits to cut income security benefits. These decisions are based on laws that permit the assumption of employment when, in practice, injured workers have not secured any employment and remain unemployed. Deeming permits dramatic cuts to employee injury benefits and causes economic hardship for people with disabilities while employers pocket the savings. Deeming laws are based upon stigmatizing people with disabilities. In Ontario, stigma is institutionalized in law based on the idea that people need to be incentivized to return to the job market—I’d like to hang on to that word “incentivized.”

Employment injury benefits are critical lifelines to ensure that people living with work-acquired disabilities are able to live a life with integrity and dignity. Employment injury benefits have, for over 75 years, been recognized by the United Nations multilateral system as an indispensable and irreplaceable type of income security that is an essential element of social security.

The International Labour Organization’s Philadelphia Principles on income security provide a baseline, defining what constitutes dignified treatment in employment injury benefit systems, and yet cost containment for the business community is continually prioritized over a human right to essential income security. Indeed, the workers compensation system envisioned by Meredith and practised in Ontario for most of its history has been utterly changed over the last 25 years. Instead of being there to help injured workers access support, the WSIB now functions like a private insurance company doing its utmost to deny claims in order to return money to employers, but this was never the intent behind creating a workers compensation system.

Just to remind the members on the other side, we’re talking about incredible red tape, regulation after regulation, barrier after barrier, after being forced to appeal before somebody with a permanent disability can access any form of support. They can’t work, they have no income—it takes six months to get on ODSP, which we know is not enough to survive on—and so on. The barriers are endless and cause enormous distress in families, enormous psychological distress, and, of course, physical abandonment. People don’t have the money to live. They can’t pay their mortgages. Families break down. The consequences are very, very significant.

Many workers who experience permanent injuries while on the job are, indeed, forced into poverty and homelessness because the WSIB has a routine policy of turning down claims, forcing injured workers to launch appeals that take years to resolve. How do they survive in the interim? Their lives have been utterly changed because of the injury or because of being poisoned in the workplace, yet, instead of getting the financial support they need and are entitled to, they are forced to apply for ODSP, and, as I said, even that can take up to six months.

Costs that should be borne by businesses through the WSIB are off-loaded onto the public. Injured workers are abandoned and the public picks up the cost. I think the message is quite clear: When a worker becomes permanently injured, they are disposable. When people have disabilities acquired through birth, accident, disease or through the workplace, they are treated as social pariahs, as fakers unworthy of income support. I don’t believe this should be the case in a society as wealthy as ours—it shouldn’t be the case in any society—but it is the norm, and a norm that this government continues to propagate.

After years of appeals, if an injured worker finally does get support from the WSIB, they can then be blindsided by having their claims drastically cut through the practice of deeming. The member from London North Centre spoke about this yesterday in his discussion of Bill 46, but I would like to reiterate the absurdity of deeming practices.

Let’s take the example of a former mine worker with an incapacitating injury who is deemed to be able to work as a parking lot attendant at $16 or $18 an hour, or whatever the going rates are in cities with parking lot attendants. As in many other places, a worker in Thunder Bay was deemed to be able to be a parking lot attendant, and his income supports were drastically cut as a result.

But guess what? There is not a single parking lot that uses a parking lot attendant in Thunder Bay. We don’t have them.

No matter; the worker was deemed able to do this job, so therefore he had to lose a large percentage of his WSIB income. If you think this sounds like the script for a Franz Kafka theatre-of-the-absurd novella, you would be right. Once you have been deemed, you are dumped, and there is no way out.

Last week, the Minister of Economic Development had the temerity to brag about cutting employers’ WSIB premiums by 30%. Then, at the same time as injured workers are being forced onto ODSP, he gave a so-called surplus of $1.5 billion back to employers.

Imagine if that money was going to injured workers or other people trying to live with a disability. How many more people could live in dignity and remain integrated in their communities? Instead, though, bad actors of the business world receive huge payouts and are continually incentivized to deny that injuries have taken place at their workplaces.

This year, injured workers were betrayed yet again when their cost-of-living allowance was set a full 2% lower than stipulated in law and in WSIB policy. Once again, injured workers support groups are having to rally together and come up with a means to appeal being shortchanged by the WSIB.

Why should they have to do this again and again? Why should injured workers have to organize themselves to fight against the organization that was created in order to support them? There’s something very foul about the entire set-up.

This brings me back to Bill 46, a grab bag of different housekeeping changes. While some of these are useful, there is so much that needs to be done to make the WSIB responsive to those it was intended to serve.

It’s really, frankly, hard to accept that the WSIB was mentioned at all, because the really important critical elements of the WSIB and its purpose are being ignored and not addressed. Certainly, current WSIB practices are examples of red tape run amok, with injured workers having to hold themselves together physically, financially and emotionally while experiencing the institutional violence that is now the norm for the WSIB.

I must say, there is a lot of excitement in this government about getting more people into the trades, especially young people. But we should be aware that the rate of permanent injuries in Ontario, by the WSIB’s own accounting, is about 15,000 people annually, and I am deeply concerned that many of these new workers won’t know what hit them when they discover that, rather than being there to support them in what might be their greatest time of need, the WSIB will be trying to save money for employers by treating them, if they’ve received a serious injury, as an adversary to be defeated.

Welcome to the trades, boys and girls. Learn worker safety, but if anything goes wrong, there’s a good chance you’ll be thrown under the bus as yet another disposable disabled person. Is this really what this government wants to be known for?

I was listening to the radio this morning, and I heard an interview with a doctor. He was talking about changes to medical assistance in dying—MAID—that are coming up, that will be making it easier for people with mental health challenges to choose to die. What he said was very, very disturbing. He said that he could get permission for somebody to choose to die in two weeks, and yet people are pushed into those states of mental crisis because they are not receiving the supports they need to actually survive. People are choosing death because they can’t afford to live, and that is, indeed, a crime—a crime that is being perpetuated by policies of this government.

Now I want to move—I’ve got a few minutes. Yesterday, the member from Huron–Bruce said: “The intent of this legislation—our ninth red tape reduction bill since 2018—is to ... ensure Ontario remains competitive in the global marketplace.... That impact is significant, so we need to take a look at our supply chain and determine how we can best build in resiliency.”

The member further said that “a made-in-Ontario solution is the best route.”

But I’m wondering whether this bill might have been an opportunity to redress something that was quietly brought in by this government during the last session, and that is the dropping of the requirement for Canadian content in manufacturing from 25% to only 10%.

The manufacture of mass transit in Thunder Bay has been a significant contributor to good-paying jobs and economic stability in our community for a very long time, but the boasting about procuring contracts in Japan for mass transit has me questioning this government’s commitment to Ontario workers.

When the member from Huron–Bruce spoke about building in resiliency, I immediately thought about how supporting our own world-class manufacturing facility in Thunder Bay could provide that resiliency.

Alstom—the great manufacturer of subway, streetcar and GO trains we enjoy, right at this moment, in this province and in the city of Toronto—is at risk of shutting down permanently by 2024 if new contracts are not in place very soon. Once a contract has been signed, it takes a good two years to put all the pieces in place to have the factory tooled up and the skilled workers sourced and hired. Thinking about maybe doing something at some vague point in the future isn’t good enough. They need to be able to bid on contracts now.

Upholding the 25% Canadian content requirement on all upcoming contracts would help Alstom remain competitive and win the contracts they need for future viability. This is something that needs to be redressed by this government, and I regret that it’s not in this particular bill. It’s not good enough to talk about all the great manufacturing jobs that will be coming up when the government is unwilling to support the manufacturing of mass transit by one of the best facilities anywhere in the country and, I believe, anywhere in the world.

I’ve got a few minutes left. In the briefing notes, in the preparatory notes to this bill, the government talks about funding to universities. I’d like to point out that this government is claiming to support colleges and universities, but Ontario has the lowest post-secondary funding in all of Canada. It would have to be raised by 46%—not to be first, but just so that Ontario would not be last place.

On a per-student basis, public funding has been on a downward trend in Ontario since it last peaked in 2008-09. Since then, per-student funding has been declining. On a per-student basis, Ontario universities’ operating funding is 40% lower than the rest of the Canadian average. Provincially sponsored research funding is 55% lower, which makes me wonder where the innovation is going to come from if our colleges and universities do not have the research funding that they need in order to do proper research.

For years now, Ontario has had amongst the highest tuition fees in Canada for domestic students at the undergraduate and graduate levels, and the highest tuition fees in Canada, by far, for international students.

To make up for low levels of per-student public funding, post-secondary tuition fees have been allowed to increase. The persistent underfunding of colleges and universities ignores long-term planning and investments that are needed to support universities’ educational research mandates. The exponential rise in tuition fees is a clear barrier to access. So to further make up for the shortfall in budgets, of course universities and colleges have been directed to aggressively recruit international students.

It’s wonderful to have international students in our schools. However, the fees that they are being charged—most of those students actually come because they hope to become permanent residents. So I think it is quite reasonable to say that these are actually head taxes, that these exorbitant fees to attend university or college here—amounting in the $25,000, $30,000, $40,000 to get through a program, which they then have to spend years and years to pay back. They work minimum wage jobs for a few years, and then, oops, they get let go just before they’re able to apply for permanent residency status. So it’s a pretty twisted scheme, I would have to say.

I’m running out of time. I would love to talk about the fact that universities and colleges are now largely staffed by contract workers—contract workers with PhDs, contract workers with years of teaching experience who are paid basically minimum wage. It doesn’t matter what their qualifications are, the pay remains the same. The teaching load can be 20, 40, 60, a couple of hundred, whatever, and then you reapply every year. It is undermining students’ ability to access support from faculty, and it certainly puts the lie to the notion that if you get more and more education, you will get a better job. In fact, the irony is that the people teaching at colleges and universities, who are highly educated, are amongst the lowest-paid workers in any field in the province.

That is something that students then come to recognize, and ask themselves, “What does this mean? I’m paying all this tuition. The people who are teaching me aren’t making a living wage.” They have no job security, no benefits, and this has become the norm at universities and colleges.

So we have efforts to remove red tape when it concerns a particular part of the business community, but otherwise, we have endless barriers to survival for people with disabilities, for people who receive injuries while working, for people working in white-collar jobs who actually can barely keep a roof over their heads in spite of having received 10, 12 years of education.

I will leave it at that. Thank you.

We have time for one quick question.

We’ll go to further debate.

Our government is taking strong action to reduce unnecessary red tape. But in 2017, under the Liberal government, supported by the NDP, Ontario had the highest cost of compliance in Canada, totalling $33,000 for businesses. That is $4,000 more than any other province across Canada.

They’re always in favour of more cost. They are in favour of more delays and more red tape while our government is trying to bring more accessibility, more convenience and less redundancy so that we can enable our businesses to have a thriving work environment, especially during these tough times. That’s why I urge members across the aisle to support this bill to help Ontarians and to help Ontario businesses.

My question is to either of my colleagues: What is the government doing now to support Indigenous people and businesses?

Pursuant to standing order 7(e), I wish to inform the House that this evening’s meeting is cancelled.

I want to talk about an incident that happened in London which was quite disturbing. It happened in December 2020, where eight charges were laid in connection with the incident of Teeple Terrace. It was a four-storey condo building that collapsed under construction. About 40 workers were on site. Two concrete workers—and you mentioned how young workers are—21-year-old John Martens and 26-year-old Henry Harder, and five more were injured.

One of the survivors I met with, Jacob Hurl, is advocating fiercely for changes to the WSIB, which I appreciate that you highlighted that very much in your debate. Jacob is fighting really hard to make these changes, and what he’s looking for—and he’s asked about this comment and I’d like to see if you could reply—is he wants a publicly accessible employer registry where employers are required to disclose their history of on-site accidents and any workplace safety concerns and hazards. Would you comment on that suggestion?

I listened with interest to the comments from the member from Thunder Bay–Superior North. It’s interesting. I’m hearing very similar arguments to what we were talking about with the fall economic statement, I think it was just last week, where the opposition members have really no opposition to anything that’s in the legislation whatsoever. However, they are providing constructive criticism on what we could be adding to further legislation, which I really appreciate.

Since the members listening to the debate aren’t saying anything negative about what’s in the legislation per se, I was wondering if we could count on their support to get this passed as quickly as possible.