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.

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

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.

If we look at that FAO report, it shows that we invested over $3.6 billion more than was invested in the same period last year. That means more than $1 billion extra in health care, $879 million in education, $518 million on children and social services.

The member opposite knows that this is a snapshot in time. It does not take into full consideration the investments that have been made and are going to be fully realized in hospitals and school boards across the year. This was shown through our public accounts, which showed that this year we made the largest investment in public health, an over-$5.2-billion year-over-year increase to support our health care investments across the province.

The member opposite knows this, the FAO also acknowledges this, and we’ll continue to make sure we have the investments and supports there to ensure that Ontarians and members across this province receive the care they need.

The largest increase to health care spending in this province: The members voted against that. That was shown in the public accounts. They voted against hospitals in Brampton. They voted against hospitals in Mississauga and Windsor. All across this province, Mr. Speaker, they voted against increasing and supporting medical schools so we have the doctors and nurses of tomorrow. The members opposite voted against every single one of those investments.

Year over year, we put in $5.2 billion more than the last year in health care spending, the largest increase in the entire country and the history of this province, and we will continue to ensure that we make the necessary investments to support health care across—

Interjections.

My question is for the Minister for Seniors and Accessibility. Unfortunately, due to years of neglect and underfunding from the previous Liberal government, many seniors in my riding were left discouraged and isolated. They lacked the resources and opportunities they required in order to stay active, fit and socially connected in their communities.

Speaker, can the minister please tell the House what our government is doing to support our seniors throughout Ontario and in my riding?

We know that social isolation can lead to serious health effects and reduce the quality of life for our seniors. That’s why our government must provide the necessary resources for our seniors to ensure they can remain active, fit and socially connected to their communities.

Speaker, can the Minister of Seniors and Accessibility please share what our government is doing to safeguard and support Ontario’s seniors population?