We obviously recognize, as a government, as all Ontarians do, the value of the WSIB. It’s one of the largest insurance organizations in North America. But we know that it’s important to ensure that more dollars are always being able to go to the workers and not to administrative burdens. That’s why reducing the administrative burden for the WSIB will also enable them to work more efficiently and to create an agile system that is better able to cater to the needs of workers here in the province of Ontario. Codifying the WSIB’s long-standing operational practices is going to eliminate any operational confusion that might have come about between employers, workers and service providers alike.

While these changes are coming into effect—they’re going to align WSIB’s operational practices, but no substantial implementation steps are going to be required to support these amendments. It’s really going to ensure that we’re reducing some of those redundancies and codifying the practices that exist.

I want to thank my friend from London North Centre for that really thoughtful presentation. I want to zero in on his comments about the WSIB.

The bill that we’re talking is about supposed to be about red tape, but sometimes I think, embedded in this omnibus legislation are red ribbons—gifts, in fact, to some very powerful bullies in our province, and the WSIB is one of those bullies.

I want to give you an update on a case I’ve talked about in this House. I’ll leave the gentleman’s name out of it. We’ve been working, as you were, with a first responder who was critically injured at work and was fighting the WSIB for years. His marriage has fallen apart. He moved back to the riding to live with his mom. I’ve brought this case to this government several times—no help. Guess what role he played last February? He was a major organizer in the convoy occupation movement, because he was convinced that the Prime Minister hated him and that this House hated him, and the only weapon he had was to paralyze our city and create chaos.

I want you to reflect, as you did in your remarks, on what happens when we leave people behind. What happens when we abandon people to the WSIB bureaucracy?

My colleague talked a bit about WSIB. We’ve heard the term “access to justice” being thrown around. We know that injured workers are often deemed to do phantom jobs that don’t exist just to push them off of WSIB. They then try to get on to ODSP and get into low-income housing and have trouble there. And they don’t have access to the Landlord and Tenant Board, because this government has decided that giving above-guideline rent increases is more important than tenants—or landlords, frankly—being able to have discussions about the rental of a unit.

We know that it’s low-income, racialized people who are disproportionately represented within our justice system.

Is there anything you see in this bill that will actually address the Landlord and Tenant Board issues or the WSIB issues that we are seeing in this province?

It’s disheartening to see changes in schedule 9 to WSIB while the government is still allowing long-standing gaps for injured workers. Again and again, workers and worker organizations bring up deeming, a practice that allows the WSIB to reduce wage loss benefits based on deemed earnings from a job the injured worker does not have.

My question is to the member opposite: Why is this government not taking the solutions proposed by the member from Niagara Falls to stop the practice of deeming?