Thank you to both members for their comments on the bill. My question is to the member for Mississauga Centre. I’m very pleased to see that this government continues to take the housing supply crisis seriously. It’s about time, after decades. This is the government’s third housing supply action plan, which builds upon the success of the first two, More Homes, More Choice and the More Homes for Everyone plan. More Homes for Everyone was introduced this past year.

Can the member please let us know why the government is moving on this housing supply crisis so urgently and introducing yet another plan?

I will agree with something with the Conservative Party—I don’t do that very often. Ontario does have a crisis. We have a crisis in health care. We have a crisis in education. We have a crisis in long-term care. We have a crisis in housing. We have a crisis in affordability—housing, rent, food, gas—so I do agree with you on that.

My question is very clear: How will this bill help my area of Niagara region take on the financial hardship it will likely face from Bill 23 and the reduction of development fees? In the Niagara region, this is what they’re responsible for: policing—something very, very important, as crime has gone through the roof in Niagara—corrections officers, our jails; ambulance, paramedics; long-term care; retirement homes; water waste; our roads. Where are they going to get the resources if we allow developers to make more money, more profit by not paying development fees?

Thank you to the member for Niagara for reminding us of all the challenges this government is facing and that moving fast on all of those challenges is so important. In fact, I’ll quote the member from Niagara: “The analogy I would use is if your house is on fire, you don’t slowly walk to the kitchen and get a glass of water.”

This government is getting things done. Development charges: Yes, they are very important and they will continue to be important and they’ll continue to be in existence; however, over a 30% increase, $9 billion in development charge reserves, is not acceptable. They’re driving up the cost and they’re being directly related and passed on to the homeowner/consumer. That is why this government is taking measures to control those costs and get homes built faster.

Further questions?

I’d like to ask my friend from Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston about the government’s policy of using farmland and greenbelt land for development. The government’s own Housing Affordability Task Force said very clearly that the government actually doesn’t need more land to address the housing issue. So this is a huge red herring the government has been using; their own task force said they did not need more land. Why don’t they listen to the advice from their own task force?

We also have the Premier’s adviser on flooding, who recommended expanding the scope of conservation authorities, and this bill is diminishing the scope. So why have an adviser to the Premier on flooding if the Premier doesn’t listen to the adviser’s advice on flooding?

Bill 23 relies almost entirely on deregulation and cost-cutting for private developers to incentivize the for-profit private market to deliver 1.5 million homes over a decade, but wishful thinking does not make homes appear or make them actually affordable. Ultimately, this bill is at the expense of our environment and is a downloading of costs onto our already struggling municipalities.

I think it’s important to remember, Speaker, that this is how the housing crisis started in the first place. My friends across the way like to point to the Liberals for everything, and certainly, ignoring the problem for decades didn’t do anyone any favours, but let’s remember that this all started with Mike Harris and the massive downloading of provincial responsibilities to municipalities that happened at that time. This all comes from that—started at that place.

There was a discussion earlier about consultation. I want to remind folks that this government did not run on many of the things, as my friend from Timiskaming–Cochrane pointed out—they did not run on changing councils, did not run on opening up the greenbelt. Actually, they ran on promising never to touch it. So the things that this government got elected on are not the things they’re doing now. And as I’ve pointed out, they’ve clearly broken a couple of promises right at the start of the term.

There was a failure to schedule extra committee days that I want to mention. When we were in Brampton, I was part of the committee on this bill, and we tried our best. My friend from University–Rosedale made a motion for more committee days so that we could hear from the people who were lined up to come to Queen’s Park to talk. We wanted an extra day, and the government voted that down.

I think it’s also worth mentioning that AMO was not invited. I’ve never before seen AMO, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, not being invited to speak and give their advice and opinion on a bill from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. It’s quite incredible. So we had to schedule our own meeting with AMO, which we did in the middle of committee hearings last week. We heard from them and their concerns, and AMO said very clearly that this bill really was a giveaway to private developers at the expense of municipal budgets and our natural environment. So that’s the context of where we are right now.

What we’ve heard from presenters through committee I think has been very clear. There was a large group that came forward this week, a large coalition building against this legislation. They’ve said very clearly that this bill transfers very large amounts of taxpayer dollars from municipalities to for-profit developers while doing little to solve the housing crisis. It restricts the ability of municipalities to build truly affordable housing. It removes important planning laws and rules that are needed to constrain financially and environmentally unsustainable and damaging sprawl-like development which is being driven by land speculators. It allows for hyper-intensification in areas where municipalities had not planned for such high density—and my friend spoke about that earlier—straining existing infrastructure and other public services and amenities that people depend on. It eliminates key environmental protections that are needed to stop flooding, protect wetlands, woodlands and wildlife in a time of growing climate change impacts and unprecedented biodiversity loss.

We talked a little bit about how the Premier’s own adviser that he appointed to advise him on flooding actually gave the advice that conservation authorities needed a greater role, a greater scope, if we’re to protect ourselves from flooding. We heard concerns about insurance costs—insurance companies are even raising a red flag on this—and that the Premier has done the exact opposite of his own adviser on flooding. It’s quite incredible.

The bill restricts the ability of municipalities to require construction of more energy-efficient, climate-resilient housing in neighbourhoods that are truly livable. They’ve watered that down. It undermines democracy by reducing public participation in planning matters, in urban design and eliminating the public’s right to appeal planning decisions. It jeopardizes local efforts to achieve the goal of increasing the affordable housing stock through the design of safe, walkable neighbourhoods. It accelerates the current untenable loss of 319 acres of farmland per day in Ontario at a time—and we talked about this earlier as well—when supply chain disruptions and climate change underline the need to enhance local food security. It’s actually absolutely incredible that we’re going in exactly the opposite direction that we should be when it comes to protecting supply chains, becoming self-sufficient, protecting our food security for future generations. We’re doing the exact opposite right now.

It creates chaos through the elimination of regional planning, hindering critical long-term coordination of planning and provision of services for housing and hinders short- to medium-term housing construction at the very time it’s so desperately needed. My friend from Niagara Falls just raised the issue of development charges and all of the services that depend on that revenue, which is now lost to municipalities.

There’s very much a growing coalition against this bill. The government has managed to offend pretty much everyone in Ontario except John Tory and a small handful of others. I would like to read what just came across the wire, actually, which I thought was important to get on the record. This is from the Chiefs of Ontario and First Nations, who are giving their input on this bill, in opposition, and I’d like to read that statement into the record.

‘“The government of Ontario’s tabling of Bill 23 is a blatant violation of First Nations’ inherent, domestic, and international rights over their ancestral and traditional territories,’ said Ontario Regional Chief Glen Hare. ‘Bill 23 will inevitably harm Ontario’s environmental heritage and weaken land and water environmental protection....’

“More Homes Built Faster Act is the government of Ontario’s latest omnibus bill that, if passed, will have detrimental” effects “on nine different development and environment-related acts under the guise of addressing Ontario’s housing crisis.

‘“First Nations have been given no opportunity, nor the adequate capacity to be consulted regarding the tabling of Bill 23 and its significant changes to Ontario’s legislative and policy landscapes. It is deeply concerning to the Chiefs of Ontario that the mandate of the Indigenous Affairs Ontario ... office, which is to ensure collaboration amongst ministries engaging and consulting with First Nations on policy and legislative changes, continues to be unfulfilled.

‘“Unilateral legislative and administrative changes within Bill 23 without consultation or engagement with First Nations are unacceptable and an abuse of power. The unprecedented steps taken by the government of Ontario violate existing treaties, and their will to systemically sell off resources will have dire consequences for First Nations and future generations.

“First Nations are not stakeholders; we are sovereign Nations and are entitled to proper consultation based on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples ... and mutual respect.

‘“The government of Ontario can no longer avoid its duty to consult with First Nations by delegating responsibilities and obligations to municipalities, developers, and project proponents.”‘ That’s a pretty damning indictment of this bill from First Nations, and the failure to meet our obligations and consult with them.

I’d like to go on a little more regarding conservation authorities, as this bill further weakens conservation authorities and our ability to protect the environment. It repeals 36 specific regulations that allow conservation authorities to be a partner in the development process and ensure that developments are thoughtful and done with respect to our environment and endangered species. When issuing a permit, conservation authorities are no longer allowed to attach conditions to mitigate pollution or effects on the conservation of land. Conservation authorities will only be able to comment on items related to the protection of people and property and their specific hazard role. They cannot comment on anything beyond the scope of the hazard.

When we asked the ministry what conservation authorities currently provide input on that they would no longer be able to, we were told that observations of species at risk and natural heritage systems were some examples. So conservation authorities are no longer going to be doing conservation.

In the Ontario conservation authorities’ submission, they stated, “We are concerned ... that some changes proposed in Bill 23 will:... weaken the ability of conservation authorities to protect people and property from natural hazards; and reduce critical, natural infrastructure like wetlands and green spaces that reduce flooding and protect waters in our lakes and rivers.”

The bill further asks conservation authorities to identify any authority-owned land “that could support housing development and get more homes built faster.”

Speaker, why would we build on conservation areas when Ontario is home to the largest number of brownfields in Canada?

As part of the conversation earlier, one of my friends from across the way seemed to indicate that you could take land out of a greenbelt and add land back into it. That really reminds me of a debate that happened in Niagara—my friend from Niagara West will probably remember this—on a development called Thundering Waters in Niagara Falls, which was a huge housing development that they were plopping right on top of a wetland. An argument was made, which reminds me an awful lot of this argument, that you could somehow create a wetland somewhere else. It was openly criticized. It was a ridiculous suggestion to anyone who knows anything about conservation or science that you could actually create a wetland somewhere else and that would make it okay to pave over a wetland that’s been there for hundreds of years in this location in Niagara Falls. So this argument reminds me of the same type of thing.

We all know that many of the lands that the government says are being put into the greenbelt are lands that are already protected. As my friend from Timiskaming–Cochrane said, once you pave that land over, it’s gone forever. So, whether the government is adding land or not, the fact of the matter is they’re opening up some of the best farmland in the world that is currently protected, that the Premier promised would always be protected, for development and to be paved over.

The coalition that came to Toronto the other day had some things to say about the changes to conservation and about the proposal to remove those lands from the greenbelt. The Premier claims that this bill will build more housing more quickly but most groups say he is wrong. The proposed changes would not solve the housing affordability and supply crisis. Any new supply of truly affordable housing units would be offset by the loss of affordable housing units through redevelopment of existing rental housing for other areas. My friends, especially here in Toronto, have talked about that in their speeches.

The new supply of diverse housing types would not begin to meet the rising demand as our population increases. The government’s proposed changes would damage our existing neighbourhoods, towns and cities, as well as the farmland and natural areas that sustain them, which in turn would harm our ability to feed ourselves, protect ourselves from flooding and address climate change risks.

The folks who came to Queen’s Park were very clear on what they thought of the proposal to remove lands from the greenbelt, that it will do little or nothing to address the shortage of affordable housing—I think that’s perfectly obvious, Speaker—and facilitate expensive urban sprawl and inappropriate high-rises at the expense of more diverse housing types. It will divert limited construction materials and labour away from building mixed and affordable housing and direct them towards sprawl development. It will remove from the greenbelt thousands of acres of valuable natural areas and agricultural land and turn them into sprawl development. I think we know that, on these greenbelt lands, we’re not going to have affordable housing being built. That is a ridiculous suggestion.

It will undermine the protection of wetlands, woodlands, rivers, streams and wildlife habitat across Ontario, destroy key land use planning processes that Ontario municipalities, conservation authorities and residents need in order to protect, manage and plan for climate-resilient ecosystems, and it will create an ecologically vulnerable Swiss-cheese greenbelt by allowing land speculators to develop the lands that the government would have removed from greenbelt protection.

This is quite the long list of folks who have gotten together on very short notice, Speaker, from all walks of life, to oppose this bill. I’m not sure I’ve seen too many bills that have drawn this much opposition so quickly—some of the government’s other municipal housing bills certainly.

Stakeholder response: I wanted to make sure I got some of this on the record from what we heard at committees, especially the folks who never got to present. We have AMO, of course, who represent all the municipalities in Ontario outside of Toronto—not invited to the hearings:

“For decades, Ontario’s housing supply in high-growth regions has been determined by developers and land speculators managing supply to optimize price, and those who view housing units as solely an investment....

“Schemes designed to incentivize developers at the expense of property taxpayers and the natural environment will not get the job done. Previous governments have downloaded costs to municipalities and cut environmental protections to disastrous effect. At some point, the bill will come due and there will be a heavy price to pay.”

We’re already hearing from many municipalities about the incredible costs they’re going to be dealing with as a result of a loss of revenue and an addition of further costs.

The Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority who I’m glad took the time to come to present at Queen’s Park but was not able to do that when the hearings were shut down due to poor planning on the government’s part:

“The proposed changes affecting” conservation authorities “and our mandate will have minimal effect in increasing the housing supply and could lead to unintended future consequences associated with the loss of critical natural heritage features such as wetlands. The diminished role of CAs could also lead to more development being located in natural hazards, higher costs in property damage, increased burden on municipal partners, and absolute erosion of the ecosystem approach applied through the established integrated watershed management lens.”

The Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario: “While RNAO is a strong advocate of ensuring adequate housing is available to all, we urge the government to withdraw this bill. If passed into law, Bill 23, as written, will likely worsen the circumstances of tenants and those who are precariously housed, and will negatively impact multiple social and ecological determinants of health.”

Speaker, a very wide range of opponents to this legislation, and I would say in closing that it’s clear from the submissions that we’ve heard, that this bill is flawed, does not adequately address the housing affordability crisis and that it relies on deregulation and tax cuts to incentivize the for-profit private market to reach its goal of building 1.5 million homes over 10 years, but the strongest proponents of this bill appear to be those who seek to financially benefit from it, and that is the private development sector.

On this side of the House, we believe you can address the housing affordability crisis without exacerbating the climate crisis by paving over the greenbelt, destroying wetlands and further pushing endangered species to the brink of extinction.

This government should focus on new public investments and a new public home builder to do what the private sector can’t. We need to build more of the missing middle in Ontario, enact stronger rent controls and implement a more aggressive clampdown on speculation. I hope the government listens to some of the advice that they heard during our committee hearings.

Thank you for that question. This government has been putting students first. We’ve been lowering tuition, investing in research and institutions, and helping to get shovels in the ground to build affordable on-campus rental accommodations.

In addition to on-campus residences, many colleges and universities offer off-campus housing support to students. To help them navigate the rental housing market and their local communities and increase the supply of rental housing, we are proposing to reduce development charges for those units, with deeper discounts of up to 25% for family-sized units.

We’re making progress in building more rental housing. Last year, Ontario saw more than 13,000 rental starts. That’s the most rental starts since 1991. But we know we need to do more to hit our target of 1.5 million new homes over the next 10 years, and this government is committed to continue to do this work.

And let’s not pretend the human race doesn’t leave a footprint, because we do. Every one of us lives in a home, and every one of those homes is sitting on land that could be used for agriculture or for green space, so it becomes a matter of balance. That’s the way I personally look at it. We have to balance and be responsible for our environment—and for this world in its entirety, actually—and we also have to live within it and have the means to live within it.

This bill takes all of that into consideration. We’re building close to transit. We’re building close to our places of work. We’re building close to the services we need. That in itself will help the environment.

My question is for the member from Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston. Speaker, you’ll know that I have three educational institutions in my riding—Ontario Tech; Trent University, Durham; and Durham College—and I often hear from some of the students from those campuses who are desperate to find housing. I’d like my colleague to discuss what Bill 23 does for students from my riding who need housing.

I appreciate the remarks from my colleague the member for Niagara Centre, and wanted to let him know that London ACORN, which is a tenant advocacy group, held a rally in our city last Friday to oppose Bill 23. They’re concerned about the lack of any measures to ensure affordability. They’re concerned about the impact on the environment. They’re concerned about the impact on heritage.

That rally was attended by five new councillors who participated this week in a council meeting which identified a $97-million hole in London’s budget over the next five years. The city has called on the province to put a halt to the process of Bill 23, so that many of these newly elected councillors across the province, and the city councils that are going to be so negatively impacted, can consult with the government on this bill.

Does the member understand why the government is refusing to listen to councils?

I thank my friend for the question. I obviously do support skilled trades. I think we all do. It’s our approach that we differ on. I’m glad Mr. Mancinelli has something positive to say about the government. He wasn’t too happy when the government took away collective bargaining rights by violating our charter of freedoms.

I think we all support the skilled trades, but I don’t support the skilled trades to pave over farmland or to pave over our greenbelt. People who work in the skilled trades, or any workers, depend on food security for our future, and I don’t think that paving over the greenbelt and taking away 319 acres of farmland per day is something that most workers support.

There are billions of dollars—"billions,” with a B—of a hole in municipal budgets because of what this government has done, without consultation, and those municipalities don’t know how they’re going to deal with it. Throwing municipalities into financial chaos is not a way to promote the building of affordable housing.

I was just on the radio this morning with a London radio station and they raised the very same issue of this almost $100-million hole in their budget, as well as some real concern over the strong-mayor legislation, which they know is coming their way. Folks in London and folks in municipalities across Ontario are not happy either with this bill or with the lack of consultation or with the government’s refusal to listen to their advice and encouragement.

I’ll just answer that member’s question real quick. Listen, we’ve always supported unionized workers. We certainly support the skilled trades, and I’m sure the skilled trades and their families, if they were asked the questions, “Should you be building on the greenbelt? Should you be getting rid of our farmlands?”—I’m sure every worker in the province of Ontario, union or non-union, would not say, “Let’s develop on the greenbelt. Let’s get rid of our farmland. Let’s get rid of our food security.” I don’t believe there’s a worker in this province who would do that, to answer your question.

I’ve used up a lot of my time—hopefully they were listening over there; I know sometimes they don’t—but I want to say you hit it on the nail. This is usually an organization that is quite frank with you guys. Why do you think they never consulted with AMO? And why was AMO not invited to do a presentation? That’s a big, big issue, because that represents 444 municipalities in the province of Ontario.

Interjections.

Joseph Mancinelli of the Labourers’ International Union of North America had this to say about Bill 23—this is one of the largest unions in Ontario. Bill 23 is “a positive step forward in building a transformational action plan that will cut red tape and invest in critical housing infrastructure while spurring economic development and creating thousands of jobs for our members and men and women across the skilled trades.”

Will the member from Niagara Centre support moving forward with getting our skilled trades and housing connected—yes or no?

It is now time for questions.

Unlike my friend, I actually have a history in municipal government, where I’ve made decisions and I’ve been a budget chair of a large urban municipality. And during the eight years that I worked in those functions, I worked very, very well with developers. You know what we did in my city ward in St. Catharines? We remediated brownfields and we built affordable housing on those brownfields. We didn’t pave over wetlands and we didn’t open up the greenbelt. As a matter of fact, the council that I was on was very protective of the greenbelt and worked very, very well with developers. As a matter of fact, I think we were the third-highest municipality in Canada in development in St. Catharines, around the 2008-10 time period.

So, you know, walking the walk is important, Speaker.

Point of order.

Of course, we know that, with the upcoming coronation of the member for Davenport, the New Democratic Party is, in fact, becoming and solidifying their position as the defenders of the urban status quo—the defenders of those that don’t like to work with their hands and, of course, straying far away from being the party of workers, as I know they once were.

My question to the member opposite is that so much of this conversation that we’ve heard from the New Democrats has been filled with some disgust for developers, for home builders, for those who are engaged in building the homes that we want, and, of course, I don’t understand it. I know that there’s many hard-working people in his riding who work in the trades or are drywallers, who are framers, who are roofers, who are, frankly, looking forward to seeing more homes built so that they can do that work. So my question: When I hear the derision with which they speak about developers and home builders, what do the NDP have against these hard-working men and women, and who do they want to have build homes if they don’t want any of the home builders to do it?

Thank you, Speaker. It is a tongue twister. I struggle with it on a daily basis.

It is my pleasure to rise for the third reading of our government’s proposed More Homes Built Faster Act. We all know there’s no better place to settle down and start a family than right here in Ontario. No matter where you come from and no matter what you do, we believe that you’ll have a place in Ontario and we want to see you thrive.

An important part of prosperity is having a place to call home, but across Ontario, young people and old people are having difficulty finding a place to call their own. Across our great province, the rising cost of living and the housing supply crisis are preventing folks from settling down in their very own home. This government believes everyone should be able to find a home that fits their needs.

That is why we are proposing immediate action to address the housing shortage with the More Homes Built Faster Act. With this legislation, this government is putting forward a plan to make home ownership a reality for more Ontarians, starting by building 1.5 million homes over the next 10 years. We need immediate action, as we have not been keeping up the housing supply for decades. The last time Ontario built 100,000 housing units, I was only four years old, Speaker, in 1987. Last year was the first time achieving 100,000 homes, and I’m now 39. Thirty-five years have passed of not keeping up with the demand. I’m not getting any younger, and this problem is not getting any better. Change is needed; 100,000 units a year will help, but it will not solve the problem. It is not enough. I want my young children to know that they will be able to afford a home because this government was willing to do things differently and remove barriers that have been in place for decades that are also driving up the costs.

Through this bill, we recognize that for so many hard-working Ontarians, home ownership has slipped out of reach. By supporting 1.5 million more homes to be built and by removing the red tape that is causing delays and increasing costs, we are putting forward a plan to address the crisis facing this province without adding unnecessary disruptions to people’s lives.

We know that the homes we build need to be accessible for the people who need them. Hard-working Ontarians, even dual-income families, are struggling to find a home. We are firm in our commitment to making housing more accessible for Ontarians across the housing spectrum. This government is reviewing the possibility of repurposing parcels of provincial land in communities across Ontario to put them back into productive use by creating affordable housing options that meet people’s needs and their budgets. The repurposing of attainable housing developments using surplus provincial lands is one of the ways that, through this bill, this government is finding creative solutions to a housing supply crisis that have been decades in the making. We cannot keep doing the same thing and expecting different results.

Finally, Speaker, as a small business owner myself, I know that the numbers don’t lie, so let’s talk numbers. The cost to build a home in Ontario has gotten out of hand. In 2021, in the GTA, municipal fees added an average of $116,000 to the cost of a home and $100,000 to the cost of a condo. Speaker, I purchased my first home in Cornwall, a three-bedroom semi, for under $100,000 less than 20 years ago. Those GTA fees are higher than the price I paid for my home. In fact, average approval timelines have increased by 41% since 2020, and municipal fees and charges have increased by 30% to 36% on average in the same time.

Last month, the Building Industry and Land Development Association reported that each month of delay in a typical high-density project amounts to $2,600 to $3,300 in additional construction cost per residential unit.

Speaker, let’s be clear: Higher residential construction costs and regulatory fees slow the number of homes being built, and the burden ends up on the shoulders of the hard-working folks trying to find a home. Development charges or the municipal fees that are levied on new home construction, and which add substantially to the cost of a new home, help pay for important infrastructure. We understand their value, but development charges have gone up by 600% in Toronto since 2009, 600% in 13 years; 600% is worth repeating.

Speaker, I move that the question now be put.

I really thought the comments of the member were excellent. I wonder if you could comment a little bit more on the concerns you may have about the impact on food production, and farming in particular, in this province and what the development of the greenbelt is going to mean for those communities?

Further questions?

Further debate? I recognize the member for Stormont-Dundas-Glengarry—sorry, Dundas-South Glengarry. Stormont–Dundas–South Glengarry.

Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? I heard a no.

All those in favour of the motion that the question be now put, please say “aye.”

All those opposed to the motion that the question be now put, please say “nay.”

In my opinion, the ayes have it. A recorded vote being required, it will be deferred to the next instance of deferred votes.

Vote deferred.

Ms. Sattler moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill 4, An Act to amend the Employment Standards Act, 2000 with respect to paid leave / Projet de loi 4, Loi modifiant la Loi de 2000 sur les normes d’emploi en ce qui concerne les congés payés.

It is certainly my honour to rise once again to participate in the debate on the Stay Home If You Are Sick Act. This is a bill that is certainly more timely and more urgent than either of the two times that it was debated before in this Legislature, and I urge all of my colleagues in the House today to vote to pass this legislation, to finally give Ontario workers the support that they need to recover from illness, to care for a sick child, without having to worry about losing their income or potentially even their job.

This is the third time that this bill has been debated in this Legislature. I first brought it forward in December of 2020, as Ontario’s deadly second wave was just starting to peak and as workplaces surged to become the most common site of COVID-19 outbreaks. And at that time, they surpassed even long-term-care homes.

The importance of providing workers with paid sick days was reflected in the unprecedented support that my bill received at that time. We had big-city mayors. We had mayors across the province. We had boards of health. We had municipal councillors. We had medical officers of health. We had health care professionals, health policy experts, economists, unions and small businesses and employer networks.

Unfortunately, Speaker, the bill did not pass when it was debated in February 2021, but the government obviously felt the pressure from this near-unanimous call for the government to move forward with paid sick days, and they did move a tiny step forward when they announced the worker income protection benefit in April of that year. That program gives workers three paid sick days for any COVID-related leave that was taken between April 19 and September 25.

On this side of the House, when that bill was brought forward by the government to establish the worker income protection benefit, we did support it—even though it was temporary, even though it was completely inadequate when COVID self-isolation requirements were at 10 days, and even though the benefit that the government introduced only covered COVID and it excluded all other illnesses. Although the program was recently extended to March 2023, it has not been made permanent. It has not been expanded to cover other sicknesses, other illnesses. It remains temporary, and it remains at only three days, and it remains completely inadequate.

Speaker, many Ontarians have had COVID two, three, maybe even four times. I’m not sure about you, but I myself have had COVID twice already, and the first time, I self-isolated for 10 days. The second time, I self-isolated for five days. And fortunately, I was able to isolate at home over those 15 days without any impact on my salary. I was able to work from home because of the nature of the job that I do. But if I didn’t have that ability, Speaker, three of those 15 days that I had stayed home could have been paid under the worker income protection benefit program, but the remaining days would all have been unpaid. And if I had been sick with anything else—like the flu, like stomach flu, like strep throat, whatever—the time that I spent in bed to recover would have been entirely unpaid. There would have been no support from this government.

Speaker, for workers who are living paycheque to paycheque, that could mean not being able to pay the rent, not being able to buy the groceries; it could even mean losing their job if their employer insisted that they come in to work. That is a choice that no worker should have to make.

But within this province, that is the reality for the majority of workers in Ontario. Almost 60% of workers in this province do not have access to paid sick days from their employer, and that figure rises to 75% for workers who are racialized or immigrant or low-income; these are usually workers who are in front-line and essential jobs. They are the workers who clean our buildings, who bag our groceries, who prepare our food, who care for our children and our seniors, who keep our transit systems running and our factories and supply chains going. These are the workers who have been hit harder by COVID than anyone else in Ontario.

We saw in the Toronto Star an investigative report on the impact of COVID-19 on workers through WSIB claims that were filed, and we saw that at least 108 workers in this province died from work-related COVID infections between March 2020 and the end of 2021, and the majority of those fatalities were in manufacturing. They were recorded among workers who were making bubble gum, who were producing baby clothes, who were making plastic jerry cans. These, of course, are workers who could not work from home during pandemic lockdowns but were exposed to significant workplace risks that many of us would have flatly refused.

They cannot work from home if their child has a mild fever or a runny nose. They’ll have to take the risk of sending their child to child care or school and hoping they don’t get that call to come to pick them up, or they will have to take the risk that their financial security will be jeopardized if they take a cut in pay to stay home with their child. We are in the midst of the worst affordability crisis in decades, Speaker, which means that these workers are put in an impossible position.

And during a global pandemic, of course, it is also a recipe for public health disaster. Early in the pandemic, we saw a study from Peel Public Health that showed that of 8,000 workers who were surveyed, almost 2,000 of those workers—fully one quarter—reported to work sick, including 80 who actually had a positive COVID test result. They did not go in to work sick because they wanted to infect their co-workers or because they didn’t believe in public health advice to stay home. They went in to work because they had no choice. They knew that if they missed a day of work, they would miss a day of pay. And for workers, as I said, who are living paycheque to paycheque, that is simply not an option.

So, Speaker, I gave the government a second chance to re-think my bill when we brought it forward about a year ago last fall; still they voted it down. Today, this government can show that working for workers is more than just an empty slogan. They can show that they understand the consequences to worker health and to public health and to our economy when workers can’t stay home to recover or to care for a sick child. They can actually do something to address the crisis in our pediatric hospitals and our overwhelmed pediatric emergency rooms and ICU beds. We’ve heard the Minister of Health talk about the province’s plan, but clearly that plan is not working.

Yesterday, Children’s Hospital in London announced the cancellation of children’s surgeries because of the crisis in the ER and the ICU beds. The Minister of Health’s response is to follow layers of protection: to mask, to keep vaccines up to date and to stay home if you are sick. But this government has failed to show leadership on masking, they’ve failed to launch a comprehensive vaccine campaign, but today, they can actually do something to enable workers to stay home when they are sick.

We know, Speaker, that paid sick days save lives. We know this from research that was done in the US early in the pandemic from research that the science advisory table helpfully put out that included definitive evidence that paid sick days reduce transmission in workplaces and schools. If parents have access to paid sick days, they can take a sick child to the doctor early rather than to the emergency department and reduce the pressure that pediatric ICUs are experiencing.

Paid sick days, Speaker, are also good for the economy. They make it much more likely that workers will participate in preventive health care. They’ll book screening tests. They’ll take their children to the doctor to get vaccines. They reduce workplace injury. They allow workers to recover faster and return to work. They reduce the problem of presenteeism, when workers go in to work and potentially infect their co-workers, but they actually aren’t in any condition to be able to do the job. This cost employers and our economy billions in lost productivity.

I want to give a shout-out, Speaker, to the Decent Work and Health Network, to the health care professionals who have advocated so strongly and consistently in support of my bill.

I just want to read from an editorial in the Ottawa Citizen yesterday by two doctors from the Decent Work and Health Network. They say, “As we have done countless times before, we implore our politicians to finally heed the science and choose to protect Ontarians, by passing Bill 4 into law.

“If our government wants to put children first, their families and caregivers need paid sick days now. Paid sick days save lives, protect our medically vulnerable and marginalized community members, and are crucial to supporting the health of essential and front-line workers and their families.” Pass my bill today.