It is an honour to rise on behalf of my constituents to support Bill 4, the Stay Home If You Are Sick Act. I’d like to thank my colleague the member for London West for bringing forward this important bill once again.

I’d also like to acknowledge organizations like Justice for Workers and the Decent Work and Health Network, among so many others, for continuing to push for paid sick days in this province.

Speaker, there are so many arguments in support of paid sick days, but I don’t have much time to speak, so I will raise three key points. The first is that paid sick days are good for public health and are a low-cost, preventative measure to reduce strain on our health care system. And our health care system is under tremendous strain right now. Ontario is in the midst of a health care crisis as respiratory illnesses like the flu, RSV and COVID are spreading. Hospitals are overwhelmed. Emergency rooms are overcrowded. Hallway health care is the norm. Children’s emergency departments and ICUs are bursting at the seams.

CTV News reported this week that a four-year-old child with Down syndrome, who was suffering from pneumonia, waited 40 hours in emergency before getting a bed. That’s the kind of stress our health care system is under.

Paid sick days are a cost-effective way to keep sickness from spreading and reduce the strain on our health care system. Paid sick days literally save lives. When people can stay home when they are sick, it dramatically reduces the spread of infectious diseases.

My second point is that we need to respect workers. Workers are who keep our province running. Everything we have and do is possible because of workers, but almost 60% of Ontario’s workers don’t have access to paid sick days. It’s disrespectful and harmful to make people go to work when they are sick or to expect them to stay home without any pay. Many workers don’t have that choice. They live paycheque to paycheque and cannot afford to lose pay. Providing all workers with paid sick days would provide them with the respect that they deserve.

My third and final point is that paid sick days are good for the economy. They’re good for business. Paid sick days keep workers and customers healthy. When workers stay at home when they’re sick, their colleagues stay healthy. Research shows that paid sick days reduce staff turnover, increase productivity and improve worker morale.

I urge this government: Please reduce the strain on our health care system, give workers the respect they deserve and help boost our economy by passing the Stay Home If You Are Sick Act. Let’s legislate paid sick days for all workers of this province.

Further debate?

I am pleased to rise in the House today to join the debate about Bill 4, put forward by the member for London West. I want to thank the member for London West for her dedication and representation of her community in this House. I look forward to many discussions that the member opposite and I will have about what we can do to stand up for the workers of this province and their families.

I am pleased to discuss the substance of this bill today because our government has always held the health and safety of our workers as our top priority, without exception. Safe and healthy workplaces are necessary to foster economic growth and ensure everyone can reach their true potential.

The health and well-being of the people of Ontario is our government’s number one priority. Our government recognizes the importance of all employees staying at home when they are ill. That is why, when Ontario workers were being hit the hardest by the effects of the pandemic, our government took immediate action. Our government passed the COVID-19 Putting Workers First Act, which introduced our government’s worker income protection benefit.

Under the benefit, Ontario workers are eligible for up to three days’ leave to stay home if they are not feeling well. Additionally, they can stay home to get a COVID test, wait for a COVID test or stay home with children if they are getting vaccinated. Workers can also stay home if they were getting a vaccine or recovering from the side effects. Our program is working, and our government, under the leadership of the Premier, will always support Ontario workers. Let me make that clear.

As the president and CEO of the Tourism Industry Association of Ontario, Christopher Bloore, said, “We at the Tourism Industry Association of Ontario strongly support the government of Ontario’s welcome extension of the worker income protection benefit....

“The tourism and hospitality industry has been one of the hardest hit by the global pandemic.

“This program will continue to support tourism operators still facing significant revenue losses and help workers protect personal health.”

It is important to remember that we are all in this fight together. Until COVID-19 is defeated for good, our government will continue to stand with workers and our private sector partners to ensure workplaces remain safe.

While we have taken concrete steps to introduce policies that protect Ontario workers, the previous government failed to act. One thing to also note is that the NDP have always said they stand with workers, but they always refuse to mention or even reference our paid sick days program. Elected officials are obligated to inform their constituents about programs being offered to them, regardless of whether they are in government or opposition. Instead, we have seen the NDP attempt to score political points by piggybacking on workers’ suffering rather than helping them learn about programs that are available. Some things should be above politics, but opposition NDP members don’t seem to agree with that. It is quite baffling that the federal NDP is supporting federal paid sick days while the Ontario NDP avoids mentioning it.

While the NDP, yes, has played political games, our government has always focused on delivering results for workers and their families. Our government’s commitment to standing with workers is the only way we can successfully complete our mission to make Ontario the safest and healthiest place in the world to live, work and raise a family. This is our commitment and the mandate given to us by the people of this great province of Ontario.

I am proud to rise on behalf of the good people of Scarborough Southwest and speak to this important bill that I know my colleague from London West has brought multiple times now. In fact, I myself have moved a motion in this House asking the government to do this, and I know many of my colleagues have in the previous term, especially in the midst of the pandemic when the pandemic was raging through and COVID was raging through and many lives were lost.

It’s very simple. Paid sick days save lives. Let me say this again: Paid sick days save lives. We could have saved so many lives if we’d had proper support for our workers, especially front-line workers, many of whom we all—on this side of the House as well—called heroes during this pandemic.

Essential workers across this province—the majority of them, when we talk about front-line workers, are women: hard-working women, low-income. A lot of them don’t have job security. A lot of them make minimum wage and missing a day of work means missing a day of pay, which means whether we’re talking about paying their bills, whether we’re talking about food on the table, rent support, sustaining their family, their kids—all of that depends on that day of pay. It’s very difficult for someone to decide, well, do I call in sick? Do I miss that pay? What am I risking? People risked their lives to go to work just so they could have enough income and to make sure they didn’t lose their jobs.

Throughout the pandemic, I have named individuals, hard-working heroes whom we lost, like Christine Mandegarian, like Sharon Roberts, like Maureen Ambersley, health care workers who were on the front lines, saving other lives and instead lost their lives. I’ve talked to family members who still feel like they haven’t gotten justice because they know there are so many others who end up going to work, risking their lives every single day.

When we have a pandemic like this, and if it ever happens again—and we’re still not done with COVID, Speaker, but are we taking the right measures to protect these workers? If we have an individual—and I have so many stories, and I wish I had enough time to talk about them. Just recently, one grocery worker wrote to me and she said, “I live with five others in my family and we live in a two-bedroom apartment, and, for us, there is no isolation or anything. For me to go and risk, and know that I’m not protected and come back, my kids are at risk.” There are kids who are ending up in the hospital right now with ventilators, and the fact that we are not providing the support to these mothers, these workers, is risking the entire population, risking the labour force.

But it’s also costing us money. I know that maybe the human argument, the emotional argument, doesn’t work for this government, but if we’re going to talk about the money, if we’re going to talk about our health care system, you could do so much by protecting these lives or protecting these workers through paid sick days, and you’ll actually be saving money as well.

The other thing I want to mention before I run out of time is that I had a really wonderful event with migrant workers at Access Alliance, just on the border of my riding in Scarborough Southwest. Access Alliance hosted them, and Deena Ladd from the Decent Work and Health Network was there. Along with her and members from the Decent Work and Health Network, we had the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change and the Workers’ Action Centre, and they presented these wonderful stories of people who are on the front lines, who are working hard, and what they’re going through. I just have to tell you, I wish I could take some of these members on the government side and share with them the heartbreaking stories of so many and what they went through during the pandemic: how people ended up in the ICU, what they have struggled with, especially when we’re talking about migrant workers—who, by the way, don’t even have job security in the type of work they go through.

In the last few seconds that I have, I want to also mention some specific professionals we actually never talk about in this House. When we talk about health care, we talk about nurses, doctors and PSWs, and they’re wonderful and I salute all of them, but today I want to take a moment to talk about the other burnt-out health care professionals who are also exiting the system, and those are laboratory technologists, technicians, radiation technologists, respiratory therapists, laboratory assistants, pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and phlebotomists, amongst others. I believe there was a lobby group this afternoon who were here, who were radiation therapists who talked about this. I think it’s important to name them, because they did not get the pandemic pay or the support from the government, but they were also on the front line working hard.

So, please, I hope the government will consider and pass this bill once and for all.

It’s an honour as always to rise in the House, and I want to thank the member for London West, my friend and colleague, for introducing this important legislation yet again.

One of the first things this government did when it was elected in the last term was to eliminate the two paid sick days introduced in 2017 before the pandemic. It took 14 years to push the Liberal government to do this, and it still wasn’t enough, but one of the first things they did was they ripped that up. It made no sense then; it doesn’t make any sense now. Imagine, at the height of the pandemic: When people were sick, many of them were told to stay home and not get paid, or then to hide the fact in some cases, and go in to work and potentially spread illness. This was not good government strategy.

Health care professionals and economists have been saying for years that paid emergency leave is good public policy, not just during a pandemic. When a worker goes to work sick, it takes them longer to recover and the risk of spread increases, raising overall costs. Imagine a child care worker compelled to go to work sick, putting themselves, their co-workers and children at risk. It’s easy to understand the ripple effect that can happen when the children become sick, then their caregivers, and it passes on to their family. It spreads and spreads. Think about food handlers at a busy restaurant. The list goes on and on.

These are our front-line workers. In fact, close to 60% of workers do not have paid sick days and cannot afford to stay home without pay, especially now that the cost of living is through the roof. They risk their lives and their co-workers’ when they have no real choice but to go to work sick. Paid sick days are critical during a pandemic, and they’re always critical for curbing any new waves that come when these mandates are lifted.

Paid sick days save lives, and the bill that we’re debating today, put forth by my good friend, does many things. It provides adequate days so that workers, when sick, can be home, not spread illness, not spread infection. When a loved one under their care is sick, it gives them the chance, because that person is relying on that family member to be able to assist them and to stay with them.

What we have right now is a patchwork of days. We’re going to fix that. We want to expand the list of members for whom leave can be given to recognize changing realities here in Ontario.

We also, and think about this, want to prohibit employers from requiring a doctor’s note for emergency leave. Think about it: Right now if you want to go see your family doctor, many of them say that if you have flu-like symptoms, stay home. So how are you, in many cases, going to a doctor to be able to get that affirmation that you’re, in fact, sick when many doctors aren’t willing to even see patients under these conditions? Someone is not feeling well. They’re very sick. They’re throwing up. You know what? Let’s put them on a bus and send them to a doctor. That is what’s going on right now. It’s not right. Let’s trust our workers.

We do want to call for financial support for businesses and small businesses that are struggling to make this a reality.

And finally—it was mentioned in one of the government members’ speeches—they said that the government is playing politics with the rights of workers. That is the absolute farthest from the truth. The soul of the NDP is to fight for workers every day in this House. It is part of our soul and why we’re here.

Work with us. Do the right thing. Give the workers the sick days they need to take care of their families, and we’ll build a better province. The power is yours.

Further debate?

Madam Speaker—

Interjections.

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in this House to speak on the important things that we do for our Ontarians. We’re talking today on Bill 4.

Before I begin, Madam Speaker, I want to say this—and I want to thank the member from London West, who was elected and was a trustee for 13 years and then got elected in 2013, 2014, 2018, 2022. That’s over 20-plus years of service, advocacy and representation of your community, so great work, member from London West.

We’re talking about this bill today because the members of the opposition can also agree that the health and safety of our workers is a topic of special importance, and it’s very close to the heart of this government. Under the leadership of this Premier, we have always held health and safety of the people of this province as our top priority. In fact, our mission as a government is to make Ontario the safest and healthiest place in the world to live, work and raise a family. Especially in the last two years, we’ve seen how much the workers have done for our province. We can’t thank you enough. Thank you for everything you’ve done to make sure our lives continue.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, and I just want to applaud—

Interjections.

That’s exactly why our government led the way during the pandemic by allowing people to stay home when they were not feeling well. Along with the paid sick days, something which is very—we go above and beyond. What is more, we’re looking at another thing to help our workers: portable benefits. As the world continues to change, our government is working hard to make sure that as many people as possible have access to these benefits. These portable benefits would support millions of workers who do not have access to benefits right now, including retailers, bartenders, gig workers. To better support our workers, benefits could follow a person even if they move to a new workplace or even a new city within Ontario.

So I just want to say, Madam Speaker, I encourage everyone to participate in our expert panel to make sure the benefits can be extended to those who currently do not have it. This is how we want to support our workers in Ontario. And to the workers, I just want to say, you have a government who will, and continually, be helping to make sure to put your concerns at the forefront of our agenda. I’ll give you an example: Our putting workers first act, laid out during the pandemic, passed unanimously, by all of us, and ensured flexible paid sick days—no sick notes needed.

The gemstone of this bill is the worker income protection benefit, which allows time off for illness without the need of a doctor’s note. It allows people to get a COVID-19 test, wait for the result, take time off to get the vaccine or take a child to get vaccinated. Simply put, you do not have to take a chance. If you have to pick between staying healthy or going to work, we will appreciate if you stay healthy and take those paid sick days.

As of October 14, Madam Speaker, over 520,000 workers have already used this program, with the total paid of approximately $200 million. Our government’s COVID-19 paid sick days—although it is for three days, right now, as it stands, the average intake is 2.6 paid sick days. That itself shows that the program is working, and we are making sure that our province’s workers are at the forefront.

I just want to acknowledge for a moment: I do see the Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development here, who has been a champion for workers. Thank you for doing an incredible job.

At this time, I just want to take a moment and I want to say this again, to all the workers of this province: We value your work. We’re thankful to you. That is why our worker income protection benefit does not require a doctor’s note and includes time off for staying home if you’re not feeling well, getting a COVID test, waiting for a COVID test, or if you have to take time to take a child to get vaccinated, going to get vaccinated, recovering from the side effects or time off for mental wellness. We have a program which is there to serve you. If you want to know and learn more about this program, please reach out to us at www.ontario.ca/covidworkerbenefit, or you can reach out to us by calling 1-888-999-2248.

Madam Speaker, as I said earlier, this is a government who believes in our workers and will always make sure our workers have our back. That is why we put together these measures. I just want to take a moment and say we are committed to standing shoulder to shoulder with workers. That is the only way we can successfully complete our mission to make sure Ontario is the safest and healthiest place in the world to live, work and raise a family.

I want to thank my colleagues who participated in the debate, and in particular my NDP colleagues from Parkdale–High Park, Scarborough Southwest and Humber River–Black Creek.

A couple of points were made that I want to reinforce. Our health care system is in the midst of a crisis that we have never seen before. We have an affordability crisis in this province. Paid sick days will reduce strain on our health care system. It will help parents get through this crisis we’re seeing in our pediatric hospitals, and it will give families the financial stability they need to stay home if they are sick.

I also appreciate the comments highlighting that paid sick days is an equity issue: The workers most likely not to have paid sick days are racialized workers, are low-income workers, are immigrant workers, are women workers. We need paid sick days to support those workers.

To the government members who spoke to my bill: I want to remind them that their worker income protection benefit is a temporary program. It’s going to end in March 2023. It’s only for COVID-related illnesses. It won’t cover workers who need to take a day off because they have the flu, the stomach flu, strep throat or any number of other illnesses. They can’t access those three paid sick days, and it is completely inadequate. We are in the third year of a global pandemic. Workers who used those three paid sick days last year are completely out of luck. It was a one-time three-paid-days benefit.

We need permanent paid sick days legislated in the Employment Standards Act, so that all Ontario workers have access to the financial security they need and are not facing that impossible choice of having to potentially infect their co-workers at work or lose their paycheque if they stay home.