Investing in post-secondary students is critical to building a highly skilled workforce here in Ontario. For our economy to grow and become an economic leader once again, we must support our students in obtaining the relevant experience they need to get good jobs after graduation. When I talk to the good people in Etobicoke–Lakeshore, all those employers said, “We need people.” With the tens of thousands of well-paying highly skilled jobs going unfilled in our province, we must act now to connect students and businesses to these new skills and opportunities for advancement.

Could the Minister of Colleges and Universities update this House on how our government supports students in practical work-integrated learning?

While I’m encouraged to hear that our government is supporting our next generation of workers in this new economy, we need to be confident that all Ontario students will be able to participate. Many students require more selection in learning opportunities to accommodate their unique circumstances and needs.

Speaker, can the minister elaborate on what our government is doing to support these innovative partnerships and increase flexibility for student learning opportunities across Ontario’s post-secondary landscape?

I would like to introduce Munaiba, who has just joined our legislative office this week as a placement student.

I want to thank the member from Mississauga–Malton for his comments.

My question to him is that—this is clearly a piece of legislation that is putting the students first. It’s putting forward protecting our students, a critical resource for us in our future. My question for the member is: Consultation is an important process, and I’m wondering if the member could tell us what kind of consultation we went through with our student population in the preparation of this legislation.

I appreciated the member’s reference to some of the data that has been collected in the student surveys, and in particular, the very disturbing data from Western University about the prevalence of students’ experiences of sexual violence. Western University has been taking exemplary measures to deal with that data and other issues at the institution. That includes university-wide mandatory training. That is the kind of holistic investment in prevention and education that would really make a difference for students in our institutions in this province.

I’d like to ask the member, why did the government not include measures like campus-wide education and training for all students, staff and faculty?

I understand in the last Parliament, 12 members from the opposition introduced petitions around the need to improve Ontario’s efforts towards sexual assault. This bill is doing just that in the education system, where there’s a power imbalance between faculty and students. This is specifically addressing faculty and student issues. We’re being accused, I understand from the member opposite, of tinkering where there needs to be monumental change. So I would ask the member opposite, what are the monumental changes that she thinks—

It’s my great honour to rise today to support Bill 26, Strengthening Post-secondary Institutions and Students Act. I want to thank the Minister of Colleges and Universities for proposing this legislation, as a strong advocate for protecting our students, our young people—especially young women—so they can flourish academically and socially.

That is why I’m proud to stand up today in support of Bill 26, the Strengthening Post-secondary Institutions and Students Act, which will create a safe, inclusive environment within our colleges and universities across Ontario.

Ontario is proud to have some of the largest, greatest colleges and universities in Canada, bringing the brightest students from across the country and across the world into our communities. My riding of Scarborough–Rouge Park is home to great institutions, such as Centennial College and the University of Toronto Scarborough. Furthermore, I’m excited that our government is building the first-ever medical school right in Scarborough, training over 1,500 health care professionals right in our community. I’m proud to represent the many students across my riding who either commute to school or live in residence.

We are building academic infrastructure and creating a new generation of professionals to support our economy, and we need both women and men to be trained in the jobs of the future. Madam Speaker, these students are the future. We have an obligation to support them and ensure it is a safe and inclusive environment.

I have heard about the terrible experiences that many young people have faced in and around campus. I’m truly disheartened to hear that the Student Voices on Sexual Violence survey reports that 63% of university respondents and 50% of college respondents have reported an experience of sexual harassment, while 23% and 17%, respectively, said that they had a non-consensual sexual experience/assault.

This is not a reality that we can continue to let happen within our post-secondary institutions. It especially cannot come from faculty and staff, who have an obligation to teach and encourage our young people. We’ve made it clear that our government has zero tolerance for sexual assault and we are committed to protecting our students. That is why in 2019 our government required each publicly assisted college and university in Ontario to establish a sexual violence prevention task force. Last fall we introduced regulatory amendments to protect students from inappropriate questioning or disciplinary action when they report acts of violence.

Today we are building on our commitment to protecting all students in post-secondary environments. There is a power structure between faculty and students and we must never allow that to be abused. This legislation, Bill 26, is going to help institutions to better address sexual misconduct against students. We need to set the highest standards in Ontario, ensuring that the relationship between faculty, staff and students is consistently professional.

The strengthened policies would give institutions the tools to deem the sexual abuse of a student as just cause for dismissal, and this bill will prevent the rehiring of employees found to have committed sexual abuse of a student. These measures would prevent the use of non-disclosure agreements to address such cases where an employee leaves an institution to be employed at another institution and their prior wrongdoing remains secret. They would also require institutions to have sexual misconduct policies in place that provide rules for behaviour between faculty, staff and students, as well as disciplinary measures for faculty and staff who break these rules.

As I said earlier, these amendments are not just a stand-alone policy; these are to add on to existing policies laid out by colleges and universities across the province. This bill is the next step in protecting students, and I’m proud that our government has held consultations with over 100 stakeholders, including representatives from post-secondary education institutions, labour groups, student groups, private career colleges, faculty associations and community organizations.

Understanding and addressing sexual violence experienced by our students is a priority for Ontario’s colleges and universities, and we remain committed to creating a safe environment and a safe working environment free from sexual violence. I know that these changes are important to the young people in my community of Scarborough–Rouge Park. I know that for members from this chamber, across this province, these remain important priorities for their communities.

Madam Speaker, I know the long and extensive process which members at Toronto Metropolitan University went through, a lot of whom are residents in my riding, in finding a new name for the university that they go to or the university that they’ve been to. Toronto Metropolitan University is going through a name change to represent this modern university. If this bill passes, the legislation will respect that decision to recognize the process of Ryerson University to formally become Toronto Metropolitan University. These are big steps in the future of TMU, which will better align the university with its current values. I look forward to seeing what’s next in the future of this great academic institution.

Madam Speaker, this is not just an important time for students academically, but also socially as well. This is a time to find their personality, meet lifelong friends and, of course, their future colleagues. So ensuring that young people, especially young women, are able to go through their education feeling safe, comfortable and confident is important. It’s important in creating a strong future for themselves and our community at large. That is exactly what this bill does, taking a zero-tolerance stance against sexual assault.

That is why we need to pass these amendments that would require publicly assisted post-secondary institutions and private colleges to have specific processes in place that address and increase transparency of faculty and staff sexual misconduct towards students. This includes deeming the sexual abuse of a student as just cause for dismissal. This bill prevents non-disclosure agreements to hide their misconduct when they move on to a different institution. When they move on to a different institution to continue to teach, this bill will prevent the nondisclosure. This will prevent the secrecy that they want to remain. I welcome this because this particular piece of legislation brings transparency.

Also, the third aspect of this bill provides guidelines of what professional academic relationships must look like. The government stands with students across Ontario, as well as assuring victims that we will not put up with this anymore.

I urge members from all sides of this chamber to support this bill, to make sure that we not only stand with our students, but we also create an environment where our future leaders are protected and learn in a safe environment.

I’d like to thank the member for Spadina–Fort York for that question. As I said in my remarks, Madam Speaker, the Ministry of Colleges and Universities went through comprehensive consultations with over 100 stakeholders, including student groups, labour unions, labour groups, faculty associations and community organizations. They came up with these aspects to make sure that we have action items to prevent non-disclosure agreements, so there is transparency; to make sure that sexual abuse from faculty and staff towards students is just cause for dismissal; and for institutions to create a framework, a policy, to have proper academic staff and faculty professional relationships towards students.

I think this has action items. It’s a good bill moving forward. I hope all members support this bill.

Madam Speaker, it is often in the toughest times that we find opportunities for change, and I feel this bill is such that, after the allegation at Western, President Shepard and his team took a very focused approach to combating sexual violence on campus. It started with supporting students, making sure that those impacted by the events of last September were supported. It evolved into creating further resources on campus for students, and strengthening the sexual violence policy to provide stronger resources for the institution and better protections for students.

I’m proud to say that Western is one of Ontario’s leaders in combating sexual violence and will continue to work towards that. Our government has a zero-tolerance policy towards sexual misconduct, and I think this bill is a good piece that we can all vote in favour of.

I appreciate the question from the former member from Scarborough–Rouge Park—or the former question from the member from Scarborough–Rouge Park.

Anyways, I just want to talk about—you said this means that the victims will not have to face their perpetrators, because there’s no re-employment. But there’s a flaw in the bill, and the flaw is that a lot of graduate students are also teachers when they’re on the campus. So what happens if a person who’s also a teacher as well as a graduate student sexually abuses a student? Does that person stay on the campus? They may not be re-employed, but do they stay on the campus as a grad student? Does the victim have to face them?

Speaker, as the MPP for Ajax, you will know that in the region of Durham we have two universities: Ontario Tech University and Trent Durham—and Durham College.

Underpinning this legislation was a broad consultative process. We’ve had many universities come back to us with their input about the effect of this proposed legislation. I’ll read one paragraph for you: “Ontario Tech University welcomes the province’s strong support for the post-secondary community’s commitment to eradicating sexual violence and maintaining healthy and safe learning, living, social and working environments for its students, staff and faculty members with this bill.”

Taken together, it’s providing the framework to ensure student safety. Furthermore, it is dealing with the issue of staff and staff involvement in non-disclosure.

Would the member from St. Catharines—