I have a quick question to the member from Sudbury.

I don’t think that folks even need a labour background to have an appreciation for the egregious approach that the government is taking, because even in the explanatory note, before page 1 of the bill, it says, “The act is declared to operate notwithstanding sections 2, 7 and 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the act will apply despite the Human Rights Code.” So they set it up that they know that it violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Human Rights Code, and that it can’t be held accountable by the labour board and all that. How should Ontarians interpret that?

It’s important, what my colleague just said—you need to negotiate, not dictate.

This is the scariest bill that I think has been before this House during the four years that we’ve been in this House.

I’m going to dedicate my time today to my grandson Shea, who is 10 months old, and to the children I saw on Halloween at CityPlace—the Halloween crawl there last year—and to all the children in Ontario, because I want all of the children in Ontario to grow up in a democracy. And a democracy means that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is the fundamental law of the land and nobody overrides the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

I would ask the Conservative MPPs in this House: Why did you run? Did you know this government never said in their election campaign that they were going to be using the “notwithstanding” clause to override workers’ rights in this country? They never said that they were going to use the “notwithstanding” clause to fundamentally strip all of us of our fundamental rights. When people talk about the “notwithstanding” clause, most people don’t understand what that means.

In this bill, it specifically states that they are overriding sections 2 and 7 through 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Section 2 is our fundamental freedoms—freedom of thought, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of speech. Those are the fundamental freedoms.

So to the Conservative MPPs in this House: You are under extreme pressure from your caucus to vote today to suspend the fundamental freedoms of the people of this province—

Interjections.

This is a slippery slope, because the Premier has said in the past, when they used this before, “We won’t be shy about using the ‘notwithstanding’ clause again.” In other words, he’s not going to be shy about stripping the people of Ontario of their fundamental freedoms and of their legal rights. That is extremely frightening. And it’s not just—this goes across party lines. This is not a Liberal, Conservative, NDP debate; this is a debate about the fundamentals of our democracy.

I’ll give you some quotes from other people who commented on the last time this government used the “notwithstanding” clause.

Brian Mulroney, the former Conservative Prime Minister of this country, said the “notwithstanding” clause is a grave flaw and it makes the charter not worth the paper it is printed on.

Bill Davis, the former Conservative Premier of this province and one of the drafters of our Constitution, condemned the Premier’s use of the “notwithstanding” clause, and he said it’s because you’re undermining our fundamental freedoms and legal rights. That’s not what the “notwithstanding” clause was to be used for.

Roy McMurtry, a former Conservative cabinet minister in this Legislature, as well as former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and former Saskatchewan Premier Roy Romanow wrote, the last time this government used the “notwithstanding” clause, “We condemn the Premier’s actions and call on those in cabinet and caucus to stand up to him.” A former Conservative cabinet minister in this House was calling on the Conservative MPPs to stand up to the Premier, and he said, “History will judge you by your silence.”

Andrew Coyne, the Globe and Mail columnist, said, “The Ford government is exactly the kind of government the charter was supposed to restrain. Handing it the ‘notwithstanding’ clause is like handing a drunk a loaded gun.”

Amnesty International, which usually doesn’t have much to do with a democracy like Canada—it usually deals with dictatorships or governments that are slipping into dictatorship, which is my big fear here, because we’ve watched, over the last 20 years, country after country slip into dictatorship, slip away from their democratic ideals. This government’s got Amnesty International criticizing it, and Amnesty International is condemning the use of the “notwithstanding” clause because it exhibits this government’s contempt for human rights.

And then the reason this government is doing this—so why use this loaded gun? Why strip Ontarians of their fundamental freedoms and of their legal rights? It’s because they want to impose a settlement on the lowest-paid education workers in our province—the ECEs, the special-needs assistants, the office administrators, the custodians, the librarians, the people who look after our children in schools all day. This is what this government wants to do.

I’ll just give a couple of examples of how low this is. One ECE says she is currently homeless, lives in her car and in shelters, and she’s dealing with pain and food insecurity—and this government is trying to impose a cap on their wages.

To the member opposite: “The act is declared to operate notwithstanding sections 2, 7 and 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the act will apply despite the Human Rights Code.”

I have stood in this House many times on the 11th day of November. It is November 1; we have 11 days to remember.

I brag about my son Petty Officer Jonathan Lindal, currently posted to the Naval Fleet School Atlantic as the senior combat information instructor teaching today’s naval tactics and doctrines to the future of the fleet. Over the past 18 years, he served on Her Majesty’s Canadian Ship for multiple overseas deployments.

My question to you is, will you honour and respect the Charter of Rights that my son, my grandfather, my great-grandfather fought for—to the 55,000 workers in CUPE. Will you respect that?

What my friend opposite has proven to me is something that has disturbed me in the last four years working in this place. Unbeknownst to the people of Ontario, a gravy train has pulled up to this building and it has been helping members of this government and not the workers of Ontario.

I want to talk about the 43 government MPPs who got a $16,000 pay increase last July. That’s $132,000 a year they’re making, while constituents like Lisbeth Slabotsky write me to say, “The right to free and fair collective bargaining is a fundamental freedom protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.” It is not good enough for workers of this province—but it’s great to ride the gravy train if you’re a member of the Ford government.

How do you feel riding on that gravy train, member?