Thank you very much for the question—very timely. Clearly the money is there, which is why we have called into question the motivation of this government with regard to Bill 28. There is no need to bring forward this piece of legislation, which has obviously been in the works for months now, because you just don’t pull a piece of legislation out of thin air like this.

And it’s very true: The FAO, an independent officer of the Legislature, has said that the government will have run a surplus of $25.3 billion over the next six years, that there is an unallocated contingency fund of $44 billion. This is money that the government did not spend on keeping classrooms safe during the pandemic. This is federal transfer money that the government squirrelled away.

I was actually asked this question last week. I want to say to the government, that money needs to go to public services. There is no reason for this standoff to be happening with education workers—or health care workers, for that matter. You need to repeal Bill 124 and pay the people who do public services in this province adequate salaries and show them some damned respect.

Shame on all of you.