I appreciate the member opposite for trying not to laugh.

Can you imagine, to your student—it doesn’t matter if you’re in primary school or secondary—that you go into their class and say, “Not to worry, you’re going to catch up. I bought you a textbook”—clunk. Maybe they don’t understand, Speaker, that the reason they have EAs, the reason there’s a school system, the reason parents wholeheartedly did not support their online learning scheme the last time is because there’s a value of someone teaching you. We don’t just go, “It’s time to start school, junior. Here’s your textbook. Goodbye.” It is ridiculous. They got laughed out of the place for saying that.

Then I guess their comms team went to work and they said they could get tutors. You can get tutors. Some $200—

Interjection: About an hour.

The most embarrassing, the most ridiculous thing and the most insulting part of this, Speaker, is when they said, “And an extra $50 for special needs.” Well, that’s solved, I guess. When I heard that, the first thing I did is I contacted a family I knew who have two children with autism spectrum disorder and I told them, “Your problems are solved because there’s 50 bucks coming.” I say that in jest, but there’s nothing funny about this, Speaker.

This is a government that, when the Premier was running in 2018, promised autism families they would never have to protest on the front lawn of Queen’s Park—never have to protest. The only reason they haven’t lately is because COVID prevents it, but we know, those of us who were here then, that they protested so loudly that we could hear it through the walls. There is a reason that #50KIsNotOK is trending, because there are 50,000 children on that wait-list.

When you talk about “the cupboards are bare,” we don’t buy it. It’s not because we’re the opposition, it’s because we believe in facts. We believe in the Financial Accountability Officer. There is $44 billion in unallocated funds. There is $25 billion in surplus. Conservatives say they have no money, but the FAO says you do. And what I’m saying is, maybe crack your wallet a little bit to pay people who are going to food banks while working full time.

The Conservative government will tell you, “This is about the children. This is about keeping children in class,” and, essentially, it is. That’s where we agree. We need to keep children in class. And there’s an opportunity for the government to do this, and the way the government can do this is by coming to the table and negotiating a fair deal.

The Minister of Education said, “Well, what would that mean to you?” Well, first of all, I think the Minister of Education should go to the table and understand what it would mean to those CUPE members, because they would explain it to him. But he’s created a false analogy that the only way this can move forward is if we ram it through. The only way we can solve this is to ram it through, and that is not how negotiations work.

The reality—and I love this quote; I say it often—is that you recognize good negotiations when both sides walk away with a pebble in their shoe. There is a stone in the education support workers’ shoe. I think the stone, actually, is being held over their head and ready to drop on them. There is nothing in their shoes on the Conservative government’s side.

What we could do is we could invest in public education instead of starving it out. I think that our education critic was right on the money when she said that this is the Conservative game of starve to privatize. We saw this with long-term care. We’re seeing it happen now with health care. Just a quick show of hands if anyone’s excited to get into long-term care because it’s privatized and it’s going to be much better? Crickets. So, nobody. Good, good—we’re all on the same page.

Health care will be probably very similar to long-term care. And education, if it’s privatized, will be probably pretty similar to long-term care as well.

So let’s invest in education, in public education. You worry about kids falling behind and getting caught up? Me too. So let’s avoid the strike by negotiating with them. Let’s invest in these workers that help them be successful. Let’s invest in these workers, the most vulnerable workers, who take care of our most vulnerable students to ensure their success. That’s the solution we can do.

They say it’s about the children. I mentioned already how they completely ignore children who have autism, but I want to remind the Minister of Education that during his speech, he talked about the importance of having children in the classroom, and I guess he forgot that for about, I would say, nine months straight, he said we need two mandatory courses of online learning. Do you know who the most vocal people were about that? Not education workers; parents and students saying, “That is a bad idea.” And he didn’t listen to them then.

He didn’t listen when parents said, “I would like smaller class sizes,” and this was before COVID-19, when parents said, “Do you know what gets good attention? A smaller class size. It’s better for my kids.” I’ve said a couple of times in this room that I have never met a parent who said, “I wish my class sizes were larger so my kids had less attention.” And I’m encouraging you to take the advice, to invest in the next generation so they’ll be successful.

I want to talk about some of the stats here: education worker wages compared to economic indicators, per cent increases from 2012 to 2021. So I’m just going to do inflation and education worker wages. In 2012, inflation was 1.4% and education workers’ wages went up zero. In 2013, it was 1% and education workers’ wages went up zero. In 2014, inflation was 2.4% and education workers’ wages went up zero. In 2015, inflation was 1.2% and education workers’ wages went up zero. Oh, they got a raise the next year: In 2016, inflation went up 1.8%; they got a raise of 1%, a 0.8% cut. In 2017, inflation went up 1.7%; they got a raise of 2%. In 2018, inflation went up 2.4%; they got a 1% raise. In 2019, 1.9%; they got a 2.5% raise. In 2020, inflation went up 0.7%; they got a 1% raise. In 2021, inflation was 3.1%; they got 1%.

The minister, the Premier, the Conservative caucus, Speaker, are very excited that they’re going to get another pay cut because of inflation. They want to talk about percentage increases over time and what it’s going to add up to. But we know—every single one of us who are in this House know, because we knocked on doors—inflation is through the roof. It’s the number one topic for every constituent in our riding. And we know that this will be a pay cut disguised as a raise.

Since 2012, increases for Ontario education workers’ wages have totalled 8.8%. During the same time period, total inflation was 19.5%. That is a 10.7% wage cut over that time period.

I know that the Conservative government, the Conservative members, when they talk to people, when they go to the press, what they’ll try to do is tie in teachers with education workers, and I want to be clear: We’re not talking about teachers. We’re talking about support staff and custodians and cleaners. We’re talking about EAs and ECEs and DECEs. We are talking about the people who take care of the most vulnerable, the people who keep the place clean for us. They have been losing money time and time again, and their wages are at the rock bottom—the rock bottom.

Now, a trope that you’ll hear time and again is that the public sector gets so much money, and it’s not even aligned with the private sector. Well, if you do the math from 2012 to 2021, workers’ wages increased 8.8%—ignoring that inflation was 19.5%—but the private sector had an increase of 20.3%. So that is a myth, and I’m happy to correct you so you can correct it when you go talk to people.

This year, the Bank of Canada is projecting that inflation will be 7.2% and continue to climb. That’s something we’re going to have to deal with, Speaker, for all sectors, but in this one what we’re doing is taking people who are going to food banks and saying, “You’re going to keep going to food banks, because the Conservative government frankly does not care about you or your children.” And that is shameful.

Let’s talk about the Liberal and Conservative plagiarism, I guess. In 2012, education workers were hit with Bill 115. I remember that, because I came down here as a steelworker and walked with education workers. It was snowing out—kind of a lovely day, really, for that time of year. But they froze wages for two years.

The NDP politely explained to the government, “This is a mistake that you’re making. You’re violating constitutional rights, and it’s going to be challenged in court, and you’re going to pay the cost of court, and you’re going to pay penalties.” They pooh-poohed it, and the Liberals said, “That will never happen.”

You fast-forward and—I forget the exact number: $226 million? Over $200 million in penalties, plus the legal challenges. I know that the government is, I guess, comfortable just wasting taxpayers’ money by paying lawyers and paying these fees afterwards, but it’s a bad thing to do. Following that—let me move forward, actually, because of time.

In 2019, the Conservative government thought, “Bill 115—what a great idea. We should do that, but why just limit it to education workers? There are so many public sector workers that we could punish and harm. So let’s bring in Bill 124.” And they stuck to their guns on Bill 124 all the way through.

Every time they rose and spoke about health care heroes and how important they were, I can only imagine nurses and PSWs and caregivers and lab techs throwing up in their mouth, because you cannot say, “I care,” and “You’re important,” and “Thoughts and prayers,” while suppressing their wages and violating their collective agreement rights.

There are 55,000 members of this union that are going to be affected by this—55,000 members. I heard the Minister of Education speak about this, and I don’t even remember him talking about any of those workers. Frankly, Speaker, since I have been here, I haven’t seen this government speak to workers a lot, in general. I haven’t seen them meet with the OFL. I haven’t seen them connect. If you want to make good legislation, talk to people. Even if you think that you’re right, find out if you are by speaking with them.

On this side of the House, the NDP is bringing stories of these education support workers to you and talking about the trouble they’re having. You’ve got to take your fingers out of your ears and you’ve got to listen to them. I want to share some of these stories, in their own words.

This comes from a DECE, a designated early childhood educator: “I cannot get my son who has ASD the services he needs to thrive.”

An educational assistant: “I have to work an extra four to five hours at another job several times a week and also most weekends to be able to provide for my family. These hours are after I’ve worked all day with students with severe needs and behaviour and I’m exhausted. I barely get to spend time with my children.... My heat, hydro and grocery bills have tripled in the last two years alone. I can’t repair my car.... Being a single parent, I don’t have anyone to rely on but myself.”

This part hits me hard, Speaker: “This job is killing me, ruining my relationships with my family and preventing me from having any social life.... Loving my students is no longer enough to justify staying in this job much longer”—after 18 years with this board.

A library worker: “We have had to borrow money to meet basic needs that has put us deeper in debt. Cost of living goes up at a way faster rate than my pay.”

Central administration—it used to be “secretaries,” in the old days: “Have to sacrifice my essentials to provide my child with essentials. Miss out on time with friends due to working a second job. I have collected beer cans to fund my child’s sports.”

A secretary, another clerical worker: “Have had food insecurity multiple times this year.”

Another worker, who’s talking about the source of stress from having a lack of money for his wife and him: “Our children also see and feel this stress, and feel guilty about asking for money for things like sports, extracurricular or going out for the subway with their friends.” Imagine, as a parent, saying, “I don’t know if I have money for you to take the subway because the Minister of Education, the Minister of Labour and the Premier don’t care about us.”

Maintenance and trades—I’m running out of time, Speaker, but this is important; We’ve talked countless times about the importance of the trades and bringing trades forward, and how we’re losing trade workers: “Working with board has depleted any savings I have from a job before working at board. The cost of living, food, fuel, repairs and unexpected expenses have grown so high, we cannot live but paycheque to paycheque, and that’s sad for any multi-ticketed” tradesperson “to have to go through.”

Two more: “As a professional, well-educated person, I shouldn’t have to go without eating for a few days because I simply cannot afford to get groceries.”

And the final one I want to talk about is an educational assistant: “I’m staying in a non-functioning marriage because apart we will not be able to separately afford to live.”

With 20 seconds on the clock, Speaker, I want to remind the government: These are situations that they create, that they endorse, and that this legislation will force onto them for another four years. It’s shameful. They should be embarrassed. We will never support this bill.

My question is to the Premier.

A good society makes sure that kids have every advantage. Rather than enhancing young Ontarians’ education through investment, this government is admitting failure, and it’s changing the rules because they can’t negotiate a fair deal. This government is teaching children that being fair is optional.

What is this government thinking about their impact on teaching children about ethics and values?

This government wants to distract people from realizing they pay educational support workers around minimum wage—minimum wages for those who look after our children. When will this government enhance education, listen to workers and finally pay them what they’re worth?

Children know when someone is being manipulative and unfair. They also know what it’s like when someone is being a bully.

Listen to the front lines, the people who care for our children. As ECE Janna wrote to me, “Multiple class evacuations disrupt our days and learning. Our school has five EAs running around with their heads chopped off through the whole school. The system is breaking.... Staff can’t afford to stay and will leave” because of “Lecce and Ford’s decision to mandate legislation.”

Is this government going to keep strangling the education system through cuts, underfunding and neglect, or will they show that children are important by paying education support workers what they deserve and truly investing in public education?