While in Thunder Bay this weekend, I learned that our hospital is already overflowing with COVID and flu cases and that RSV, the virus that threatens young children, is spreading rapidly. This is concerning.

Between the deliberate underfunding of health care and the calculated imposition of Bill 124, our hospitals and clinics are losing staff in droves and, as a result, we are losing the experience of those most qualified to mentor the next generation of health care workers. The health care crisis will continue until the Ford government decides to value those already working in the system.

Sadly, today, we are again seeing this government’s callous disregard for workers. For months, our lowest-paid education workers have been trying to negotiate a living wage, and now, rather than negotiating in good faith, the Ford government is set to crush education workers by again taking away their bargaining rights and imposing an unfair settlement.

To health care workers, education workers and all workers keeping our province operating: Thank you for your care, compassion and dogged persistence. We see you, we appreciate you and we stand with you.

Again to the Premier: At least 108 Ontario workers died from work-related COVID infections under a government that for more than a year denied workers paid sick days so that they could recover and keep their co-workers safe. The evidence is clearer than ever that paid sick days save lives. This government waited far too long to introduce temporary paid sick days and then didn’t provide enough days for sick workers to get well, forcing them to go back to work sick and putting their co-workers at risk.

Will this government pass my bill, the Stay Home If You Are Sick Act, this month so that every Ontario worker can access the 10 permanent paid sick days they deserve?

My question is for the Premier.

It’s Halloween and Ontarians are accustomed to seeing and hearing about spooky things today, but nothing prepared me for a video I saw this weekend. I saw a video of Tyler Russell, an organizer with the hate group Canada First, receiving a call from what sounds like this Premier on February 11, 2022. After our exchange, Speaker, I’ll be posting this video to my Twitter account. This happened on February 11, in the middle of the convoy. If it is in fact the Premier taking this call from Mr. Russell, promising Mr. Russell, as you will see, that it was about ending vaccine mandates and COVID restrictions—that was his priority.

Can the Premier confirm if this in fact was him and why this conversation was even happening when my city was under siege?

The people of Ottawa need you, Premier—Speaker, through you, we need him to come clean on whether this in fact was a conversation he had in one of our worst moments of the convoy occupation crisis. I want to know if there were other members—did the Premier talk to Pat King? Did the Premier talk to Tamara Lich? Did the Premier talk to some of the people who were organized at a high level, infiltrating our city, blocking our city, harassing residents? It is a matter of public interest.

The Premier has been silent beyond talking about policing and jurisdiction. Other members of Parliament, other political office-holders who are not members of federal jurisdiction have had the courage to come testify in Ottawa.

Again, is this the Premier in this video? Will he come to Ottawa to testify?