Thank you, Speaker, and congratulations on your re-election.

On June 23, I was honoured to be sworn in as the member of provincial Parliament for Kitchener Centre, and on day one I got to work. You see, at the same time, CUPE Ontario was delivering a press conference on behalf of education workers across the province, and with them they brought over 30,000 letters to the Premier, each one calling for Bill 124 to be repealed.

Speaker, after a three-hour standoff in the mailroom, some very hard conversations and, perchance, a dance party, because that is how I roll, we secured those letters, which read in part:

“Even before the pandemic, understaffing among education workers was a problem in Ontario schools. Many school boards can’t recruit and retain qualified education workers, in large part because wages are so low and jobs so precarious.”

In a 2021 CUPE education worker survey, the union found the following: 51% worked at least one additional job to make ends meet, 64.5% of these were sole-income earners and roughly 75% of their members identified as women. This means the gender wage gap is widening with each year.

Speaker, this is why I stand with Ontario residents who are calling for the repeal of Bill 124 because “education workers are critical to providing the public services that must be part of an equitable pandemic recovery plan for children and families across Ontario.”

It’s an honour to be able to rise today and talk about this very important issue. In our throne speech yesterday, we mentioned that we will build a health system that better cares for patients and keeps our province open. We are doing that with all of the partners, which is why I have met with the Ontario nurses’ union and I have met with the College of Nurses to say we need to expedite internationally trained nurses who are in the province of Ontario here today and waiting for those licences. We will continue to do that. We will work with all partners, including hospital CEOs, to make sure that when they need support to get the health care workers in emergency departments, they will be there and their government has their back.