Mr. Speaker, we are very cognizant of the disproportionality impacting racialized and Indigenous students in Ontario. It’s the basis for why we essentially eliminated the ability of principals and educators to suspend children in kindergarten and grades 1, 2 and 3. There’s got to be a better way by which we can ensure these young people are focused and stay in school, integrated in their classrooms, than to suspend them at that young age.

Mr. Speaker, we also saw the data that informed the decision of this government to destream the entire grade 9 curriculum, on the basis that we want to give young people equal opportunity and a pathway to success by removing the barriers that impede their progress.

We know there’s more to do in the context of fighting racism, discrimination and barriers in school. I look forward to working with the community to build further initiatives we can undertake in this province to ensure every young person graduates, achieves and gets a good job in this province.

When the NDP and Liberals had an opportunity to work with the government to eradicate regulation 274, a regressive regulation that denies principals the ability to hire a highly talented racialized educator in a community with many racialized kids, they opposed that effort.

If members opposite wanted to advance the cause of anti-racism, you would have supported the government destreaming the curriculum; you would have supported the government when, for the first time in the history of Canada, we actually overtook and supervised a board on the basis of anti-Black racism.

We have taken action in this area; unfortunately, we’ve done so without the support of the NDP and the Liberals in this province.

Thank you to the member for your contributions today. My question is this: This government pretends to be preoccupying itself with reducing red tape, building a stronger economy, but the truth is we have so many Indigenous people who are living without clean water.

If we were going to build a stronger economy, why is it, do you think, that racialized people, Indigenous people and the concerns of queer people are not properly reflected in bills like this? What do you think we need to be adding?

Thank you very much to my colleague across the aisle for her presentation to the House. You particularly made mention about the 2SLGBTQI+ community here in Ontario and how this doesn’t support them. Madam Speaker, I’d like to submit to the member opposite that this is our 10th red tape reduction bill, and new job numbers are out today where Ontario is leading the country in job growth and economic growth. I would ask that in those particularly 21,000 job numbers, do you not see how that does help our 2SLGBTQI+ community and racialized Ontarians?