Ma question est pour le ministre du Travail.

Today, the NDP is reintroducing, for the 16th time, anti-scab labour legislation. Anti-scab labour legislation makes strikes and lockouts shorter, and it protects vulnerable workers.

The government keeps saying that they’re working for workers. Well, they have a labour bill in front of this House right now. They can take real action to protect vulnerable workers, to protect workers’ rights.

Will the minister tell the hard-working workers in the gallery right now if he will bring anti-scab labour law to Ontario now?

The minister really did a good job of avoiding actually answering the question.

Windsor Salt workers are here today, members of Unifor Locals 240 and 1959. They’ve been on strike for 40 days, fighting the outsourcing of their jobs by US-based holding company Stone Canyon Industries. These workers and every other worker in Ontario deserve to have their rights and jobs protected.

The Conservatives had many opportunities—since the legislation has been tabled 16 times—to support anti-scab labour legislation, and they didn’t.

You can’t honestly say you’re working for workers and vote against anti-scab legislation. It just doesn’t jibe.

Speaker, Windsor Salt workers and workers across Ontario want to know: Will the Premier stand up for collective bargaining rights, stand up for workers, and finally pass anti-scab legislation? No more rhetoric. Look right at those workers and tell them yes or no.

Interjections.

This morning we had workers drive all the way from Windsor, from Oshawa, from Toronto coming to Queen’s Park to ask the government to bring forward anti-scab legislation. The reason they’re coming to Queen’s Park is that they see the detrimental impact on scab workers themselves, who tend to be vulnerable employees, vulnerable Ontarians, who get hired to cross picket lines. But they also see the long-term effect on the people who cross the picket line, on their family, on their community, when at the end of the day, it does not help the employer and it does not help the workers to drag this on. Do you think anti-scab legislation would be working for workers?

I appreciate the question from the member, and I know he’s expecting an answer from me. However, I would like him to show me the schedule in the bill where that measure is set out, because there is no schedule in the bill that talks about presumptive coverage for those cancers for firefighters.

Now, I understand that in the media releases around the bill, when the minister has been speaking to the bill, that is what he says the bill will enable. But this legislation actually makes no reference to presumptive coverage for cancers for firefighters. That is in the regulations. Let’s see the regulations, let’s talk about the regulations, and then we can discuss further.

Absolutely, Speaker, anti-scab legislation would be an important step that this government could take to show that they are actually working for workers. We know that when workers band together to withdraw their labour, that is the only tool that they really have. So scab labour undercuts the ability of workers to obtain their rights, and it undermines the financial security of the workers’ families and the viability of the employer’s firm itself.