I am pleased to rise to continue the debate on Bill 79, Working for Workers 3 from this government. When I was last speaking to this bill, I was giving some examples of the pervasiveness of wage theft in the province of Ontario, which is something that this government could have taken action on, this bill would have been an opportunity to take action on, but they have not. I use the example of wage theft as a case study of how increasing fines for violations of labour laws will do nothing unless there are those strong, proactive inspections in place, unless there is strong, proactive enforcement in place and unless this government closes the loopholes that we see far too often in our labour legislation that have allowed employers to get away with wage theft for so many years.

One of the tools that this government could have used to deal with the issue of wage theft is, of course, around worker misclassification. That is how so many workers do not get the wages and benefits that are owed to them under the Employment Standards Act, because their employer illegally classifies them as an independent contractor rather than an employee who has full rights and entitlements under the Employment Standards Act. That is particularly the case for the farm workers, the migrant temporary foreign workers that the first schedule of this government’s bill is supposed to protect, because those temporary foreign workers are completely exempt from the Employment Standards Act. So it is one thing for this government to say they’re cracking down on scumbag employers, but it is quite another thing to actually protect the temporary foreign workers who are at greatest risk of being taken advantage of and being exploited by unethical employers.

We know that the number of inspections that the Ministry of Labour has conducted dropped significantly; there were 3,500 in 2017 and just over 200 in 2022. So while we welcome the increase in fines, we’re waiting to see other changes that the ministry has to make in order to actually help protect migrant workers.

It’s interesting that since we were last debating this legislation, the government introduced a new measure that is significantly going to harm migrant workers, and that is to remove OHIP coverage for uninsured people. Certainly, we know that migrant workers are among the largest group of uninsured people in this province who do not have access to OHIP, and we have heard the OMA, we have heard doctors in Ontario describe this government decision to remove that OHIP coverage as inhumane, as despicable, as barbaric—as all kinds of words that have been hurled at this government for the action that it is taking that is going to directly and significantly harm migrant workers.

The other thing that we saw since this bill was last debated in the Legislature was the introduction of the budget that put in black and white, in print form, the government’s decision to eliminate paid sick days. That is a benefit that would significantly help temporary foreign workers, migrant workers—workers in this province who need access to paid sick days so that they can stay home if they are sick, which is the number one lesson that we should have learned from this pandemic: how important it is to enable workers to stay home if they are sick so they don’t have to go to crowded workplaces while they are ill, compromise their own ability to recover from illness and also risk spreading infection to co-workers and customers.

This government was shamed into finally implementing an inadequate paid sick day scheme. It took some time to get them there. The scheme was flawed, but at least it was something to help workers be able to stay home if they are sick. Some 60% of workers in this province do not have access to paid sick days, and that number goes up to 75%, 80%, 90% in some sectors, for some of the most vulnerable workers in this province: racialized workers in this province; workers who are at greatest risk of contracting illness in the workplace, who work in crowded warehouses or other places where they are at risk of either bringing illness into the workplace and infecting others or getting infected.

We heard during the pandemic—no one will forget that study from Peel Public Health at the very beginning of the pandemic where one in four workers admitted that they went to work sick because they didn’t have a choice, not because, of course, they wanted to put their co-workers at risk, but because they didn’t want to put their family at risk by not being able to pay the rent at the end of the month, not being able to buy the groceries. So that is the kind of legislation that would show that this government really is working for workers.

The final piece that I want to highlight is around Bill 124. We have heard for months—actually, since that legislation was introduced back in 2019, we have heard calls, strong calls, from health care workers across the province to drop that bill because it is an unconstitutional infringement on the rights of workers to bargain collectively with the government.

At a time when inflation has been as high as 12%, capping wage increases at 1% is nothing but a wage cut, and a significant wage cut, when we need health care workers more than ever. Health care workers are leaving the province in droves because of Bill 124. We know that from the data that’s collected on our health human resources workforce. We know that from—in London, when I go to speak to the London Health Sciences Centre or St. Joseph’s hospital about the health care worker shortage that they’re having, Bill 124 has a direct impact on that.

Dropping the appeal of the court decision that Bill 124 was unconstitutional would go a long way to working for workers in this province. But this government decided not to do that; instead, they have brought forward a package of measures that will make a little bit of a difference, a symbolic difference. The increased fine on employers who withhold passports will make a difference. But if this government really wanted to work for workers, there’s a lot more they could be doing.

I see this bill as tinkering around the edges but really leaving workers extremely vulnerable in many, many respects. First of all, Bill 124—we know that it is repressing wages, that it is harming workers, that it has resulted in the crisis in our health care system. I can tell you, for example, about Steve, who works at the Thunder Bay regional hospital. His coordinator received a 6% raise on his $106,000 pay. Steve, who’s an electrician, takes home $51,000 and, of course, his wage has been capped at 1% for the last five years.

At this point, there are only two electricians left because they’ve all left for better pay and working conditions outside the public service. When he started work, 15 people in trades were working in the hospital: electrical, painters, building operators and maintenance. These days, at most, there will be five permanent employees and they are vastly outnumbered by private contractors.

There are 18 new beds added to the hospital—great, new beds, but no people to look after the people in the beds—which adds to the workload. Contractor labourers are earning $20 more an hour than Steve as a permanent skilled trades employee.

Now, it seems to be very clear that the position this government has taken on workers, governed by Bill 124, is a deliberate attempt to break the health care system, to break education, in order to privatize. I see this bill doing nothing to help those workers to remediate those situations.

There are other workers also affected by this. For example, corrections. Well, things are not good for workers in corrections. It’s interesting to me, though, because the majority of workers are in female-dominated professions and they’re not being well treated and they’re not being respected. But there are also male workers who are not being respected, including the electricians like Steve. People in corrections, well, they’ve been experiencing wage repression for five years—no right to bargain collectively.

And then there are the conservation officers. Conservation officers protect us and they protect our wilderness. It’s interesting to me because the conservation officers will be the first people to discover whether glyphosate, for example, is being sprayed illegally in our forests. But the conservation officers have actually been misclassified for many years, so not only are they suffering under Bill 124, they have a lower classification, and the skills and responsibilities that they have are not acknowledged.

Now, I worry a great deal—you know, I find it interesting; I’m excited. I was at the Fleming College display yesterday and I thought, “Wow, I’d love to go back to school. This looks really interesting. Some very interesting things are going on.” But I really worry very deeply about young people who may be in grade 10 or 11 being moved quickly into trades when young people on their first jobs are the most likely to experience a serious injury. I know this has happened in my own family. My niece’s partner and his father went to their very first job roofing. They were electrocuted; her partner died. They had a young baby. That’s changed her life forever.

When people are young, they think that they’re invincible. They haven’t got a concept of their own mortality, so that worries me. I truly hope that health and safety will be front of mind for everyone training those young workers, but what I also know is that WSIB has changed enormously from when it was first created 100 ago—by the way, it was a Conservative member who created that, William Meredith—and it does not do what it was intended to do.

Let me give you some stories—also young people. Eugene was a young worker: fit, on top of the world. He had a serious accident in forestry. He’s been in pain ever since, so that’s another 30 or 40 years that he’s been suffering in pain, and he’s been fighting the WSIB ever since.

Then there’s Janet who had something fall on her at work and then was later assaulted at work. Well, her back is so sore she hasn’t been able to engage in anything with her own family for many, many years. WSIB, where are they? She’s still fighting for compensation.

Did you know that WSIB shortchanged all workers who are receiving some level of compensation by cutting their cost-of-living allowance in half? Now they have to go to court to fight the WSIB to get what they are legally entitled to. It’s not fair. They’re not doing what they need to be doing.

Then there’s Jim who worked at the Weyerhaeuser mill in Dryden. This was years ago. Many of those workers were poisoned because the owners of the mill made a decision to not install a particular smokestack cleaner thing—I couldn’t tell you exactly what it is. But what I do know is many, many of those workers were poisoned, and the outcome has been neurological problems as well as breathing problems.

Now, that was in 2002—between 2002 and 2004. We are now in 2023. The WSIB still refuses to recognize these workplace injuries that have changed their lives utterly. The strategy that I see is that they wait and wait and wait until most of the workers have died off, and then they don’t have to pay out so much. That’s exactly what happened with the people who used McIntyre Powder. We had a very important memorial acknowledgement and apology to those workers and their families, and it was the same story there: Many, many of those people had already died by the time that apology came.

I fear that it’s going to be the same story, because I know there are clusters of industrial disease all over the province that are being denied right now. And while they are denied, workers have no income. What do they do? They apply for ODSP. Well, we know how much ODSP is: 1,200 bucks, what is it, a month? It’s around that, yes. We know it’s not enough to live on.

Imagine that you’ve been a full-time skilled worker, you’ve got good pay, you have a mortgage, you felt secure enough to have a family, and then you’re poisoned by your work. You can’t work anymore. Okay, there’s no money for you. WSIB is going to fight you year after year after year, and you’re going to have to apply for ODSP. Okay, now you’ve got $1,200 a month or so.

That’s what we do to workers.

She talked about Steve the electrician. The Minister of Labour likes to talk about the good trades jobs, how important they are, but he doesn’t want to talk about Steve. He doesn’t want to talk about public sector electricians, where contractors make $20 more than they do.

I wonder if the member could explain to us how Bill 124 capping workers’ wages, like Steve’s, at 1%, is not the Conservative government working for workers, especially when you look at how much Steve’s boss makes and that he was able to get a 6% increase, while Bill 124 capped Steve’s wages, which were much lower, at 1%.

I appreciate the member’s question on Bill 79. He was talking about the price of food and stuff. When we talk about workers and what’s missing in the bill—I mentioned this with Bill 124: When people’s paycheques are restricted, when you’re caught with a maximum 1% increase and inflation is hovering around 6% or 7%, it’s a cut in your wages. And I noticed this summer—it’s five years now that I’ve been elected, and this is the first time when people who are more affluent phoned me and said, “I just did groceries. I can cover it, but I don’t know how somebody with less money can.” It was people phoning me and saying, “I’m worried about my neighbour. My neighbour cannot make ends meet. My neighbour can’t pay the bills. My neighbour can’t afford bread. I can do it, but I’m worried about them.”

That’s why you need to address the budget and repeal Bill 124.

I’ll give you an example of bad actor. I had a workplace before where I was the health and safety rep. I notified the manager that they were going to kill a worker in this location, and a worker died in that location about three months later because of unsafe practices. It was tough on everybody, and the manager and I talked about springtime and how spring isn’t the same anymore, how the smell of it reminds us of Paul Rochette, who is no longer with us.

So I do know there are bad actors. I don’t think they’re all bad actors, but I know that there are people out there who have certain responsibilities under the Occupational Health and Safety Act who aren’t doing them properly and have to be held accountable.

I’m all in favour of this increase; I just want to know that we’re using it effectively.