I’d like to welcome to the Legislature today my local representative of the OSSTF, Christian Sell.

I’d like to welcome Karen Littlewood, OSSTF president, and all the fantastic members here. A special shout-out to district 12.

I’d also like to welcome Scleroderma Canada here and thank Dr. Levy for her work, and shout out my amazing LA, Nancy Robb, who’s been running around the building here at Queen’s Park all day today.

I’d like to introduce two great groups of people, the wonderful people from Western University in my riding: Dr. Alan Shepard, Grace Parraga, Florentine Strzelczyk, Keith Gibbons, Peter White, Althea Blackburn-Evans, John Doerksen, Opiyo Oloya, Sophie Helpard and Sara Ridout. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

I’d like to introduce, from the great riding of Cambridge, Ontario, the parents of page Vanessa Bal: Dr. Sharon Bal; and a former page captain, Julian Bal. Thank you for coming today.

I want to welcome back my good friend Patty Coates, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, and Michelle Teixeira, president of the OSSTF local here in Toronto, and all her members who are with her.

I’d like to welcome to the Legislature, in the members’ gallery today, representatives of the Canadian Automobile Association, who are here today for their advocacy day. Welcome to Queen’s Park, and I look forward to meeting with you this afternoon.

I’d like to welcome OSSTF members Christine Musson, Christina Wagner, Andrea Loken, Wendy Bonnell, Erin Leonard, Colin Matthew, vice-president of OSSTF Martha Hradowy, with a special shout-out to the two district 9 members from Windsor, Christine and Christina. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

That’s exactly why we want to keep them in class. We’ll do whatever it takes to keep students in class, where they belong. We want parents to know that we’re doing everything we can to make sure their child doesn’t miss a single day of class. We’re at the table with a fair and reasonable offer—as a matter of fact, very fair; the best in the country—and yet, the union refuses to withdraw the strike notice.

Mr. Speaker, we don’t want to be here. No one wants to be here and have to do this. We have heard from countless parents, endless parents. As a matter of fact, there has never been an issue in four and a half years that I have had more emails about, saying, “Make sure my kids stay in the class,” every single day. We know how difficult the pandemic has been on our children, but we need CUPE to withdraw the strike threat. I’m not going to tolerate students being out of the classroom for even one day. The NDP and the Liberals—

Interjections.

Our offer maintains the most generous—I’m going to repeat that—the most generous pension and benefit plan in the entire country, including 131 paid sick days, unheard of anywhere. We are seeing school boards confirm that the doors will be closed if CUPE goes on strike. I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, we won’t let that happen. Nothing matters more right now than ensuring the students remain in the classroom.

We’re investing over $26.6 billion in public education, the single largest investment in Ontario history, Mr. Speaker. Education funding for this—

Interjections.

Speaker, to the Premier: Over the last few days, many Ontarians have written to New Democrat MPPs to share stories of the role that education workers play in supporting kids in our schools. The common thread in all of them is that, despite the best efforts of this government to starve our education system of resources, the quality of kids’ education is being protected because of the hard work of education workers and teachers.

At the end of the day, it’s our kids who are going to pay the price if this Premier and his minister don’t get back to the bargaining table. Will the government commit to scrapping Bill 28 and bargaining in good faith today?

Interjections.

There’s a lot of great Ottawa folks in the building today. I want to shout out Sue Rab and Richard Brown, from OSSTF Local 25.

We often, in this House, stand on our feet when former members of this House come, but I want to shout out Julian Ovens, who’s with us today in the members’ gallery, who served at least three federal ministers as chief of staff. His daughter, Gabrielle Ovens, is part of our page crew this week. Julian, it’s really great to see you today. Gabrielle, thanks for your work for this House. Thank you for your work for the country.

I want to welcome OSSTF as well. In particular, from Sudbury, across from me here, I see our D3 professional student services personnel president, Dan Watson, and district 3 president, Eric Laberge. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

I’d also like to welcome the great individuals from OSSTF/FEESO: Sarah Adams, Jonathan Lam, Julie Montes, Chere Schneider, Monica Zacharias and Dan Staples, as well as all the other great front-line education workers. Thank you for the engaging breakfast this morning. I hope your meetings with the government go well.

I want to welcome Cassandra Beach, the mother of our amazing page Mae, who is doing bring your mom to work day today, instead. Thank you.

That may have been the longest five minutes in the history of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, but I want to thank the members for their indulgence to allow the members to introduce their guests.

To reply, the Premier.

The supplementary question.

I’d like to welcome OSSTF local members: Seth Bernstein, Vincent Bisasor, Chris Chandler, Derik Chica, Ricardo Harvey, Danica Izzard, Mark Kissel, Paulina Monlouis, Michael Platt and Michelle Teixeira and all the other OSSTF members, as well as all the other guests here who are joining us today.

I’d like to thank all of the OPSEU health professionals who came to Queen’s Park today. It’s a long list; bear with me: Megan North, Ashley Palmer, Betty Palmieri, Nicole Parro, Rohan Quest, Gayatri Samaroo, Kristyn Silver, Chrisy Tremblay, Joel Usher, Christa Walker, Elizabeth Watts, Rob Ziegler, Noemi Khondo, Kelsea Mahabir, Laurie Nancekivell—who is their vice-president—Brenda Allan, Adrian Balojin, Sandra Blancher, Carole Breeze, Keri-Ann Brunson, Melissa Coenraad, Samantha Green, Daniel Hahn, Coleen Houlder, Gail Kelly, Sara Labelle—in charge of health care—Elizabeth Leasa, Steven McCaw, Jordan McTavish and Angela Muraca. Forgive the French accent. They are all nice people.

Thank you for the applause, and thank you, Speaker.

To the Premier—my question is for you. Jennie, a local parent, told my office—and I’m going to share her story: “I am one of those parents whose child relies on ... absolutely incredible education workers.” They have “to be toileted, supervised during meals (to prevent choking), to safely walk” down the stairs and up the stairs, “have medications administered” and yes, the child still has to learn.

Speaker, this government gave 88% of their PC MPPs a $16,600 raise this June. My question to the Premier: Will this government be willing to actually give education workers a raise that they deserve and match it to inflation?

I’m going to share another story with you, Premier—and through the Speaker. Carrie, another teacher, tells my office: “One of our ECEs held a girl in her lap until her grandpa came” because she was throwing up “in a garbage can. The ECE refused to leave” this little girl, because she was scared and nervous.

Carrie then tells me, “I watched our other ECE march down the kinders to the library because they had to evacuate the classroom while their education assistant was controlling a friend who was having a moment,” or episode. “All the littles had adorable beautiful smiles” on their faces as they passed the teacher’s window and gave her a wave. “They didn’t know anything was wrong” in their classroom, despite the fact that there was. A caretaker then marched down the hallway with a bucket in hand to clean up the mess on the floor because four students got sick that same day. All of that happened within a 24-hour period.

Speaker, will this government show a fraction of the emotional intelligence that we see education workers exercise every single day and return to the bargaining table and give them a fair deal?

I would like to welcome Carlos Santander, Matthew Roy and Gordon Robitaille, who have come here from Thunder Bay. Gordon had to do an extra hour to get here from Nipigon. Welcome.

I’d like to acknowledge Dr. Charles Frank from the Ontario Dental Association, from my hometown of Tecumseh, who is here today.