Yes, absolutely. We have the conversation. We move it forward, and so leadership isn’t something that just represents the president or the executive or people on committees. Every single member has the opportunity to be a leader, and every single member is a leader. You don’t get to split. You don’t get to divide. I know it’s what they want to do.

I know the Conservative Party is hoping that parents will be frustrated: “What will I do? I need child care. I’m struggling to make ends meet, and the policies of the Conservative government haven’t made life easier for me. Affordability is through the roof. Minimum wage—and the majority of workers now are on minimum wage because of decades of Liberal and Conservative policies. The minimum wage hasn’t kept up with the increases in the cost of living. I desperately need to go to work, because I don’t have paid sick days, because the Liberals voted it down again and again and the Conservatives voted it down again and again.”

Paid sick days, in the middle of a global pandemic: Who would need that? I don’t know. Maybe the two members that had COVID and took a couple days off would understand how important paid sick days were.

For a lot of workers, that precarity of employment tips them over the balance. They become one of those people that you pass on the side of the road, who have to panhandle or are sleeping in tents. They become one of those people that you smugly say should pull themselves up by their bootstraps. There’s a lack of awareness.

We were in debate yesterday, Speaker—and just to recognize it, we were talking about people on OW and on ODSP, struggling to make ends meet with an amount of money coming in—OW, less than $1,000; ODSP, slightly over $1,000. We were telling stories that rent, if you’re lucky, is $1,000, but in a lot of cities it’s a lot higher. And access to technology: One of the members of the Conservative Party held up their phone—and not just any phone, Speaker; I’m pretty sure it was an iPhone 14, the new one. They’re sweet-looking, but if you think someone on OW or minimum wage or ODSP is walking around with an iPhone 14, you’re misinformed. People are struggling to get by.

I’m going to get back to this CUPE motion, but I want to talk about how this ties in, Speaker, because Bill 28, which was rushed through as quickly as possible and time-allocated as quickly as possible—and in the middle of it we then debated our opposition day motion because we understand the struggle of people who are struggling to make ends meet. When we brought forward that opposition day motion to double OW and ODSP, we were talking on behalf of people who literally are starving and going without.

You know how the day ended? Well, the day ended that day with me going to the Minister of Labour’s office, outside the Minister of Labour’s office, along with colleagues from my party—the member from Niagara, who’s here with us this morning, he was there; many members of my party were there with us—and we joined with workers the way we always do as New Democrats. We’re not fair-weather friends. We’re there in good times; we’re there in bad times.

We joined with them and we heard about the struggles the workers were having. We heard about the solidarity of private sector unions, because private sector unions understand that in the labour movement, an injury to one is an injury to all. We heard about the solidarity and we heard that the Minister of Labour was having a $1,000-a-plate fundraiser meal. We all have fundraisers, but there’s a deep irony when you spend a whole day applauding—the first on his feet to applaud when they were restricting the rights of CUPE members, applauding that this was going to be rushed through and they were going to be forced into legislated poverty. When you go through an opposition day motion from the NDP to double OW and ODSP to take care of literally the most vulnerable people in our province and you vote it down and applaud to vote it down and then rush off to meet with people who can afford $1,000 a plate, it’s shameful—shameful.

Each and every one of us, we knocked on thousands of doors to get elected—we wouldn’t be here if we didn’t—spoke with people from all different backgrounds and promised them that we would be there for them, that we would be their voice, we would take care of them, we would make Ontario better for them, we’d do everything we could. I see it from my colleagues in the New Democratic Party, doing everything they can, bringing the voice forward.

When someone comes to your office—I’m asking the Conservative side, and I know you can’t respond, but I just want you to consider this: When someone comes to your office and says, “I am being evicted because OW is so low I can’t pay my rent”; “ODSP is so low I can’t pay my rent”; “I’m a CUPE member and my wages haven’t kept up with the cost of living. I’m being evicted. I’m going to food banks. What can you do? Can you stand for me, can you speak for me, can you help me take care of my children? I’m coming to you hat in hand. I’m coming to you on my knees, begging for help. You have a majority. You are the Conservative Party. You have to be there to help me. Are you going to help me?”—I don’t know how you sleep at night when you don’t. I don’t know how you think, “What I’m going to do is legislate you into poverty.”

This is your opportunity. We’re aligned on a few things, and one of them is that the Liberal Party did a terrible job the 15 years previously, and this is an opportunity for the Conservative Party to fix those mistakes, to repair that. OW and ODSP are disgustingly low because, for 15 years, the Liberal government didn’t care.

The CUPE members, their wages were frozen over a 10-year period—0% wage increases. Inflation generally, you can guess, is between 2.5%, 3%—a lot higher recently, but, generally, it floats somewhere around there. The cost of living increases. So when you freeze wages for four years in a row—let’s say it’s just 2%—that’s a 2%, a 4%, a 6%, an 8% cut. The rest of those years, the raises only accounted for between 0.5% and 2%. There was only one year it was 2%. It’s a very, very tiny percentage of an increase—tiny. So their wages have fallen backwards and fallen backwards, to the point where they can’t buy food—food.

Now, you hear a lot about the American dream, and I think in Canada we have a similar thing. Most of us would love to win the lottery and live in a mansion and have all of our wildest financial dreams accomplished, but I think that most of us—all of us, I would say—would agree that we would like to be able to afford a place to live. We would like to put food on the table, raise our kids, save for a house one day, maybe let our kids go on a school trip. Maybe you have to do some fundraising to help with that and go door to door with your kids—but have that opportunity for a better future. Nobody in the province working full-time should have to go to food banks. Nobody in this province working full-time should have to worry about feeding their children. Nobody in the province working full-time should be worried that they cannot afford rent. What you’re doing with this bill is, you are legislating these CUPE workers into poverty, these women trying to take care of their children.

Speaker, I’m going to share some time with my colleague the member from Niagara Falls

The letter I started off with from Trixie caught my eye in the corner here. I want you to hang onto the image of someone having to move back in with their parents because they can’t make ends meet because of the wages legislated by the province; having to go to a food bank because of the wages legislated by the Conservative government; having their human rights taken away because of the bill tabled and rushed through by the Conservative government; having their constitutional rights restricted because of a bill rushed through by the Conservative government, a bill that’s more than a quarter-of-an-inch thick. They didn’t come out with this on a whim. Instead of negotiating, they were thinking, “How do we punish these workers even more? How do we legislate them into a lifetime of poverty?”

This caught my eye in the corner, from the letter I started off with. It says, “I have five years of post-secondary education. A degree and a diploma. I am worthy of a decent wage.” Speaker, on this side of the House, as New Democrats, we agree with that. I can’t imagine why the Conservative Party cannot agree with this, why they’re excited to do this.

I want to finish with one thought, Speaker. The Conservative Party thinks that if they’re quick and if they’re fast, they’ll catch parents off guard, and parents will be frustrated if there’s a strike on Friday. But parents have been phoning me and telling me, “We see through this. We see right through this,” and those that don’t today are going to see through it by tomorrow and the next day, and if they’re phoning me, my hand to God, they’re phoning you as the Conservative Party and telling you too.

You have the power to negotiate this and move this through. You can negotiate this. It isn’t an either/or. It isn’t CUPE digging in their heels, because if someone came to me and said, “You’re going to keep bringing your kids to food banks. You’re going to keep living in deep, deep poverty. You’re going to keep living so precariously that you may become homeless, and we’re going to force you,” then I would stand up and fight back. How can you see it any other way? How can you look your kids in the face and say, “I didn’t do everything I could to ensure you had food on the table”?

These are not greedy union members. These are poor union members, and there’s nothing the Conservative government loves more than stepping on the necks of poor workers. It’s shameful of you.

I’m going to hand my time over to the member for Niagara.