Further debate?

As the old mayor of Toronto would say, “Nobody!” Zero. They had no help at all. I asked in this House right here, right here in this chair in the corner office, I asked the Premier how comfortable he was that government ads from the province of Ontario were using these union-busting ad agencies that were using scab workers. Of course, he didn’t answer, because he rarely answers. It was deflected away.

During estimates, I asked the Minister of Labour, “Why do you support scab work?” His thing was, “They appear to be in negotiation. I don’t want to get involved.” I reminded the Minister of Labour that, if you’re sitting on the fence, your backside’s going to face somebody.

The reality though, Speaker, is that if you don’t want to get involved, then don’t use scab labour. There are a lot of ad agencies you can go to. I’m not saying not to advertise. I’m just saying, in the middle of a labour dispute, if you don’t want to show favouritism to the worker side and you don’t want to show favouritism to the employer side, then pull out completely. But don’t think you’re fooling the workers of Ontario if you are hiring and giving money to employers who use scab labour. If you think anyone believes you’re working for workers, you’re out to lunch. You’ve lost the thread.

Bill 124: I’ve got to be honest, Speaker, I can’t believe we’re still talking about Bill 124. This bill is a train wreck. When people look back at the last half decade of this government and they see Bill 124, they’re going to roll their eyes. I can’t believe that any Conservative MPP can go anywhere and talk about workers without someone yelling out “Bill 124” to you.

Bill 124, just if anyone is watching or reading this later on, caps public sector workers at 1%. We are in a level of financial crisis like you’ve never seen before. I can’t remember if it’s 6.5% or 7% just last year alone, but typically the cost of living is 2% to 3% every year. So if you cap somebody at 1%, basically what you’re doing is, you’re giving them a haircut. You’re telling them you’re not taking home as much money as you did last time. Your spending power is going to go down.

We went through COVID, we went through a health care crisis, and the people on the front lines who were deemed essential workers—in health care, in long-term care—all these public sector workers were told, “You are not worth any money.” I want to be clear about this: When you tell someone that they are worth less, you are telling them they’re worthless. That’s what you’re telling the workers.

Bill 124 capped it. I was sitting on this side over here somewhere, but I remember talking about Bill 124 and what it stated, and I said, “You’re going to lose. I’m not a labour lawyer, but, come on, this bill is unconstitutional. You’re going to lose.” I should have put money on it. I should have bet with the minister on it, because in November 2022, Justice Markus Koehnen of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled that Bill 124 breached the charter and was therefore void.

You have an unconstitutional law that we told you was unconstitutional—and honestly, Speaker, you know as well as I do that the Conservative government has great lawyers. They’re going to be busy now with the greenbelt. They have great lawyers. They knew it was unconstitutional. They have lawyers on their bench who could have told them it was unconstitutional. If a guy from the smelter can tell you it’s unconstitutional, I’m sure a guy who actually went to law school could tell you. So you have an unconstitutional bill, you table it anyway, and you go through it anyway. You fight and you pay the court costs to fight it. Then the justice for the Ontario Superior Court says, “You breached the charter. It’s void.” And do you go, “Oh, my God, I’m sorry about that,” and repeal it? No. Oh, no. You double down. I think the theory is—I believe the reason the Conservatives do this, Speaker, is because it’s not their money, right?

I talk about Zapp Brannigan—which seems inappropriate for a guy my age. In Futurama, Zapp Brannigan is like a caricature of Kirk from Star Trek. One of the phrases he says is, “I’ll send wave after wave of men to their death to fight my pointless battle.” I think of that when it comes to lawyer fees for the Conservative government. They fight everything. They lose everything, but they don’t care. It’s not their money; it’s taxpayer money. Blow as much as you want—because they will float a bill called Working for Workers and people will think they’re helping them out, and maybe people won’t notice that they’re just blowing taxpayer money left and right on all these ridiculous ideas.

Look, you lost the first time. If anyone wants to put bets—I’m going to say you’re going to lose the second one—I’m taking it. I’ll take any bet that you got on this. You’re going to lose the second one. I have read a lot of arbitrator decisions. They’re not the same as this level, but look, there’s no wiggle room in this. It’s not just that the Conservatives lost, Speaker, it’s that their own witnesses helped them to lose. Their own witnesses proved what they were saying was the opposite of what they were saying. I cannot imagine they’re going to do well in this, but still, they’re appealing the decision.

This has gotten so bad that police officers are now talking to MPPs about Bill 124 and how it affects attracting people to the force, because the wages are capped. We know that our police officers are hard-working. We recognize that. One of our colleagues served as a police officer. When you have a job that a lot of kids sort of play as kids—I think we all played that we were police officers or firefighters; it’s one of the first jobs you understand as a kid. If you can’t attract people to come into that field because of Bill 124, maybe it’s time to listen and figure out how it’s damaging workplaces and jobs.

Bill 124—I mentioned it before—is a wage-restraint law and it capped wage increases to 1%. That was the max you can get. There were a lot of workplaces that tried to bargain below the 1% so people had to fight to get the 1%, which is unbelievable. There were also other workplaces that really didn’t need this. They weren’t going to be affected by it, but they were lumped in there.

When this was tabled in 2019, you could tell this was important. They were elected in 2018. In early 2019, one of the first things the Conservative government said was, “Let’s punish workers. What’s the best way we can do that? Well, let’s freeze their wages at 1%.” The President of the Treasury Board, when it was tabled, said, “We want to shrink the province’s budget deficits.” What he didn’t say, but what I read into it, was, “Let’s shrink it on the backs of workers.” He said that Bill 124 would demonstrate respect for taxpayer dollars, ignoring all the people who were affected by it.

The outcome of this, though, is that with taxpayer dollars, you’ve blown a ton of money fighting this, and you’re blowing a ton of money appealing it. And just like with the Liberal government with Bill 115, you’re going to blow a ton of money on having to pay people out. You are wasting taxpayer dollars by doing this—not respecting them. You’re insulting the workers who are affected, and you’re insulting the workers who aren’t directly affected, because they’re going to have to pick up the tab and pay for your blunder, the Conservative mistake.

Do you know what’s happening because of Bill 124? Through the summer—when we were here just before we rose last time, I remember that one day Jessie who works in my office had to go home early because the smoke was so bad. I said, “You don’t have to stay here.” The smoke was that bad. We have an air purifier now to try to help with it. There were so many forest fires that when I was meeting with my colleagues who were state-elected officials, they were asking me why they got so much of our smoke from Canada. I’ve never seen fires like this—so many fires this summer. It was a hot summer. We said it was a hot labour summer. It was also a hot, burning summer. In Ontario, we were 50 fire crews short. In the summer that we had, when every time you turned on the news there was a fire somewhere, we were 50 crews short. Part of that was because the Conservative government had cut 67% of funding for wildfire management programs—67%; that’s more than half. I’m not great with math, but I know that without nearly 70% of your funding, you’re probably not going to do as good of a job. There was a myth for a long time about doing more with less. Come on, man. There’s no more fat to cut; we’ve gone through the muscle, we’re into the bone, and we’re going to start ripping out the marrow soon. You cannot cut 67% of funding for wildfire management programs and think that you’re going to do a decent job. God bless the workers out there bending over backwards to do this work.

This is what I was told when I met with OPSEU: “The wage-suppressing Bill 124 has negatively impacted many government departments and I am well aware of the high turnover that does persist in Ontario’s aviation, forest fire and emergency services because of low pay and precarious work, which has made the crisis even worse. Ultimately, this means there are not enough experienced fire rangers to lead crews.”

That is not working for workers or respecting workers. That makes things unsafe in a workplace that really is about a hazard and addressing a hazard, that provides safety for all of us.

Near here, USW Local 1998, the Steelworkers union—they’re the staff-appointed union at the University of Toronto—recently voted 95.4% in favour of going on strike, if necessary. I want to spell that out, because I remember the power workers talked about a final vote offer, and the Premier got up and said, “I’ll force them back to work.” This is a strike vote, so just cool your jets a little bit. This gives the mandate, saying that the workers are frustrated and fed up, and that if they can’t reach a deal, they’re going to go on strike; they’ll have a vote to go on strike. The reason they’re saying this and the reason they’re giving their elected negotiating committee the right to call for this job action with such a strong mandate, up to and including a strike, is because the university is telling them, “Oh, Bill 124—we can’t give more than 1%.” The University of Toronto is a university with deep pockets. I walk home sometimes through their campus. You can get pretty tired walking through that campus. It’s a big place. They have a lot of money. They’re doing okay. They know they can’t argue about that funding, the money that they have. What they can argue about, though, is, “Oh, the Conservative government can’t let us do it.” This is what it means for workers.

I don’t see the Conservative government in the corner for workers. I see them in the corner for big business, time and time again. We saw this during COVID. Remember, during COVID, all the small businesses had to close down, but Walmart and Galen Weston’s Loblaws got to stay open? That didn’t help workers. That didn’t even help small business owners. It always comes that way. Whenever we ask questions about labour disputes—“I can’t get involved”. But the minute the Premier hears the whiff that there might be a final offer vote, he says, “I’ll legislate them back to work”—like that; he can’t wait.

There was an interesting development with ONA when it comes to Bill 124. ONA told me that ONA members are leaving their jobs because vacancies were not being filled, creating unmanageable workloads leading to burnout and exhaustion driving employees from the workplace—ONA, nurses. Just out front of these windows, you’ll see a whole bunch of hospitals. Lots of hospitals across the province are just desperate for nurses and health care workers—walking out the door.

One of the members opposite talked about tradespeople retiring—the average age is somewhere around 50—and that they’re walking out the doors. It isn’t just the workers. It’s not a numbers game; it’s a skills game, as well. If I was to be a new nurse, I want to be paired with a nurse who has been around for a long time, who can tell me and teach me what they’ve done.

It’s the same as in the trades. The reason you have an apprenticeship system in the trades is so that, as you’re learning, someone who has been there for a long time can help you improve, show you the things that you need to know, and take the stuff out of the book and show it works practically.

ONA, the Ontario Nurses’ Association, are basically quitting their jobs because of Bill 124—being burnt out. In the arbitrator’s decision on this, they gave them raises on top of the 3.5%; 3.5% this year, 3% next year, roughly about 11% of the two years for the average nurse.

Arbitrators are overruling your decisions to appeal this, because it’s wishy-washy now, because it’s unconstitutional. Ontario’s Financial Accountability Officer said the cost to the province will be approximately $900 million, just for ONA alone. There are a lot of workers in the public sector. When you talk about respecting taxpayers’ dollars, you’re not. You’re not. You’re going to be paying them $900 million just for this union alone, and that is if they don’t lose the appeal, because it increases by an additional $2.7 billion if you lose the appeal, which I’m willing to bet you will.

I don’t understand why you tabled it in the first place. I don’t understand why you fought it. I don’t understand why you continue to fight Bill 124, because you keep costing the taxpayers of Ontario more and more money. You keep insulting the public sector workers. These workers that you talk about are the heart and soul? These are public sector workers as well. You turn a blind eye to them.

In estimates, I asked the Minister of Labour, “Treasury Board said that Bill 124 would demonstrate respect for taxpayers’ dollars, so would you agree that you can better respect the taxpayers’ dollars if you could have saved all these lawyer fees and associated court costs?” He didn’t really know how to answer. I think he didn’t know how to answer, because it’s kind of true, right?

Something we could be doing and that should be in this bill is that we should be figuring out how to raise the minimum wage. Now, in my notes, I wrote down that the Conservative government often talks about the number of unfulfilled jobs. The new Minister of Labour said, I think in the third or fourth sentence, that we have got to fill these jobs. We have to pay people enough that they can buy food and put food on their table, put clothes on their kids’ backs, and pay their rent. I was at the Metro picket line on Bloor Street—I was with a bunch of them, but I went to the one on Bloor Street and workers there talked about not being able to buy the food at Metro. Imagine working at a grocery store and not being able to shop at the grocery store where you work. I hear this from tradespeople too.

I know the Conservative government loves to talk about the trades and the jobs are there. They’re great jobs. I was an electrician’s apprentice. I worked in construction. They’re good jobs and they pay well. They are good jobs, but more and more, these workers with these good-paying jobs that the minister likes to talk about aren’t able to buy the houses that they’re building.

I built some places that I couldn’t afford either. That happens, but the reality for a lot of people who are in the trades right now is that they can’t afford a house. There are no more starter houses. There are no more affordable houses.

More and more, we’re saying, “Come and get involved in trades, because you can work all day, long hours, and you’ll never be able to afford a house.” How is that message going to attract somebody? It’s not. It’s not going to. We need to address this.

Now, let’s just talk about the elephant in the room. We have minimum wage. I know it’s a delicate balance. If you’re an employer paying minimum wage, you’re trying to balance the books and all that stuff, but there are a large majority of people or workplaces who pay minimum wage that can—don’t tell me for a second that Walmart can’t afford to pay more than minimum wage. Don’t tell me for a second that McDonald’s can’t afford to pay more than minimum wage. Don’t argue with me that it’s going to raise prices. It’s going to raise prices because they can. We see this every day at the grocery store. Every day in the grocery store, we see this. They raise them because they can. My son who likes one particular brand of popcorn: Why is it at one store, the large chain, $4 more than the smaller store? Because they can.

You’re telling me Galen Weston can’t get a better price than a local mom-and-pop place? Come on. We’re getting gouged. We know it. The people of Ontario know it. They go to the grocery store and they see the price go up. They see that milk is $3 more than it used to be. What’s going on? We’re being gouged.

It’s the same as gas prices. I was talking about this on the drive down. The price of gas in Sudbury is a lot higher than it is here. I’m always told there’s this myth that the reason gas is a little pricier is because of the shipping. Look, if you go to North Bay, it’s about an hour and a half from where I live. It’s always 10 cents cheaper, and they always say it’s the shipping cost. Well, if it’s the shipping cost, then how come beer isn’t more? Because it’s an hour and a half for beer. How come it’s not more for a can of juice or a bottle of pop? How come it’s not more for milk? All of these are liquids that are being shipped. It’s because we’re getting gouged, and we know it. Because they can.

But going back to minimum wage and the cost: The elephant in the room is that people who are working full time can’t pay their bills. That really is something that has to be addressed. And more and more people are going to food banks. I mentioned this earlier with my first question to the Minister of Labour; it had to do with the number of people accessing food banks. We can’t have working people accessing food banks. The previous Minister of Labour, in estimates just a couple of weeks ago—I said that I know this started with the Liberal government. It’s not fair to the Conservative government to say, “Hey, you’re elected, it’s 2018, and now there’s a record number of people going to food banks who are working full time—more than ever before.” It’s a problem they inherited. But let’s keep this in reality. They’ve been in power for five years, half a decade. That number should start to trend down, and it’s not; it’s getting worse, as my colleague said. It’s getting worse.

I think if you want to show leadership in government, let’s put food banks out of business. Let’s tell them, “We have a plan, and you’re not going to be needed in the next five years or 10 years. We’re going to continue to reduce this. You might have to worry about food going bad on your shelves, because we don’t think more and more people should be going to food banks—more and more seniors and retirees, more and more working people, more and more children. We think this is the wrong direction, and we want to turn around the other way.” That’s something that could be in this bill, but it’s not. I believe the Conservative government is pretty happy with people going to food banks. It doesn’t bother them. It bothers me.

The thing, too, with food banks, Speaker, is that it’s cyclical, because if you’re going to a food bank, you don’t have extra money to donate to a food bank. And as more and more people go, less and less people can donate. At one point, people are going to show up and those cupboards are going to be bare, and we’re going to have kids go hungry. We’re going to have adults too, but I feel like a lot of times people are okay with adults going hungry. But kids are going hungry.

Feed Ontario had shared recently, “Ontario’s food banks were visited more than 4,353,000 times throughout the year, an increase of 42% over the last three years,” and “There has been a 47% increase in people with employment accessing food banks since 2018.” That’s a lot of people going—47%. And I’ll remind you that that was since 2018, and the government was elected in 2018. Obviously, they can’t fix the Liberal mistake right in the beginning, but five years later, this number shouldn’t continue to climb. It should be going down. That’s what they should be celebrating. It’s substantial. Daily Bread locally here in Toronto, their stat I had from 2022 was, “The proportion of food bank clients with full-time employment has doubled in the past year”—2022—“to 33%.” That’s 33% of people going to that food bank, just that one Daily Bread Food Bank; it has doubled.

Here’s the other thing about food banks. I only have two minutes left, but I want to talk about this because it is important. People on Ontario Works and the Ontario Disability Support Program, people who are on support from the government of Ontario—some are unable to work. Look, you have people on OW and ODSP who have to go to food banks. I spelled this out a couple of other times. If you’re a single individual on OW—Ontario Works, the old welfare system, if people are watching at home and don’t know the latest information—you get $733 a month. I don’t know how anybody can afford rent. Inflation has risen in 2018—since the last stat—by 16.68%. If you’re on disability, you get a little more than $733; you get $1,229 per month to survive, which is $900 below the poverty line. I looked up the numbers just to make sure. The government of Ontario website says that Ontario recipients receive up to $733 a month for basic needs and shelter, so that’s everything to make ends meet. A single person on ODSP with no dependents will receive a maximum of $1,308 per month. So they’re about the same; there’s about a $50 difference between the two stats, Daily Bread’s and the local numbers. We’ll use the higher numbers, though.

My riding, if you want to get a one-bedroom apartment, if you want some sort of dignity and to live by yourself, you’re looking at about a grand. In the former Minister of Labour’s riding, it was $1,200 to $1,400, but a grand is easier for math. So you have a thousand bucks just to cover your rent. On OW, you make $733. That means that every month, you’ve got to come up with $267—every single month: $267.

How do you find a job, how do you move forward in life when you don’t have enough money for food, when you’ve got to find more than $250 just to have a roof over your head and not get evicted? How do you focus on anything else besides basic survival with these terrible rates? It’s disgraceful. It has nothing to do with working for workers.

My clock is up. Sorry, Speaker.

None.

The member from Mississauga–Malton spoke eloquently about regulated professions and recognizing qualifications that come from outside Canada, and this bill propose to do exactly that. It states, “A regulated profession may accept Canadian experience in satisfaction of a qualification for registration only if it also accepts alternatives.”

Does the member support that, and will he vote for it?

Thank you so much to my colleague from Sudbury for the very thoughtful remarks on this bill. I always learn so much when our labour critic speaks.

I especially appreciated the fact that the member from Sudbury shared so many facts right now about workers’ demand for food banks. It’s something that we’re seeing in Ottawa West–Nepean, where the local food bank had to add Saturday hours because people who are at work full-time Monday to Friday need to access the food bank on Saturdays.

One of the things that’s driving this, of course, and one of the most vulnerable categories of workers, are people who are working, but they’re seeing their wages withheld in part or in full by their employers, who are not paying the wages that they’re owed. We’ve seen the number of inspections taking place by this government drop precipitously. They’re not enforcing orders when orders are made. In fact, only one third of workers are actually getting wages that are being withheld by their employers.

Does the member not agree that a government that was actually interested in working for workers would actually crack down hard on wage theft?

To the member opposite, thank you very much for your speech. Something we’ve noticed is that, with so many immigrants coming into our province—and we know that we do need more people coming in to fulfill the jobs that are going unfulfilled. I’m sure you can agree that, when it comes to credentialing, it is important that workers’ credentials are recognized here in Ontario because we know this is a critical way of ensuring that when people come here, they can get to work now and in their specific field, as well. Our proposal includes several measures that will help clarify existing legislation and help people start to work in their appropriate field.

My question to you is, do you agree that this is a move in the right direction and it will help address our province’s labour shortage in these critical sectors?

I appreciate the member opposite talking about these members. We talked about this in the bill, the importance of having supports for these members so they don’t lose pay when they’re gone, so they don’t lose their benefits when they’re gone. That’s what I’m talking about. I said several times in the bill and previously in second reading of the bill that this is a headline bill. This isn’t really about helping people. It’s the bare minimum you can do to help somebody.

What I’m saying is that I also believe that reservists are an important part of our society, and the work they do is very valuable. I have friends in the reserves. I think what they do is honourable, and I’m very proud of people like John. But the reality is, I think we can do better than what they’re offering here, and we should be doing better.

This is about people’s credentials being recognized. I have to tell you that there is no stronger advocate in this room whom I’ve ever spoken with than the member from Scarborough Southwest. We have regular meetings as part of the labour file and looking at this. It’s shameful—I believe my colleagues feel the same way—that people come over here with credentials—and I’m talking about doctorates or tradespeople—and aren’t able to find work or able to do the work that they’re so successful in. And we need to build a faster pathway for them to get the credentials they need to fill those jobs.

On something like this, I’m aligned on it 100%. I know that we need people to come here and be new Canadians. I’m thrilled with everyone who chooses Sudbury as their home. And I want them to be as successful as they can be, as quickly as they can be.

I want to thank again the member for Scarborough Southwest for all of her advocacy and passion on this file.

Look, the reality is, a lot of these workers whose wages are being stolen from them by their employer are not well-paid to begin with. Every dollar is very, very important and goes much further to them. Why a Conservative government would say they’re working for workers but won’t help address wage theft from employers makes no sense to me at all. And I 100% agree with the member from Ottawa West–Nepean that we should be focusing on this. Workers work hard and they deserve every single dollar that’s coming to them.

Questions?

It’s a pleasure to rise today and welcome back my colleagues after our summer. I’d also like to congratulate our new Minister of Labour. He’s obviously a quick study and I appreciate his comments this morning.

My question to the member opposite—and I thank him for his comments as well. In my riding, I have Base Borden. Base Borden has been proudly training our armed forces, the men and women of our armed forces, since 1916. This past August, I was at Peacekeepers Park, in Angus, and heard retired Major-General Lewis MacKenzie speak about our proud history of peacekeeping: 59 UN peacekeeping missions going back to 1949, and over 160,000 Canadians who have committed to keeping peace in the world.

My question to the member opposite is, we know that reservists play a key role in that, and this legislation guarantees them the same types of health benefits when they come home, including mental health. I’d like to know if he supports that.

All right. That’s what I’m talking about. Thank you, guys.

And thank you, Madam Speaker, for the time here. It’s an honour to speak to this legislation, the Working for Workers 3 legislation, a three-peat, as I might call it in my WhatsApp group chats.

Before I begin, I just want to welcome colleagues on both sides back to the session. Man, what a privilege it is to serve in this House with all of you. I’ve given a lot of speeches over the summer at a lot of events but there’s a different energy when you are speaking in this place. Thank you to my constituents again for sending me here to be their voice.

Getting back to business and talking about the business that our government does so well, which is working for workers: The proposed amendments—

Interjections.

The proposed amendments in this bill will help position Ontario as the most competitive jurisdiction in North America. To be honest, Speaker, with the rate at which people are choosing to come to Ontario increasing every month, I’m sure we’re not going to be looking at being the most competitive in North America for very long—we’re tackling the world and we’re tackling the global stage in a major way.

In Brampton, where I’m from, nearly 58% of the total population is involved in the labour force. In 2021, Brampton residents represented 10.6% of the GTA labour force and 4.8%, almost 5%, of the entire labour force across Ontario. That’s almost 2% of the Canadian labour force, all within the city of Brampton. I’d say that Brampton is a small city with a big heart, but frankly, the once forgotten city is actually the ninth largest in the entire country, and we are growing; we’re growing rapidly, Madam Speaker. The 2021 census count had a total population of 656,480 in Brampton, which is an increase of 10.6%, or 62,842 people, from the 2016 census. You compare that 10% growth to the national average of 5.2%, or you compare that to the provincial average of 5.8%. My city of Brampton, our population, our workforce is growing at double the speed of anywhere else in the country.

Speaker, in the same time as the population grew by 10.6%, the labour force grew by 11%. Not only are we punching above our weight in terms of population growth, but a disproportionate amount of the newcomers in Brampton are actually participating in the workforce. When we talk about working for workers, there’s not a better place to share that message and a place where that message is better received than the city of Brampton. And all to say that Brampton is not small. Brampton is a big, growing place, a booming place, despite the fact that we had been ignored by the previous Liberal government for 15 years. But our government is getting it done for Brampton. We’re getting it done for every single worker inside of its borders and out. Speaker, this bill, particularly, that we’re debating today enhances the employment experience, builds a more competitive labour market and it protects vulnerable workers.

Brampton is home to a significant percentage of the province’s workforce, but we also have the fifth-largest new-Canadian population in Canada and the third-biggest newcomer population in Ontario. There are over 250 different cultural origins and 171 different spoken languages reported in Brampton in the 2021 census. Over half of our population was born in another country. That’s something that fills me with pride. Brampton is home to hard-working, good people who came to this country in search of a better life.

Over the summer, I had the pleasure of meeting directly with so many of these Brampton North residents who told me about their story. Sometimes, their story coming to our country to live the Canadian dream was one of desperation. Other times, it was a story of opportunity. But one thing each and every story had in common was trust. They had trust in Canada, trust in Ontario, that they would find a home where they can live a life that they dreamed of.

Speaker, I can’t tell you how many people we met over the last summer who took the leap of faith to leave their place of birth and bring their dream, fuelled by hope, to our beautiful city. We’re very lucky that they chose to do so. Being a Brampton boy, born and raised, I couldn’t even imagine leaving my life behind and moving somewhere else and picking up and bringing my family along with me and starting over again in another country.

Thanks to the work of the Minister of Labour and our former Minister of Labour and our Premier and our government, the PC caucus, we’re ensuring that new Canadians receive opportunities that put them in a position to succeed in this province. Frankly, as we’ve heard, and we’ll hear more in the session, with the economic development we’re going as a province, there’s plenty of opportunity for new Canadians to succeed.

Speaker, I would like to talk a little bit about Ontario’s labour shortage, which our government has been fighting hard to reduce while managing the unprecedented housing crisis. We have a labour shortage of about 400,000 jobs that are unfilled right now that are waiting for the workers to come and fill. In order to continue to welcome new Canadians and young Canadians to fill those roles, we also have to make sure they have a place where they can afford to live, which is why we’re building 1.5 million homes by 2031.

Despite thousands of jobs going unfilled every day, only one in four newcomers are working in the field they trained for, which is a total injustice. It boggles my mind. One of the troubles we have at Queen’s Park is we look at big statistics. We hear “400,000 unfilled jobs.” That’s a massive number, and you think, “How could that be when—on the anecdotal, on-the-ground level—I had lunch at Montana’s three weeks ago, I saw three separate newcomers coming in with résumés, trying to get service positions?”

How can we have 400,000 unfilled jobs, but we don’t have enough jobs for the people that we do have in Brampton? Addressing that disconnect is something that our government is taking charge on. It’s something that we’re leading on. Quite frankly, colleagues, it’s something that we have to get right.

We’ve started the work and we’re leading the country by recognizing foreign credentials. We banned Canadian work experience requirements, we’ve streamlined language testing and we’ve mandated processing times. Last year, our government invested an additional $15.1 million over the next three years to improve and expand our Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program. We’ve increased how many people we’re nominating since 2021 by 100%; we’ve doubled it from 9,000 to 18,000 in 2025. All of these actions have one goal: to get people working in the fields that they are trained for faster so they can earn bigger paycheques for themselves, have the life they dreamed of when they’ve left their home and, frankly, benefit existing Ontarians by growing our economy and increasing our wealth creation as a province.

I think some of the most important aspects of our Working for Workers plan are the strides being taken to advance credential recognition. Our government is proud that Ontario is a destination for many newcomers who have come here for a better life. Frankly, newcomers create businesses in our communities. They fill much needed roles in our society. They spark our entrepreneurial spirit. According to statistics, about a third of our labour force came to Ontario from another country. Brampton, particularly my community, has benefited tremendously from this.

Speaker, in 2016, only one quarter of internationally trained immigrants in regulated professions were working in jobs that matched their level of qualification. With that number of 400,000 jobs that are unfilled across the province, that’s costing our economy billions in lost output, not to mention the dreams that are being cost by newcomers working in a field different than the one that they trained for. We are working to create a clear path for them to fully apply their skills and introduced proposed changes that would, if passed, help remove barriers for newcomers to get licensed and find jobs that match their qualifications and skills.

Reducing newcomer unemployment and helping them find good jobs could increase Ontario’s GDP by $12 billion to $20 billion in each of the next five years. These changes would build on the work the province is already doing to help highly skilled internationally trained immigrants find work in their field of expertise. Our government previously announced that we’re investing $68 million to help internationally trained immigrants access programs designed to bridge their experience with the needs of employers in their community. This would impact 23 trades and 14 professions, such as lawyers, engineers, architects, plumbers, electricians, accountants, hairstylists, teachers and early childhood educators, which include a number of professions that not only would help us combat the labour shortage, but are good-paying jobs that will help support their families and support our province as we are continuing to grow and continuing to get it done.

It’s not only about the newcomers that we have yet to get, Speaker; the immigrants that are working currently, we have their backs too. For example, we’ve put forward legislation that would include strengthening protections for vulnerable workers by establishing the highest maximum fines in Canada for employers and recruiters who are convicted of taking possession of or retaining a foreign national’s passport or work permit.

Imagine you’ve come to Canada with the dream of a better life, and your employer is weaponizing your paperwork and your documentation to drive an outcome. We have established the highest fines for these wrongful employers. It’s an unfortunate practice that has been going on for far too long, and our government is taking a stand to protect these vulnerable people. With this, individuals convicted of taking possession or retaining passports or work permits under EPFNA would be liable to either a fine of $500,000 or 12 months of imprisonment, or both, and corporations convicted of the same offence would be liable to a fine of up to $1 million.

To protect all workers, Ontario is also proposing to increase the maximum fine for corporations convicted of an offence under the Occupational Health and Safety Act from $1.5 million to $2 million, which would give Ontario the highest maximum corporate fine under workplace health and safety legislation in Canada. This expands on the groundbreaking action our government has already committed to under Working for Workers 1 and Working for Workers 2 in 2021 and 2022, which are already helping millions of people.

Speaker, I would also like to touch on our government’s mission to get more people into the trades. Speaking of the 400,000 unfilled jobs that we have, that’s almost 100,000 unfilled jobs in the construction sector over the next 10 years alone, which are exciting careers, in demand, with good pay and good benefits. This is part of the reason why our government is investing a historic $1.5 billion over four years into the skilled trades. For years, the skilled trades were neglected. One in three journeypersons are over the age of 55 and retiring soon, and the average apprentice is about 29 years old.

Last year, we launched Skilled Trades Ontario, a new crown agency that will promote the trades; develop the latest training and curriculum standards; provide a streamlined one-window approach for services such as registration, credentials and exams; and deliver programs.

Our government is dedicated to work with labour and businesses to break the stigma around the trades, simplify the path to becoming a journeyperson and encourage employers to take on apprentices. We’re empowering the everyday person to shift toward a job that will reward and empower them like they would not believe, and encouraging the next generation to get involved sooner.

We’re implementing a new high school graduation requirement to help better prepare students across our province for the jobs of tomorrow. Starting with students entering grade 9 in September 2024, only a year away, all students will now be required to earn a grade 9 or 10 technological education credit as part of their Ontario secondary school diploma, which will help expose them to a course that could help guide them to a future career in a highly skilled workforce, which can lead to better outcomes, better jobs and bigger paycheques for our young people.

Speaker, with more than 100,000 unfilled skilled trades jobs right now, it’s critical that Ontario attracts more young people to pursue a fulfilling, good-paying career in the trades. It’s okay to not be a lawyer or a doctor—or a politician.

As well, very soon, students in grade 11 can transition to a full-time skilled trades apprenticeship program and earn their high school diploma. This change means that students can enter the skilled trades faster than ever before.

Additionally, our government is undertaking consultations starting this fall with employers, unions, educators, trainers, parents and others on how make it easier for young people to get into the trades. With the generational gap that we have, with the infrastructure shortage we have, and with the work that we need to get done, this is work that our government needs to get right. We need to get it right as a province. The consultations will explore the potential of altering academic entry requirements for certain skilled trades in Ontario to allow students to enter the trades sooner.

Since 2020, Ontario has invested nearly $1 billion to make it easier to learn a trade, breaking the stigma, attracting youth, simplifying the system and encouraging employer participation.

Speaker, our government also recognizes the evolution of the workplace for many Ontarians. We are working for workers by proposing updates to employment laws that would respond to more workers being remote, and a changing economy. Under the proposed changes, employees who work solely from home would be eligible for the same enhanced notice as in-office employees in mass termination situations, which would ensure that remote employees receive the same eight-week minimum notice of termination or pay in lieu, which protects workers and prevents companies from taking advantage of people.

The COVID-19 pandemic initiated the largest shift to remote work in history. In the fourth quarter of 2022, about 2.2 million people worked from home, with about 1.4 million doing so on an exclusive basis and about 800,000 doing so on a hybrid basis. I want to assure all of those workers who are working from home, who have shifted, that our government has your back.

We also have the backs of our men and women in uniform, the way that they’ve had our backs all along, and we’re introducing new job protection for injured military reservists. Of the 40,000 Canadian soldiers deployed in Afghanistan, nearly one in seven developed a mental disorder attributed to the mission. That’s based on stats that we know were reported. We know the stigma around mental health; never mind what’s under-reported. Frankly, that number is probably bigger than one in seven. These brave men and women put their lives on hold to protect our freedom. They deserve the peace of mind that their job will not only be protected when they’re away but also that they have the time that they need to recover.

Our government is working for workers by introducing new legislation that would guarantee military reservists can return to their civilian jobs after deployment, even if they need additional time off to recover from physical or mental injuries.

In addition, Ontario would be the first province in Canada to provide job protection to reservists who respond and deploy to domestic emergencies immediately after starting a new job. Our proposed change would make reservists eligible for job-protected leave when deploying abroad or upgrading their military skills after just two months, as opposed to the current three.

Speaker, one of the last points I want to touch on is what our government is doing for another group of heroes in Ontario. Of course, I’m talking about first responders, our brave firefighters. One of the stats that was shocking to me to learn about, and I know we’ve spoken about it in the House, is firefighters die of cancer at a rate up to four times higher than the general population. On average, 50 to 60 firefighters die of cancer yearly in Canada, and half of those are from Ontario. I think everyone here today has a personal story when it comes to cancer. Our brave firefighters run into danger, putting their own lives at risk. It is about time they receive the support that they deserve.

That’s why our government is making it faster and easier for these heroes and their families to access compensation and support they are entitled to. Proposed changes would presume thyroid and pancreatic cancers to be work-related and streamline the assessment of workplace injury claims. I also want to highlight, Speaker, that these changes made to claims related to thyroid and pancreatic cancers would be retroactive to January 1, 1960. Firefighters have a proud history of putting their necks on the line for Ontarians and they deserve a government that’s willing to put the government’s neck on the line for them.

Speaker, this bill is building on our government’s tireless efforts to protect the most vulnerable and increase opportunities for success while combatting our urgent labour shortage and housing crisis. And we are seeing results. More and more people are being connected to the support they need; it is changing their lives. Their commitment and dedication, however, when all is said and done, is truly what matters, and that is what defines the work that we are doing—workers coming together to build our province to the next level.

Ontario is growing every day. We are developing our infrastructure, our employment opportunities every day. We have exciting projects like the Bradford Bypass, like Highway 413, like the Ontario Line, like the 50 hospitals that are currently either being built or being renovated across Ontario, like the 1.5 million homes that we’re building over the next 10 years. There is no shortage of opportunity in Ontario. We want to assure all workers that while they have our back and have the people’s back by doing the important work, their government has their back too. And I believe that’s what this bill is doing. As we grow every day in strength and size, it’s our labour force serving as the backbone of this province, and our government has every worker’s back.

This is a very, very good bill which is going to improve the lives of workers across Ontario, not only this year but for decades to come. I certainly will be intending to vote for it myself, and I hope all my colleagues do as well.

Further debate?

Interjections.

I mentioned earlier in a response about the need for us to recognize the qualifications people have when they come here from other countries, and that if there are certain things we have to adjust so that we hit the right threshold, there should be a way to fast-track them. So, 100%, I think that’s an important issue as well.

The problem, though, Speaker, is that in these bills—and we hear it all the time, and I’ve got to tell you, it’s frustrating. People in my community tell me all the time. You put forward a bill with a poison pill in it, and maybe not this one specifically, but time and time again, there’s a bill and part of the bill is pretty good and part of it has stuff that no one would be able to support. Then what the Conservative government loves to do, Speaker, is point at the good part of the bill and say, “This is what the member voted against.” Let’s not do that anymore. Let’s not play games. Let’s have bills that actually help people. Let’s pull out the poison pills from them. It doesn’t make sense; it’s a nonsense thing. Honestly, if you think somebody, at the door, believes that I don’t support long-term care or whatever your nugget is—come on, let’s just get back to reality.

I listened to my friend from Brampton North intently. I have a question for him, given the intent about Working for Workers. There’s another bill before this House that would seem to suggest the government’s commitment to this may be a little fickle. I’m thinking about transit workers, the people who were there to move us around in the middle of the pandemic, who put themselves at risk, who are facing situations of violence on our transit system all the time—and we’ve talked about that in this place. Schedule 1 of Bill 131 before this House allows the TTC here in the great city of Toronto to enter into agreements with other regional transit authorities where the collective agreement signed with employees in those transit systems would not apply.

Can the member from Brampton North clarify if he believes in the value of collective bargaining agreements, if he believes that those collective bargaining agreements negotiated in good faith with employers in transit should remain in force in any transit arrangement this government comes up with?

Questions?

I want to thank my colleague for the question and also commend him on riding a bike here from Ottawa. It’s remarkable. I don’t think I would ever have the courage to do it, or the physical endurance or the mental endurance and all kinds of things. That’s on the Hansard now, so that’s there forever. I don’t think that’s a position I’m going to flip-flop on. I commend my colleague on that.

I do want to take the chance to highlight—in Brampton, we have some of the best transit workers you could ask for. While municipalities across Ontario saw ridership go down during the pandemic, we were actually the first city to bounce back, and now we’re at 120% of our old ridership, because of the front-line workers who work in my city.

So we’re always going to stand up for transit workers. They deserve to feel safe in their community, and our government will continue—

What I can say is, we’ve got a—

Interjections.

Look, we’ve got to stand up for our first responders. We’ve got to stand up for workers and that’s exactly what we are doing. I really hope that this member will come out in support of—I haven’t seen the member’s supportive statement about the changes we made about thyroid and pancreatic cancers, retroactive back to 1960. I haven’t heard the member say whether or not the member believes that’s a good idea, but I hope the member will stand with the PC caucus in banging that drum and making sure that we’re standing up and giving the firefighters the respect that they deserve. So I hope the member will stand up for them in her community as well and do that as well.

Our government put forward a really ambitious agenda about building highways, building transit, right? We see the historic investment of the Highway 413 in my community. That’s going to be revolutionary for residents in my community, not only the residents that drive to work and drive home every day, but for our truck drivers who—talking about front-line workers, our truck drivers are heroes just the same. You think about the 50 hospitals: The Premier says that it doesn’t matter what corner of Ontario you’re in, you’re either getting a new hospital or you’re getting a renovation on your existing hospital. Well, all of these things that we’re building are going to need workers to do that.

And I think I got heckled by the Windsor member. I think she’s mad she voted against the hospital in her riding, in her part of the world, but she also voted against the Brampton one, in my part of the world, too, so I guess there’s nothing new there. But look, we need more people in the trades. Our government’s investing to do that—

I want to thank my colleague for his comments. I was particularly interested in the comments about the trades programs and the fact that the average age for people entering the trades is 29 because, in fact, my oldest son, Dylan, has just gone back to Georgian College for precision machining. So he’s one of the many that have gone into the trades now and will have, I think, a long and fruitful career.

What I’d like my colleague to speak to is the benefits of these programs, not only for the youth and those going into the trades, but also for our province and our economy.

The member talked about our first responders and our firefighters and presumptive legislation, but I want to be perfectly clear: That is not in this bill. You can talk about it, but it’s not in the bill.

My cousin was Captain Craig Bowman. We tabled a bill here called the Captain Craig Bowman law that would ensure that first responders were protected. He was denied. He died from esophageal cancer. He was denied because he was a firefighter for 23 years, not 25 years. Our bill would amend that law to make sure that more firefighters and their families would get the support that they needed, and I think it’s really disrespectful for you to talk about this when it is clear this is not in the bill.

My question to the member is, will you support our private members’ bill, the Captain Craig Bowman Act?

I want to thank my colleague from Brampton North for his presentation. My riding is not unlike his, in many aspects. I have a lot of new people moving into the riding, and in some of those cases they come to the riding with qualifications that are not necessarily Canadian-based. Part of this legislation that we’re debating today—well, under the old rules, they don’t have the Canadian qualifications so they couldn’t work in the skill that they’re qualified for. Under this proposed legislation, we’re proposing changes to those rules to recognize qualifications that were obtained outside of Canada. I’d like the member from Brampton North to talk about what the effect of this legislation is in his riding—because, again, not unlike mine, it’s very multicultural.

Women.