This petition is “Pass Anti-Scab Labour Legislation.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas the use of replacement workers undermines workers’ collective power, unnecessarily prolongs labour disputes, and removes the essential power that the withdrawal of labour is supposed to give workers to help end a dispute, that is, the ability to apply economic pressure;

“Whereas the use of scab labour contributes to higher-conflict picket lines, jeopardizes workplace safety, destabilizes normalized labour relations between workers and their employers and removes the employer incentive to negotiate and settle fair contracts; and

“Whereas strong and fair anti-scab legislation will help lead to shorter labour disputes, safer workplaces, and less hostile picket lines;

“Whereas similar legislation has been introduced in British Columbia and Quebec with no increases to the number of strike or lockout days;

“Whereas Ontario had anti-scab legislation under an NDP government, that was unfortunately ripped away from workers by the Harris Conservatives;

“We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

“To prohibit employers from using replacement labour for the duration of any legal strike or lockout, except for very limited use to undertake essential maintenance work to protect the safety and integrity of the workplace;

“To prohibit employers from using both external and internal replacement workers;

“To include significant financial penalties for employers who defy the anti-scab legislation; and

“To support Ontario’s workers and pass anti-scab labour legislation, like the Ontario NDP Bill 90, the Anti-Scab Labour Act, 2023.”

I absolutely agree with this and am signing it and thinking of every ACTRA member in Toronto–St. Paul’s.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas the” Conservative “government cancelled rent control on units built after November 2018;

“Whereas the cost to rent a home has never been higher;

“Whereas people are being forced to leave their communities because decent, affordable homes are increasingly out of reach;

“Whereas the rent control for all units act, 2022, will ensure tenants are not gouged on rent each year;

“We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to protect tenants from predatory rent increases and pass the NDP rent control for all units act today to ensure renters can live in safe and affordable homes.”

I couldn’t agree more with this, especially as tenants in St. Paul’s are hit by apartments with no rent controls.

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.