Good morning. Let us pray.

Prayers.

Miss Surma moved second reading of the following bill:

Bill 131, An Act to enact the GO Transit Station Funding Act, 2023 and to amend the City of Toronto Act, 2006 / Projet de loi 131, Loi édictant la Loi de 2023 sur le financement des stations du réseau GO et modifiant la Loi de 2006 sur la cité de Toronto.

I listened to my friends in the government intently, for both of those addresses. Thank you for those this morning.

My major concern as we looked through Bill 131, when it was given to us on Monday morning of this week, is that—the women and men who work in our transit systems do really difficult jobs, and they’re very proud of the working conditions they’ve built up in those jobs over decades. They’ve contacted me this week with concerns that schedule 1 of Bill 131 is an unnecessary intrusion into their bargaining rights; that there is an aspect of their collective bargaining agreement that allows service integration to happen between transit agencies; that the government doesn’t have to go back to this particular provision of making the contracting-out language of their collective bargaining agreements null and void, as it did under Bill 2. So my question to the minister and to the parliamentary assistant is, are you prepared, this week, to work with those transit partners who could help you get to where you want to go without going down that road?

To the Minister of Infrastructure: You touched early on in the hour leadoff this morning about some of the different experiences you’ve had when you’ve been overseas; namely, in Japan and some parts of Europe.

One thing I think we can all agree with here in Ontario—and, really, Canada, from a broader perspective—is that our rail transit is way, way behind, when you look at some of these other jurisdictions around the world.

I wonder if you could touch a little bit more on what you’ve seen in your travels, how that helps people get around a lot more efficiently, and what that will mean here in Ontario.

On a point of order: Pursuant to standing order 9(f), I wish to inform the House that there shall be no business during tomorrow morning’s meeting.