She wasn’t in the House when I was able to acknowledge her, but she’s here now: Rangina Kargar, who was my staff, who was a member of Parliament in Afghanistan who had to flee Afghanistan when the Taliban took over the country, making it extremely unsafe for women to lead and for women to live. I’m so thankful to have Rangina serving here in Ontario with her family. Thank you, Rangina.

I agree with the member opposite. Our farmers throughout Ontario are being punished by a ridiculous Liberal ideology that is driving this carbon tax to increase the cost of production and ultimately the cost of everything, and it is unsustainable.

Do you know what’s really worrisome for me? That ideology is being sustained, because just last week, Liberal-leaning senators absolutely gutted C-234. That was a bill that would have seen farmers exempted for heating barns and drying grains and oil seeds. That would have saved hundreds of millions of dollars across this province and Canada. Quite frankly, with that gutting of C-234, cost of production is going to continue to rise.

Ladies and gentlemen, do the honourable thing. Join our government and stand up against bad Liberal ideology that’s doing nothing but driving up the cost of living in—

Interjections.

Please join us for a picture on the stairs right after this.

I know this is an issue that is very important to the member opposite, as it is to all of us in this chamber. We will continue to follow that clinical guidance.

But I do agree that early detection is so important, which is why I was so proud to be able to stand earlier this week and announce that mammograms for women 40 to 50 are going to be available for self-referral. It truly is all about early detection and empowering individuals to make decisions based on their health. We’ll continue to work with clinical advice and experts to make sure that as we move forward, those types of decisions, when they are appropriate, will be announced.

My question is to the Premier. Today is the first day of Movember, when people across the world raise awareness of health issues affecting men, such as prostate cancer.

In 2022, close to 25,000 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer, and close to 5,000 lost their lives. Those are our dads, our brothers, our uncles and our grandparents. Early prevention and detection saves lives—100% of men live five years with early detection—but this government voted down my motion to expand PSA testing for prostate cancer, which is critical to early detection.

It’s been nearly a year since the Conservatives voted down my motion. Since then, 4,600 men have died.

Eight provinces and three territories cover the cost of the test, and nine in 10 Canadians support increased government health care spending on the test for early detection. Why are the Conservatives ignoring the recommendation of doctors, experts and patients with prostate cancer by refusing to cover the PSA test as men die every single day?

The reality is, under the carbon tax system, farmers, processors and grocers are forced to raise their prices because of this harmful and regressive tax. In 2022 alone, Ontario’s greenhouse growers were assessed and forced to pay an additional $12 million under the federal carbon tax regime. This resulted in a tax of approximately $3,400 per acre on fresh fruits and vegetables. This is unacceptable and simply not fair.

Unlike the independent Liberals and opposition NDP, who are content with hurting our farmers by supporting this regressive carbon tax, we believe that Ontario-grown food must remain on the shelves without interruption.

Speaker, through you, can the minister please explain why our food producers are being punished with a carbon tax?

I would like to thank Dr. Sally Palmer for her tireless advocacy for people on OW and ODSP.

“To Raise Social Assistance Rates.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Ontario’s social assistance rates are well below Canada’s official Market Basket Measure poverty line and far from adequate to cover the rising costs of food and rent: $733 for individuals on OW and $1,227 for ODSP;

“Whereas an open letter to the Premier and two cabinet ministers, signed by over 230 organizations, recommends that social assistance rates be doubled for both Ontario Works (OW) and the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP);

“Whereas the recent small increase of 5% for ODSP still leaves these citizens below the poverty line, both they and those receiving the frozen OW rates are struggling to survive at this time of alarming inflation;

“Whereas the government of Canada recognized in its CERB program that a ‘basic income’ of $2,000 per month was the standard support required by individuals who lost their employment during the pandemic;

“We, the undersigned citizens of Ontario, petition the Legislative Assembly to double social assistance rates for OW and ODSP.”

I fully support this petition. I will sign it and give it to Ananya.

The member from London West.

This petition is entitled “Our Health Care: Not for Sale.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Ontarians should get health care based on need—not the size of your wallet;

“Whereas Premier Doug Ford and Health Minister Sylvia Jones say they’re planning to privatize parts” of the health care system;

“Whereas privatization will bleed nurses, doctors and PSWs out of our public hospitals, making the health care crisis worse;

“Whereas privatization always ends with patients getting a bill;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to immediately stop all plans to” further “privatize Ontario’s health care system, and fix the crisis in health care by:

“—repealing Bill 124” to help with recruitment, “retaining, and respecting doctors, nurses and PSWs with better working conditions;

“—licensing tens of thousands of internationally educated nurses and other health care professionals already in Ontario, who wait years and pay thousands to have their credentials certified;

“—10 employer-paid sick days” to keep people healthy;

“—making education and training free or low-cost for nurses, doctors, and other health care professionals;

“—incentivizing doctors and nurses to choose to live and work in northern Ontario,” where there is a shortage;

“—funding hospitals to have enough nurses on every shift, on every ward.”

It’s my pleasure to affix my signature to this petition and give it to page Owen.

It is a privilege to join the debate today on behalf of the people I represent in London West and to continue from the remarks that I had started the other day.

As I was saying, the people in London, in my community, are struggling like never before with the affordability crisis that has hit this province and this country. And just to give you a sense of how deeply that crisis is affecting Londoners, I want to share some statistics from the London Food Bank that were just released at the end of September. The food bank reported that in the first eight months of 2023, they saw a 43% increase in the number of families they helped each month. That is an increase over the previous year, 2022. It represented a 91% increase over the number of families they had helped in 2021. They also report that more first-timers, that is, people who have never used the food bank before, are getting monthly hampers.

The food bank is strained, Speaker, as Londoners are faced with the challenges of trying to make a paycheque last the week or last the month. That’s why consumer protection legislation and strengthened protections for consumers are so important, particularly for low-income consumers and vulnerable consumers who absolutely need to be able to rely on consumer protections when they purchase goods and services. While we are pleased to see some of the protections in this bill, and we will be supporting this bill, we believe there is much more that the government could and should be doing to provide those protections that consumers need.

I talked about the demands on the food bank, and certainly we have all heard about the price gouging that is taking place in this country. We have seen Loblaws and Sobeys and some of the giant food retailers reporting record profits—record profits—and massive wage increases for CEOs while consumers are hit with food prices for basic necessities that have skyrocketed since the pandemic. And so while this legislation includes new provisions to prevent price gouging, one of the concerns that the NDP has raised is that the price gouging provisions only apply to individual businesses; they wouldn’t apply across a sector. When you have a whole industry with inflated prices, the provisions of this bill won’t have an impact. It won’t help ensure that consumers aren’t hit with unfair price gouging when they go to the grocery store, and that is one of the biggest concerns that I think all of us hear from our constituents, the rising price of groceries.

The other concern is very much around enforcement. We all know that legislation on the books is only as good as the enforcement that is available to make sure that the protections are in place. This legislation improves consumer protection laws—certainly it’s an improvement over the previous act that had been in place since 2002—but it still leaves consumers having to go to court if they want to seek justice against companies that have treated them unfairly. And we know how expensive it is, how intimidating it can be to take a case to court, and so, therefore, there is a real concern that, when court is the only way to seek a resolution, that consumers won’t actually be able to get the redress they deserve.

That’s why, Speaker, one of the missed opportunities for this government was to include in this legislation the creation of an Ontario consumer watchdog. That position has been proposed in private member’s legislation from the official opposition, from my colleague the member for Humber River–Black Creek, and it would create an independent watchdog organization to oversee all consumer protection matters in Ontario. This would give another avenue for consumers who have a complaint about a good or service that they have purchased, and it would be much less barriers than having to pursue redress in the courts, much less costly and disadvantaging to the consumer.

As I said, it’s a missed opportunity that this government had before them to really create strong consumer protections by creating that consumer watchdog position, as had been proposed by the official opposition.

I just want to point out that yesterday we heard very clearly, and the member from London also referenced it today, the predatory door-to-door sales, which were banned but are still somehow happening, especially, based on the CBC Marketplace investigation that was done on this very topic—it demonstrated through a hidden-camera exposé on the tactics that some of these companies engage in. They witnessed high-pressure sales tactics. They witnessed claims that were not backed up in truth. They saw these salespeople engage in what this government should stand up against, and yet we have a piece of legislation before us that is really permissive. It allows that loophole to continue.

What does the member think about a government bringing another weak piece of legislation to the floor of this Legislature?

My question for the member who just spoke, the member from London West: She made some representations with regard to enforcement that I disagree with. She suggested that a court order is required and that people would have to go to court.

I draw her attention to section 95(1), which reads: “If the director is satisfied that a person has contravened or is contravening a prescribed provision of this act or the regulations, the director may, by order, impose an administrative penalty against the person in accordance with this section and the regulations made by the minister.”

So, the question is this: Now that I have read that section, does the member agree no court orders are required; you just need to go to the director?

So I just want to ask the member from London West, you will agree with me, right? You wouldn’t tell your constituent to go to court; you would tell your constituent, “Write a letter to the director, and seek enforcement under section 95(1).” That’s what you would tell your constituent, right?

Questions?

I would like to ask a question of the member on the opposite side about the consumer watchdog position, which is the proposal that had been brought forward by the official opposition.

We know that it can be very difficult for consumers to exercise their consumer protection rights. Often, the only avenue is to pursue matters legally. That is not available to many consumers, and it is cost-prohibitive. So, a consumer watchdog position would be able to provide those protections that consumers deserve and need without having to pursue legal action.

It’s a great bill.

Further questions?

Madam Speaker, through you: In our fight for consumers’ rights, how can we strengthen our advocacy for seniors and other vulnerable populations to ensure they are adequately protected from scams and predatory practices underneath this new legislation?

So now, on the topic of consumer protection, if you read section 80, there’s a whole section about investigations and the power that the director has to launch investigations, including issuing a search warrant. So the director can actually issue a search warrant, get a justice of the peace search warrant, and order an investigator to go into any business in Ontario. Wouldn’t that be what you would tell your constituents to seek? Why would you send your constituents to court? Why wouldn’t you just send them to the director, who has the authorization and the power to investigate every single business in the province of Ontario with a search warrant?

The issue with the price-gouging provisions of this bill is that they apply to companies. They don’t apply to sectors where similar suppliers are all charging the same inflated price. So if a constituent comes to me with concerns about price gouging, I would tell them to advocate to the government to put in place strengthened protections for consumers to prohibit unscrupulous price gouging by large companies across a sector, as we are currently seeing in the sale of food and groceries.

Unfortunately, this government voted against the private member’s bill that we had brought forward and also chose not to create that consumer watchdog position, despite the support for that position and the advocacy for that position from many consumer protection experts.

We have pointed out several places where the legislation could be improved. We’ve also raised a concern about a number of provisions being shifted to regulation, and so without being able to see those regulations, it is difficult to ascertain how exactly this legislation will impact consumers in this province.

Okay, I just thought the government would want to speak to this particular piece of legislation, if you’re so proud of it. But I’m very happy, Madam Speaker—

I join the debate here on consumer protection, and I just want to say, this is a government that continually says, “Why don’t you support us? Why don’t you like us? Why don’t you vote with us?” You give us so many reasons to take pause and to take a step back when you present legislation. I’ve always said in this House, much of it has to do with the process of creating said legislation. If you do your due diligence, if you do appropriate consultation with stakeholders, you will create a better piece of legislation.

Why the government has brought forward a consumer protection bill that hasn’t been updated in a fair sense since 2002—and we know so much more about where the weaknesses are in consumer protection for Ontario. We know who’s actually being taken advantage of: primarily seniors; to a large degree, new immigrants and refugees; and then there are a number of marginalized folks in our communities who have no choice at some point, right? They sign on to a contract, sometimes for hot water heaters, sometimes for a service around the house, and they are locked in.

The government is well aware of this. You’re well aware of the vulnerabilities. I know as an MPP in Waterloo that the services that our constituency office provides—we are seeing a growing number of seniors come into our office, I want to say primarily women, who have signed a contract for some services, who have been promised—because it’s incredibly misleading. The company is incredibly misleading. They have an official Ontario name. Sometimes, they use the provincial government’s logo and people feel that this is a service that is legitimate—so why Bill 142 actually prevents this from happening in Ontario is beyond me.

I will say that when you look at this bill—and any bill that aims to increase protections for consumers has to be given some consideration for approval, right? Because it is so, so bad out there right now. This bill does fall short. If there is a willingness on behalf of the government to send this bill to a committee and have that committee actually try to make the legislation stronger, we will have many amendments and many recommendations for the government with regard to Bill 142. I hope that there’s a genuine interest in getting to that place. I know that sometimes bills get sent to committee where they die. They die there. I personally have a very important bill that’s currently at social policy, the Till Death Do Us Part act—

I would just think that the government right now is really desperately looking for a channel changer, like if I put myself in your seat. And I think that if you want to extend an olive branch to the people of this province after really undermining some core trust issues, a lack of transparency and accountability—that core trust is broken—calling that bill to social policy and having an honest discussion about why we still separate seniors in long-term care or care options, why it’s not enshrined in legislation that we want couples who have invested in this province, have paid their taxes, have volunteered in their communities and then, at the end of their lives, much to their dismay and stress, they find themselves unable to find care options where they can stay together—and I’ve said this from the very day. When the new member from Cambridge was elected, I said, “Listen, if there’s ever a non-partisan issue, reuniting seniors in care options should actually be something that we can all agree on.”

I just want to say, just on this final piece about the committee and where bills go and trying to make legislation better, I’m happy to say that if you call the Till Death Do Us Part act and you call the experts and we call in the delegations and we can make that piece of legislation stronger, I’m 100% already there. Time is ticking, though. There is an urgency here. I don’t want to get emotional about it, but Jim and Joan McLeod have been separated now for six years, and they’ve been married for 65 years. The clock is running down here. So let’s help each other out, hey? Let’s get a good-news story out of Queen’s Park, because it isn’t happening any time soon, and let’s call the bill to committee, identify the weaknesses in the legislation—

Interjection.