Speaker, as you and other members of the House are well aware, this government wants people to pay more to Enbridge. They want to increase their gas bills.

In December, the Ontario Energy Board, the body that regulates utilities in this province, decided that consumers needed to be protected; that they should not be subsidizing Enbridge’s expansion; that, in fact, those customers needed to be protected today and for decades to come.

Unfortunately, the government has decided that instead of protecting consumers, they will be protecting Enbridge.

This morning, in committee, we debated amendments to Bill 165. Every amendment meant to protect consumers, to protect them from higher prices, was defeated by the government. The government is determined to ensure that, at the price of consumers, Enbridge’s investors will be protected down the line. This is not a defensible position on the part of the government, not one that will be appreciated by consumers when they get their gas bills in the next few months, and one that, over the decades to come, will mean much higher bills than people otherwise would have been paying.

The government needs to reverse course. They need to reject this bill that they brought forward.

Speaker, our government will always stand up for pay equity in the workplace and for a woman’s right to be paid fairly for the work that she does.

Employers cannot pay women less based on their gender. And we will continue to hold bad actors accountable, which is why we have the pay equity commission, which has been working with us very closely to ensure we close that gap.

Let’s be real, Mr. Speaker. We can’t go back to the failed policies of the Liberals, supported by the NDP, that chased away thousands of jobs. Do you know what that did? It forced many women to be the sole income earner for homes. It forced many women on social assistance, forcing the government to have to take care of them.

This is why we changed the name of our ministry to “women’s social and economic opportunity”—because we believe in empowering women, because we believe that women can do the jobs that any man can do. That’s why we’ve invested billions in the skills development program, the invest in women program and the Women’s Economic Security Program. We’ve done historic changes to our child care program. We’ve closed the gap. We’ve seen more women working today than we have before. And we’re going continue to do this work.

That’s why if a woman chooses to go to work, we want to make sure we have the infrastructure in place to support that choice. That’s also why we’ve been able to secure the largest portion of funding from the federal government out of any province in Canada, through our Minister of Education, to ensure that the portion of families who need child care from a for-profit child care service provider can still get the child care they deserve. We’ve seen that this has made an impact. More women with children aged zero to five are working—the first time we’ve had an increase since 1976.

These are things to celebrate, and these are the things that we’re doing in our government to make sure that we’re bringing back our economy, through our Minister of Economic Development, attracting many businesses back to Canada and Ontario so that women are able to be at the forefront of these beneficiaries.

The OECD global report on pay transparency and pay equity stated that Ontario’s Pay Equity Act punches well above the global legislative weight, having one of the most rigorous applications. Ontario was one of the first governments, globally, to articulate and legislate pay equity based on the foundational concept of equal pay for work of equal value.

Mr. Speaker, we are working to correct the historical undervaluation of jobs typically held by women, and we’re going to continue to do that, and also ensure that women can choose to enter any sector they want, like STEM, like the skilled trades. We’re getting it done. We’re getting more women working in jobs that pay well so that they can take care of their family and keep themselves and their families safe.

Today marks Equal Pay Day. It’s the day when we mark how far into the next year women have to work to catch up to what most men had earned the previous year. When you’re racialized, Indigenous, a member of the LQBTQ community, the wait for equal pay day is even longer. Women of all age groups, across the board, earn less than men.

So my question to the Premier is, will he commit to ensuring that every woman worker earns as much as her male counterparts?

Closing the gender pay gap and supporting women and gender-diverse peoples’ economic equality is a government responsibility.

Women frequently work in jobs taking care of people and the community—from the doctors, nurses and PSWs who keep our health care system going to the ECEs in our child care centres who care for our children while we’re at work.

Will the Premier commit to properly funding the strong public services that support women’s economic equality?

Interjections.

If we don’t have strong public services like affordable child care and health care and education, women will be left behind. If child care is so out of reach, you’re not going to be able to climb the corporate ladder. If you’re at home taking care of your aging parents, you can’t log those extra hours to get that promotion.

Here’s what I’ve been thinking about lately: our mothers and our grandmothers who fought so hard for these rights and services so that we and our daughters—my daughters—our granddaughters, all of us women in this chamber can have a chance. In an increasingly hostile environment for women, we cannot take those rights and services for granted.

What is the Premier’s plan to protect the rights and services that women have fought so hard for?

Interjections.

We believe people doing the same work should be paid the same regardless of their gender; workers in the health care system expect the same. That’s why front-line health care workers belonging to SEIU and the Ontario Nurses’ Association have spent over a decade fighting for a gender-neutral wage under the Pay Equity Act. The Premier calls these working women heroes—he loves to call them heroes—but he has done nothing to improve their wages or work with them on the Pay Equity Act. Instead, he has repeatedly taken them to court.

Why is the Premier repeatedly taking hard-working women to court instead of giving them what they’re owed?

Today is Equal Pay Day, yet the gender pay gap continues to average at 32%; for Black and Indigenous women, the gap is 42%. Arab women are the lowest-paid women in Ontario’s labour market, with a shocking 47% wage gap—that’s 53 cents for every dollar a man makes.

Ontario’s public child care, education, social and community service providers are mostly women, mainly racialized women. They’re overworked, they’re underpaid, and they’re undervalued.

Since 2018, this government has cut spending to community and social services by 12.1%. Since 2022, Ontario has spent the least amount on social and community services than any province in our nation.

My question is to the Premier. Is this Conservative government okay with shortchanging women?

Instead, the Conservatives are preoccupied with funding cuts and privatization schemes, which we know will only further the gender wage gap.

While this government’s Bill 149 requires some employers to publicly post pay ranges, it did nothing to ensure these ranges are actually realistic and aren’t simply perpetuating the gender pay gap.

The government continues to block the Pay Transparency Act, 2018.

Back to the Premier: Today is Equal Pay Day. Will the Premier finally implement the Pay Transparency Act, 2018, to help narrow the gender wage gap and increase women’s economic liberation?

Interjections.