I have some visitors all the way from Foleyet. Joel Theriault is here with Stop the Spray Ontario. I also have a group of Traditional Ecological Knowledge Elders from the Robinson-Huron Treaty territory who are here for the petition: Jodi Koberinski, Caroline Recollet, and Jo Boyer. And we have the coalition of elders, environmentalists, hunters and anglers who say, “Stop the spray,” who will also be joining us momentarily.

Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Ms. Ghamari moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill Pr45, An Act to revive 1828469 Ontario Inc.

Here is what the petition that 300,000 Ontarians—actually, 302,000 Ontarians have signed. I have problems with math, sometimes, in English. But here it goes:

“Stop the Spray.”

They want the government of Ontario to realize that there is a wide variety of non-chemical alternatives to what is currently being used to effectively meet vegetation management needs.

Quebec has banned the use of chemical herbicides by their forestry industry since 2001.

We had a report done by the Senate, of the committee at the federal Legislature, that looked at the boreal forest, and they published a report entitled Competing Realities: The Boreal Forest at Risk. The committee recommended that all herbicides and chemical pesticides used in the boreal forest should be phased out as soon as possible. They did that in 1999, 25 years ago, yet here we are in Ontario in 2024 and we still use those chemical herbicides. Don’t get me wrong; they are not being used in southern Ontario. Toronto has banned it. Many areas of the province do not allow chemical herbicides to be used. But on crown land in northern Ontario, on First Nations territory in northern Ontario, they are used all the time. They are a threat to our environment. They are a threat to the health of the population. Many, many cancers are directly linked to the use of those sprayed herbicides. It doesn’t have to be that way. We have other ways to do this. So they hope for the government to listen.

Ban the use of non-essential chemical herbicides throughout Ontario.

This is a petition about passing anti-scab labour legislation. Basically, the idea is to protect the rights of workers to withdraw their labour. When you’re not able to withdraw your labour effectively, when they’re using replacement scab workers, that means that that work continues and the employer doesn’t feel the pressure to come back to the negotiating table. It creates more conflict on picket lines, as well.

For example, I’m sure, at picket lines, they’re going to want to have this sort of thing in place. The AGO, for example, is using replacement workers; I’m sure those workers would prefer to have it.

There are signatures from Sault Ste. Marie, Brampton, Georgetown, London, so it has strong support across the province.

I support this petition.

They also urge people to support bills such as the one that I tabled, Bill 90, the Anti-Scab Labour Act.

So we could pass this into legislation—very similar that was done at the federal level because of the NDP there.

I have a petition that is signed by many parents and residents in London—in particular, from my riding of London West—who are very concerned about the safety of students and staff in our schools. They are calling on increased investment by this Legislative Assembly to take action to address violence in our classrooms.

They want to see an investment in more mental health resources for students, and that’s something we heard from the Ontario Medical Students Association, who are meeting with MPPs today.

Most of all, they want our schools to be properly funded so that class sizes can remain small, so that kids can get the individualized attention that they need—and more support staff in our schools.

I am pleased to affix my signature and will send this petition to the table with page Simon.

I have a petition with over [inaudible] signatures from residents in my riding of Don Valley West who are against the government’s plan to undermine, downsize and relocate the Ontario Science Centre to Ontario Place. The petitioners indicate that this plan, which the government initiated without public consultation, environmental assessment or a sound business rationale, will cause irreparable harm to their community.

The petitioners request that the Legislative Assembly reconsider the decision to relocate the science centre and prioritize renewing the Ontario Science Centre at its current site in Don Mills and ensure thorough public and environmental evaluations of any future proposed changes.

I wholeheartedly endorse this petition and will affix my name to it and ask page Erwin to bring it to the Clerk.

I have a petition to raise social assistance rates, and we know that—actually, with the goal of doubling OW and ODSP.

We know when we had the CERB program, which was providing a basic income of $2,000 per month, that was very helpful to Ontarians.

People have asked for this for a long time, far and wide, and it has been in many election platforms, and a goal of some parties. There are signatures from all over Ontario asking for this. We know that people are living below the poverty line, and we’re here to help all Ontarians and provide a decent quality of life.

So I will sign my signature to this powerful petition, and I’ll send it with page marvelous Mariam.

The petition is titled “Keep Our Community PHO Labs Open.” This is, unbelievably, more than 9,000 signatures for these petitions—only some of them are here—in a very short amount of time.

Basically, what they’re concerned about is, there was a recommendation or suggestion that maybe six of the 11 Public Health Ontario labs would be closed. These are the people who do the medical testing, and most people know them from the water testing. The worst crisis was Walkerton, but people have water testing done all the time, especially in rural areas where they have manure that can affect it as runoffs. It’s very important that these are kept open. It would create inequities in rural areas and northern areas.

As well, in pandemics—I know that we always think of COVID-19, but H1N1, for example. Any time there’s an uptake in medical testing of that nature, these smaller public health labs do the runoff of large organizations like Ottawa and Toronto when they can’t keep up to it, which keeps all of us safer.

Like I said before, there are 9,000-plus signatures on this. It’s a very important issue. I’m very happy to hear the Minister of Health say that there is no conversation about closing it—she says “at this time.” So I just want to ensure that she knows how important this is to people right across the province.

I support this petition. I’ll give it to page Lyra for the table.

Basically, what they’re talking about is the high level of tuition in Ontario—the increases of over 200% for undergrads and almost 250% for grad students. The median debt for grads is around $17,000. It’s costing a lot of money to go to school.

As well, there were changes made to OSAP which resulted in about a billion-dollar cut to assistance to students to be able to afford to go to school.

What they want out of this is ultimately to have accessible and free tuition, going to school. They want an increase in grants instead of loans.

And they want to, as well, legislate students’ right to organize. That was a bill that was challenged and lost in court, when they had removed the right for students to organize, but they don’t want to have to challenge this in court on a regular basis—and have it legislated.

I do support this petition. I think it’s very important that our students have accessible access to post-secondary school so they can be successful in the future.

I’ll affix my signature and provide it to page Shylah for the table.