Mr. Saunderson from the Standing Committee on Justice Policy presents the committee’s report as follows:

Pursuant to standing order 63, your committee has selected the 2024-25 estimates of the following ministries for consideration: Ministry of the Attorney General; Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery; Ministry of the Solicitor General; Ministry of Francophone Affairs; Ministry of Indigenous Affairs.

Report presented.

I beg leave to present a report from the Standing Committee on Justice Policy on the estimates selected by the standing committee for consideration.

I’d like to thank ACORN for collecting these signatures. This petition is called “Rent Stabilization Now.” This petition is calling for rent control to be applied on all homes, including homes that are built after 2018, and for a system of vacancy control to be established so there is a cap on how much the rent can be raised if a tenant leaves.

The reason why this is so important—and they say this in the petition—is because rent is too high. It’s too high. People in Ontario can’t afford it, and it is important, in order for us to achieve affordability, that we stabilize rent prices so our province can be affordable for renters as well.

I support this petition. I’ll be giving it to page Raisa.

Kensington is losing 2.5 teachers, and the school is bringing in a 4-5-6 split, which means learning in that class will be severely impacted. This petition calls on the government to properly invest in public education so we can lower class sizes, address the mental health crisis and address the worker shortages that we’re seeing in our public schools.

I support this petition, and I’ll be giving it to page Harry.

Resuming the debate adjourned on May 9, 2024, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 190, An Act to amend various statutes with respect to employment and labour and other matters / Projet de loi 190, Loi modifiant diverses lois relatives à l’emploi et au travail et à d’autres questions.

To the member from Ottawa Centre: Your job is to read the petition and not give—

Interjections.

This morning, before I ran out of time, I emphasized the importance of introducing careers in the trades at the secondary level. One student is saying that programs introduced by this government “gave him a reason to like school again”—my favourite quote. It’s so important to the future of this province.

I want to thank the Minister of Education, the Minister of Colleges and Universities and our Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development for continuing to enhance these career opportunities through the Working for Workers Five Act.

As I said, it gives students the ability to make informed decisions about their future through the introduction to a variety of careers in the skilled trades. Through the Working for Workers Five Act, alternative pathways for people interested in skilled trades will be open.

In addition to getting young people into the skilled trades, the government wants to help mature workers leverage their existing skills, education and work experience to land a position in the skilled trades sector. We want to give Canadians who are looking for a second career in the skilled trades a chance at a better job with a better paycheque.

Through this bill, our government will work on removing barriers to entry into the skilled trades as a second career and provide avenues for a career transition. By doing this, our government will address labour shortages and drive economic growth through those seeking a second career in the skilled trades, regardless of their educational background—new opportunities, a brighter future.

Recent immigrants and internationally trained workers would also benefit should this bill pass. This bill proposes to cut red tape and streamline registration for internationally trained workers. There are occasions when international workers have difficulty obtaining documentation due to circumstances beyond their control, be that natural disasters or—unfortunately, there are too many examples of war these days. By adopting alternative practices, we welcome those skilled individuals into our workforce. This bill will simultaneously remove barriers to employment and get workers back into the fields they are qualified to work in.

The Working for Workers Five Act also aims to keep front-line workers healthy and safe. We need to take care of front-line heroes who become ill as a result of their careers and increase fairness for job seekers and employees. Firefighters—some of our highly valued and highly respected professionals—face risks and dangers continually. In the process of working to protect all of us, they often get exposed to many harmful toxins. As a result, firefighters can suffer from serious health-threatening conditions, including some cancers.

Therefore, this bill proposes to expand presumptive coverage to firefighters, fire investigators and volunteers for primary site skin cancer. This bill will also lower the required duration of service to receive presumptive coverage from 15 years to 10 years, giving Ontario the lowest required duration of service in the country to access this coverage.

Coverage for occupational disease, including some cancers and post-traumatic stress disorder, would also be expanded to ensure wildland firefighters and fire investigators will have the same presumptive coverage as municipal firefighters. Last year, Ontario and indeed the whole of Canada experienced a significant increase in wildfires. We owe a debt of gratitude to the brave men and women who are willing to go out and fight these fires. We also recognize that not all injuries are physical, and we want to ensure that those affected by traumatic situations on their job have the help and support that they need.

However, firefighters are not alone in needing a helping hand. Construction workers, one of the strengths of Canada’s workforce, also need strategies to prevent injuries and a strong health and safety support system. Led by the Chief Prevention Officer, a review of the causes of critical injuries in the construction sector is being embraced. A consultation is being launched to explore the types of health and safety equipment needed on construction projects and to inform future prevention strategies. One of the objectives is to incorporate asbestos-related data into the ministry’s Occupational Exposure Registry.

This bill would also build on our government’s efforts to make the skilled trades more welcoming to female workers. We have heard in this chamber from the Associate Minister of Women’s Social and Economic Opportunity about the welcomed increase in women in choosing a career in the trades. In the Working for Workers Act, 2023, we were working towards requiring construction sites to have gender-specific washrooms. This bill would take that further by requiring those washrooms are maintained in a clean and sanitary condition and that the employer will keep and make available records of the cleaning. Just like when you go into the public washrooms here in Queen’s Park—or in any other workplace—there is a card detailing when public washrooms have been cleaned.

Firefighters and construction workers are not the only focus of the Working for Workers Five Act. This government hears about the challenges being faced in the health care profession and the challenges many Ontarians face in getting an appointment with a doctor or a nurse practitioner. Working in health care, I’m well aware of the challenges. New software has continued to be developed to try to address the administrative burden put on our practitioners. I recall when we went to electronic health records, we had a huge room full of paper files. I recall the day—the week, I should say—when those were cleaned out, microfiched, and we moved on and moved forward. This continues to be a challenge, and we continue to work towards minimizing administrative pressures.

We have great respect for our nurses and doctors, who work to heal the sick and take on long and demanding hours to treat Ontarians. So it’s a startling reality that our family doctors spend an average of 19 hours per week filling out forms and documentation, including sick notes. That is 40% of their workweek on paperwork instead of treating patients—and I have to say, from my experience, a lot of that work is done beyond the regular workweek.

The Working for Workers Five Act aims to put patients before paperwork. We are proposing to prohibit employers from requiring a sick note from a medical professional for a workers’ job-protected sick leave under the Employment Standards Act. This would simultaneously relieve a burden felt by health care professionals and help patients access care. With this said, we will still deliver on the facilitation of accountability and trust in the office. Employers would still be able to request another form of evidence that is reasonable in the circumstances without creating unnecessary paperwork for health care professionals.

This step would complement the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board’s efforts to collaborate with health sector organizations, offering the opportunity to explore additional measures to reduce the administrative burden for sick or injured workers and health care professionals. Future ministry guidance would also be developed to help this new relationship run smoothly.

Our government also aims to increase fairness for job seekers and employees. We want the process of finding, applying and obtaining careers and employment opportunities to be transparent and efficient.

Ontario is facing the largest labour shortage, with over 237,000 jobs going unfilled, costing major losses in productivity. We can probably thank our Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade for creating some of those jobs; 700,000, I think, is the number.

This government understands that meaningful jobs and careers create stronger families and communities. Every paycheque not collected is a missed opportunity for Canadians and their families to build a better life. We know some employers post jobs even when they do not have a specific role to fill: ghost jobs. Therefore, we would require employers to disclose in publicly advertised job postings whether a position is vacant and respond to applicants they have interviewed for those jobs.

If this act is passed, the ministry would consult with stakeholders to develop an education-first approach to implement these changes in the recruitment process. Maximum fines currently set at $50,000 would rise to $100,000. These fines would be issued for reasons such as failure to pay wages, discrimination based on gender, or penalizing employees for taking pregnancy or parental leave.

As we all know, the workplace has changed since the era of COVID-19. We learned a lot. More and more jobs are expanding into online spaces and incorporating the use of technology in daily operations. Our legal protections for the employee and employer need to reflect that change. This is why this legislation proposes amendments to the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

It is necessary to protect workers, no matter where they work. As parliamentary assistant Barnes stated yesterday, harassment is unacceptable; whether face to face or online, it needs to stop. It is necessary to add virtual harassment to the definitions of workplace harassment and workplace sexual harassment. Workplace policies have an obligation to address and stop online harassment wherever it may rear its ugly head. The government will also engage with those who experienced harassment, legal experts and other stakeholders to identify the most effective means to stop and address online harassment. By modernizing the definition of harassment to include protections against virtual sexual harassment, this act responds to the ever-changing digital work practices and reflects on the future of work.

The protection of workers is an ever-present priority for our government. Through this bill, we aim to ensure Ontarians have a better working experience, no matter where they work.

So far, I’ve talked about the opportunities and advantages that will become available to workers here in Canada. This act also applies to employers. Ontario has already delivered on its promise to incorporate a more streamlined and outcomes-oriented employment service in every region, but further improvements can be made.

By expanding the occupational eligibility for the in-demand skills stream of the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program, decision-making authority will be quickened and the paperwork burden for reputable businesses will be reduced.

This government would like to encourage more women to enter the skilled trades by making the construction sector more appealing to the gender. A survey was launched, with 50% of female respondents employed in the skilled trades and construction industry citing better washroom facilities as an appealing incentive. As previously stated, in direct response to the survey, this act proposes requiring clean and sanitary washrooms to be provided for workers. Records of the cleaning and sanitation will be mandatory. If passed, Ontario will be the first province in Canada to require a record of cleaning in its health and safety legislation.

To reiterate, Canadian women deserve a government committed to ensuring that their needs are being met in the workplace and the Working for Workers Five Act recognizes the demand to create a more inclusive working environment. We need and want more women in our skilled trades. Let’s make them feel valued.

In tandem, we will deliver on this government’s ambitious plans to build a better Ontario. This fifth Working for Workers Act, if passed, will continue to lead the country with a package of groundbreaking protections for workers. This new package includes new supports and even stronger protections for front-line workers. The act ensures tougher penalties on exploitative bad actors, protects the health and dignity of workers on the job site and allows more Ontarians to start a career in the trades. The stipulated changes would also address online harassment at work and hold employers accountable for providing sanitary washrooms. Lastly, this act supports incentives for women to participate in industries such as the construction industry. This act builds on the groundbreaking actions under the previous Working for Workers Act and will help millions of people here in Canada.

Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak today about the Working for Workers Five Act, and I fully support it.

I’m pleased to be able to present this petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. It’s outlining an open letter to the Premier and two cabinet ministers that was signed by over 230 organizations, recommending that social assistance rates be doubled for both OW and ODSP. The rates for Ontario Works have been frozen since 2018, and a small increase to the Ontario Disability Support Program has left recipients struggling well below the poverty line here in Ontario. We advocate for doubling the rates of both OW and ODSP.

I couldn’t agree more. I want to thank Dr. Sally Palmer for sending this petition over to my office. Thank you, Sally. We’ll continue to fight for you.

I’m affixing my name and sending it down with Antonio.

On the occasion of nurses’ week here in the province of Ontario, I’m very happy to be putting in a petition on health care privatization. I want to thank in particular Joanna Binch and Hoda Mankal, who are nurse leaders in our community. I want to thank Rachel Muir from Ontario Nurses’ Association, Local 083, for doing a lot of the work in recruiting citizens to get their name behind this.

These citizens are concerned with the trend of health care privatization, which has been openly promoted by this government having private, for-profit organizations operating out of our public institutions like the Riverside campus of the Ottawa Hospital with nary a word of criticism from members of this government. It’s unfortunate, because the nurses who are behind this petition and across our community that help people every single day are doing great work.

And in describing this petition—

I am very passionate during nurses’ week to be introducing this petition on health care privatization to the Clerks’ table with page Lise.

I appreciate the comments from my colleague today and the questions in the House. I think it’s really exciting that this bill is coming forward. Again, it shows our commitment to workers in Ontario.

A lot of talk around wildland fire today, most of it completely inaccurate, from the other side in terms of the way we support our wildland firefighters. I want to clear up any misconceptions that may be lingering out there about our support, which includes $5,000 of retention and recruitment money and also making sure that training costs are covered, and certainly much, much more.

I would ask my colleague just to explain more around wildland firefighters and what the presumptive coverage portion means, because I think it is very, very important that our firefighters and everyone in Ontario understand not only all the things that we’re doing for them in myriad ways to support them, but specifically, with this portion of the bill, what it will mean to firefighters.

I want to thank the member from Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston for his remarks today on what’s called the Working for Workers bill.

The government earlier this week was asked in this Legislature—the minister was asked—about the lack of preparation for this year’s wildfires. They’re 200 staff short; they’re 200 firefighters short. There are three water bombers out of the six that are not ready to operate. Last year we had a record number of forest fires in Ontario, and yet this government is talking about this bill as supportive of firefighters, but there aren’t enough firefighters out there.

Will this government commit to increasing the pay and paying for the training of wildfire fighters so that we can recruit the number of firefighters that we’re going to need for this season?

I want to just acknowledge that my colleagues on this side of the House, from Thunder Bay–Superior North, from Mushkegowuk–James Bay, from Timiskaming–Cochrane, from Kiiwetinoong, Sudbury and Nickel Belt, have been advocating for over a year for presumptive cancer coverage for the wildfire firefighters in this province, and I want to thank the government for finally listening to this side of the House and providing that with this bill.

The other thing that has changed, though, since the day when I was on the firefighting crew, was that at the time we were making in today’s dollars $28 an hour. Today’s firefighters are making $22 an hour and housing is far, far, far more expensive than it was.

We also were hired and then we were sent off to a camp for two weeks to get the training that we needed while we were getting paid. Today, firefighters are asked to pay for their own training in the hope that they may get hired for a job.

Will you commit your government to restoring the pay to $28 an hour and to providing free training—in fact, not just free training; paid training—for all the firefighters that we have in this province?

Will your government restore the $142 million that was cut in 2019 to protect our—

Questions?

Further questions?

I also recall the minister saying, “We’re ready. We’re ready. We’re ready” many, many, many times. We thank the minister for that update, and I have full confidence that this ministry and the firefighters—our wildfire fighters—are ready.

My son served a term in wildfire work up in Red Lake in his younger days. It is a very difficult job and a very demanding job physically. I know that the equipment needs to be in place, the readiness has to be there, and that those teams—they were ready then, and they’re ready now.

The other thing that’s very important as far as the number of firefighters is the ability of Ontario to share their firefighters and the ability of other provinces to share their firefighters as the needs arise.

I’m confident in the system that we have, I’m confident in the system that we had when my son was there, and I know that continues to get additional investments.

PTSD is one that’s important to have in there. The trauma that can be realized in this type of work is something that is acknowledged by this government. Support for wildfire firefighters is evident in this bill through the additional protections that they have for health and safety.

Thornhill. Markham–Thornhill.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You are looking up there; congratulations. And thank you to my colleague from Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston for that presentation.

The Working for Workers Act not only is a game-changer; it’s humanizing so many Ontarian foreign workers, especially internationally trained workers in this wonderful province. They would have the opportunity to do their second careers, and also they could be able to settle into the system. As the statistics show, there are seven to 10 years for an immigrant, for internationally trained people to get into the system. That’s not a humanizing system, Mr. Speaker. For example, my wife: She was a foreign-trained doctor, 25 years ago. She came here and started all over again. Then finally she started practising as a family doctor.

The system has to be changed. That’s why our government, for the first time in history, opened the door for foreign-trained nurses, and also, we’re working on foreign-trained doctors as well, Mr. Speaker.

My question to my colleague: Could he explain more about how this bill is going to humanize the foreign-trained workers in this wonderful province, giving hope and optimism for the foreign-trained credentials? Thank you so much.

Response?

Further debate?

I’m happy to rise any time to talk about workers’ rights in the people’s House—critical subject. I’m glad the government is bringing forward an effort to address that.

Speaker, most of my remarks for 20 minutes are going to be based upon things I would like introduced into this bill by way of amendments to improve it. I’m going to talk about particular workers that are on my mind that I believe are in a uniquely difficult position because of the work they do. And the work they do in our communities is essential. I would call these workers essential, even though we don’t always think of them that way. So, just so my colleagues who are listening right now and people watching at home understand what I’m going to talk about, that’s the premise of my contribution to debate this afternoon.

I want to begin by talking about delivery workers, particularly those working for the big dot-com companies, whether it’s DoorDash or Uber, these organizations. As the active transportation critic for the province, I have met many people who are working in this critical occupation that deliver food, deliver all kinds of things to people all over huge cities like this one here in Toronto.

I’m sad to say we have lost lives in some cases because of how unsafe our roads are. I want to just read into the record a gentleman’s name: Ali Sezgin Armagan, a 39-year-old recent immigrant from Türkiye who was killed at the intersection of Avenue Road and Elgin Avenue near a construction site. As is the case with all of our families—Speaker, I bet you in every single one of our families we could find this story. Mr. Armagan came to Canada to join his sister’s family and to start a new life. And the way he was making ends meet, which is the case for a lot of new immigrants, was through the dot-com economy, through the gig work sector.

It is not safe to drive a bicycle, even in a city as modern as Toronto, in some parts of the city. I want to say for the record as well that this particular stretch of Avenue Road has had four fatalities in the last nine years. I’m very happy we have an administration in the city of Toronto under Mayor Olivia Chow that is putting some resources, finally, into looking at critical parts of the city.

But I find it very sad, and I want to read into the record some of the comments from Ali’s family in retrospect of this. His sister Aysen said, “I’m broken inside... Nothing seems to calm me.”

I was there the other night for a group bike ride put on by a number of different road safety advocates. As we rode around that area of downtown/midtown Toronto, a number of conversations were shared. And it’s upsetting for me to hear that in the biggest city in Ontario, in the most modern city with the capacity for probably the most services to ensure safety, someone like Ali loses his life, not even a year after being here.

I invite members, if you have a moment, to look at the Toronto Star’s article. I’ve shared it with the labour minister. And if they haven’t already, I hope the government reaches out to this family because this shouldn’t happen. Everybody needs to be able to get home safe, Speaker—everybody—but we also need to have the infrastructure, because one thing we know about human beings is that we make mistakes. We always make mistakes. That’s part of being human. But we have to design our small towns, our suburban towns, our big metropolises like Toronto in a way that accounts for human error and makes sure everybody can get home safe, and I don’t see that in this bill.

What I know in the record of this House, in the Hansard, is that a number of colleagues have tried, through different measures, particularly the member for University–Rosedale, to introduce a Vision Zero approach to how we deal with road safety in the province of Ontario, and that requires significant investments in segregated lanes for people who use bicycles, strollers, scooters, so they can have that safety. And they exist—they exist in this city. I have ridden on them myself. They exist back home in Ottawa, but they’re always competing with other infrastructure priorities. There’s a number of countries around the world that have set that as the goal, Vision Zero.

The goal is no fatalities, because what happens right now with the Ministry of Transportation Ontario is they say we have some of the safest roads in the world because only this many people have been critically injured, only this many people have died. But I would like to set the bar in a different place, Speaker. I would like to set the bar in a place that everybody gets home safely, and before I move on from this to something else, I want to also acknowledge for the record how empathetic I am, and I’m sure everyone in this House is—not for Ali and his family, who are grieving the loss of his life right now—can you imagine how it feels to be the driver of the dump truck that was involved in this incident? To that gentleman’s credit, he stayed at the scene. He stayed at the scene, he co-operated with police, he’s being investigated, but can you imagine what his life is going to be like now?

When I was working on a road safety bill, I rode my bicycle from Ottawa to Toronto and met a bunch of really interesting people and talked about road safety. One of the people I’ll never forget was a dump truck driver in Brighton, Ontario. He invited me up into his cab, asked me to check the mirrors and he asked me what I could see, and I couldn’t see a lot, Speaker. I could see barely off the bumper. He told me that the technology exists for cameras to be in place, for sensors to be in place to make sure that he can see what’s around that truck when he’s off the construction site and moving around the community. His name’s Ben, and Ben told me if he’s on a construction site, there’s a flag person helping him around, watching wherever the truck is going. He can see the flag person dressed very brightly with flags in hand, but that flag person does not follow Ben off the job site, and this critical incident where Ali was killed happened at the entrance to the construction site.

I want to believe that in a country as modern as Canada, a place as vibrant as Ontario, where we celebrate the need to have economic activity in jobs—we have to have more legislation on road safety.

I’ve been talking to the minister responsible, at transportation, and his parliamentary assistant, and I’m hoping we can collaborate together in the next year so we can send out a message to everybody, because we all have an interest in road safety, to make sure that’s a priority, so no more tragedies happen that can be prevented.

I think what it would seem, Speaker—from what I know about this particular matter, because I met Ali’s family—is this was a preventable accident if segregated lanes were possible, if better technology was available to the driver of that vehicle. We will see what bears out in the police investigation. I wanted to remember this for the record because it’s 2024, and this is the fifth cyclist death in Ontario of which I’m aware—fifth.

I want to move off of talking about road safety—the need for us to protect workers, particularly road workers—and I want to talk about mental health and addictions workers because, as I see it, these are some of the greatest unsung heroes of our province. I’ve had occasion to talk to the minister responsible and I appreciate the audiences he’s had with people all over Ontario on this matter. He and I share the belief that you don’t go into this profession for the paycheque; you go into it because it’s your calling.

I want to specifically talk about a particular place in our city, Rideauwood Addiction and Family Services. They serve over 3,000 clients a year, generally speaking, and they’re people who are almost at the end of their rope, struggling with an addictive behaviour or, as a family member, trying to help someone in their family with an addictive behaviour. Recently, they were pushed right to the brink, if you can believe it, of a possible strike. Can you imagine what’s going through someone’s mind, working at that facility, knowing your critical role in helping that person in their healing journey, if you’re staring down the prospect of having to close your workplace?

Just for a little bit more detail, to actually get in the door at Rideauwood to meet with someone, for someone in a self-harm-crisis position, someone who has been in an emergency room, in a police cruiser, in a paramedic bus, there’s a six-month wait for treatment—six months. If you’re not in an imminent-risk-of-self-harm position, it’s a year-and-a-half wait-list to get into Rideauwood. I am blessed to live in Ottawa, a place rather like Toronto, with a lot of resources. I know a lot of other communities represented in this House don’t have the benefit of some of the resources we have, but that’s the reality.

So you can imagine what was going through the minds of the Rideauwood workers when they were looking at a strike deadline of May 3 and realizing some of the families desperate to see them wouldn’t get to see them and that potentially life-threatening situations could happen. That is a lot to handle.

I’m very happy to say that these workers, recently unionized, two or three years ago through OPSEU Local 454, secured, at the eleventh hour, a tentative agreement. I want to thank the minister responsible because I wrote him, and I expressed the particular role Rideauwood plays in our community. I encouraged the government to contact the parties; they don’t have a role in negotiations, to be clear, but just to say, “You matter to this province. We really need these workers to stay on the job.” I want to believe that played a role.

But do you know, just for the record, Speaker, what didn’t play a positive role in this matter? I think it’s a lesson for every other, frankly, public and private sector workplace. The employer in this particular matter had contacted an anti-union law firm. They are known as Hicks Morley. This is one of my least-favourite legal organizations in Ontario because I’ve run into them a number of times as a union organizer myself working in hotels, working in light manufacturing. Their sole purpose, if you go to their website, if you read their materials, is union avoidance and preventing unions from being formed in the first place and, when you have a union, playing hardball tactics to create disputes.

Look, we’re allowed to have our speech in this province. We’re allowed to express ourselves. We’re allowed to organize. These are all charter-protected rights. It doesn’t mean I have to like the way some people use them. I certainly don’t like the fact that this firm, Hicks Morley, for the record, I believe was playing a very negative role. I want to encourage every single employer across the entire province—because I believe the vast majority do—to take a constructive attitude to the bargaining table and to tune out, as much as possible, those voices that want to pick fights and cause lasting damage in a workplace.

I believe that has not happened at Rideauwood. I think they’re going to grow out of this experience, but I really hope the Hicks Morleys of Ontario are not going to be guiding their future workplace decisions, particularly for harm reduction and addiction services workers.

In the time I have left, to benefit this debate, I also want to talk about what harm reduction and addictions workers in my city are doing for themselves because I think it’s a phenomenal model that could be embraced by other particular funding agencies of the government that could grow in other communities. I want to talk about an initiative called Soul Space.

Soul Space is a non-profit that started up in our community devoted solely to the issue of respite and connection for harm reduction and addictions workers. So, you can imagine what you see on a regular basis if your job is harm reduction, if your job is addiction and mental health services. You’re seeing traumatic cases every single day. Most people I know who get into this profession—again, as a vocation—they have lived experience themselves or their family. That’s what takes them into the profession. But it doesn’t mean you’re not human, and it doesn’t mean that when you see people hurting and struggling, that it doesn’t stay with you, it doesn’t follow you home, it doesn’t impact your mental health.

Soul Space is a non-profit that was started up specifically to provide those outreach workers an opportunity to get out of the workplace and to connect with their colleagues in the wilderness, at conference retreats, to talk about what they’re seeing. It is phenomenal. I have here, Speaker—it’s not a prop. I have their annual report. I went to their meeting, and I listened to the good that this organization, Soul Space, has done. They operate out of First United Church in the west end of Ottawa Centre, and I think this is precisely the work that the province should be encouraging across every single community. We need to be able to have that opportunity for these folks to get out of these very intense workplace environments that they love, and we need to give them the opportunity to interact with each other, to vent, to grieve, to explore creative ideas about how their work could be done differently. In some cases, as I’ve heard through community organizations, there was a specific retreat for Black mental health workers recently: the Soul Sisters retreat, organized though Soul Space. It was the first of its kind in Ottawa—and it’s 2024. So, I’m very excited when I see initiatives like this.

The “working for workers” theme in this House is a good theme, but what I hope to do in the run-up to the next budget cycle in Ontario is to encourage this organization to be receiving regular public funding to encourage Soul Space to grow in other communities, not just in Ottawa and Toronto, but in Sudbury, in Windsor, in London, in Peterborough, in Belleville: places where I’ve heard that these are communities where the overdose crisis has been very, very present.

When we see those people running to the scene, it’s like any first responder. When we see those people running to the scene and we thank them later and we salute them and we take off our hat to them, that’s great, but we also need to remember that, long after we celebrate them, they also have to live with what they see on the job every single day. It’s true for a police officer; it’s true for a firefighter; it’s true for a nurse. But it’s also true for mental health and addictions workers, who are generally paid much below what a comparable worker in the hospital system is paid. So, we can work on the compensation piece as an employer of these great people, but we can also work on what we offer them outside the workplace. And that’s a very positive story, I believe.

Let me shout out two more initiatives before my time is up, Speaker. I want to shout out the drug overdose prevention and education response team at the Somerset West Community Health Centre. This is an organization run out of one of our community health centres that employs people after hours, after the harm reduction facility in that centre is closed, between 5 p.m. and the following morning, to respond to incidents of mental crisis and potential violence for people—because we know the toxicity of the drug supply on our streets is leading people to act out in irrational and not socially productive ways. But if you know—and I’ve talked to police officers in detail about this, Speaker—that a community unarmed response is what you need, the question that is getting posed in our city is, who do you call?

Well, this particular program, which the government, to their credit, has funded, has been one of the numbers for small business owners and residents to call. And they’ve had over 35,000 interactions with people in crisis and they’ve been able to de-escalate an incredible amount of situations with which I’m familiar.

I want to talk for a second about Liza Sare from the Tamis café and restaurant. It’s a beautiful Filipino restaurant, by the way, on Bank Street, if you have a chance to go there—Bank and Gilmour. But Liza called me apoplectic and upset because someone had broken into her car; someone had been wandering into the restaurant and bothering customers, making people feel unsafe, and she was asking me, “So, what do I do? How can I help? I see someone suffering, but I can’t tolerate this behaviour in my restaurant and the staff are scared.”

So, we are developing right now, Speaker, based upon this program, the drug overdose prevention and education response team, an unarmed crisis response system that is going to be coming on board this summer thanks to Somerset West Community Health Centre, thanks to the Centretown Community Health Centre, and they will be working with police as the first avenue of response for situations that don’t involve potentially lethal incidents where we do need the police. But these folks are going to be coming on stream.

I just want to acknowledge that we have a new deal with the province. Part of that new deal is keeping the downtown of Ottawa safe: safe on transit, safe in our streets. We have $28 million and we’re working on a plan because we have 120 days to respond to the government about how we want the money to be spent. I, for one, having met the experts on the DOPE outreach team, having seen first-hand what people at Rideauwood are capable of doing, think we should be investing in employee compensation top-ups. I think we should be investing in respite agencies like Soul Space. I think we should be investing in the unarmed response teams because they are best poised, in my opinion, Speaker, to help our neighbours who are suffering and who are in crisis. And I know the issue of overdose affects every single member in this House. All of us have interacted either personally in our own families or with family members who have been at the end of their rope through a situation like this.

So if, in thinking about how we work for workers, we can keep in our mind those people who, as they are working for us, are taking on enormous risk, and we ask ourselves, in a province with a budget of over $200 billion, how can we allocate some of this to make sure there are alternatives for people—and the good news, Speaker, is that in the city I am blessed to live in and serve, there are alternatives. They have been created at the community level. Are mistakes made? For sure. Are there things to evaluate? Yes, but we know that if we put the money into the wise community voices that have been around in planning, we can turn lives around.

I want to shout out Bobby Jamison, one of the creators of Soul Space, who himself was homeless, who himself suffered with addictive behaviours, who has talked about Soul Space and the unarmed response unit as being a lifeline for people who have walked his journey, in the future.

So, this isn’t just about numbers and metrics of interactions and diversions from prison or diversions from the emergency room or diversions from paramedics; this is about saving lives and not wasting the talents of people who could otherwise make this province incredible. I think about Bobby. I think of the Rideauwood workers. They are people with so much compassion and so much to offer. We can invest in them. The return will be huge.

Thanks for listening.

There’s a lot of stuff in this bill, but you seem to have really focused in on our wildfire fighters. I think they deserve the focus and, again, I’m confident in the resources this government has given and continues to give to the wildfire programs. I’m also confident with the shared arrangements that we have with other provinces, because we never know and we can’t assume today what the wildfire situation will be through the year, but we need to be prepared and we need to share our resources with other regions so that we can respond when they experience a flash in wildfires and, vice versa, we can count on them to return the favour when we are in a situation. So we look forward—

I want to thank the member from Nepean for that question, because she’s absolutely right. In the 20 minutes we get for debate, sometimes we leave people out. I should have mentioned them. We need investment there, absolutely.

The member from Nepean will be able to remember, because you’re a big hockey fan, the hockey-related initiative—

There was one of the Ottawa Senators players who personally made it a point of investing in the Royal, and I think it was great. That was an example where someone used their celebrity to give attention to an institution that sometimes doesn’t always rank at the top. I salute that initiative.

I also salute the fact that what I’ve heard from the minister responsible, too—and he’s absolutely right—we have to figure out a way to reach people preventatively, long before they end up in some of our tertiary care facilities. There’s a lot we can do there, not only through mental health workers but through the arts, through sport, through various initiatives. If we can detect someone is having a very hard time, through someone they trust like a coach or a fellow artist, there’s a way to reach people and work with people.

But the member is right; we need to invest in the Royal. We need to make sure that when people are at that crisis, life-threatening moment, the services are there for them.

To the Westray act, I don’t think you will find a person in this place who would not say that if you kill a worker, or if you’re responsible for killing a worker, there ought to be consequences. And not just from a punitive standpoint, Speaker, because I don’t believe anybody ever wins if it’s always about consequences and fines. There has to be accountability, but we also have to learn. We also have to learn from the situations that I talked about, like Mr. Armagan, who lost his life recently, on April 30, delivering food for people. This is not necessary. We don’t have to have five cyclist deaths in the province of Ontario.

These very, very wealthy companies with deep pockets and access to lobbyists that don’t want the regulations, that don’t want the obligation to look after employees working for them and making their companies successful—these are some of the preventative measures we can take. The Westray law was a historic law. It was clear that with that tragedy the country learned that there have to be consequences when workers die on the job.

I would put it right back to those employer-employee communities. As I said, when the minister responsible for mental health and addictions talks about preventative measures, that is the preventative measure so the tragedy of Westray doesn’t happen ever again. That would be my best response.

Thank you to the member from Ottawa Centre for your remarks. I want to go to the beginning of what you were talking about. You were talking about very precarious workers, racialized workers, immigrant workers working in very unsafe conditions that could be prevented.

I want to talk about commercial truck drivers. There are many, many immigrant commercial truck drivers and they are dying on the job. They are dying because they are not receiving any training. I know this because I’ve met with them. They are putting up as much as $40,000 for training they never receive. They have very precarious immigration status, which is why they can be pressured. They’re like indentured servants, really. Wage theft is rampant.

I see that higher fines are in this bill but I also know that those fines are rarely applied. It’s also a complaint-based process, which puts the entire burden on the workers, who are already vulnerable. I think they’re begging for inspections. So I’m just wondering if you see some way that we could be helping those workers in revisions to this bill.

To my colleague: I listened. You mentioned about individuals who work for Soul Space with mental health and addictions. This government continues to put forward bills that help workers while we see time and time again that flat-out rejection of measures that we know are needed to support workers right now. This is clarity on application of the Westray law and deeming and scab labour and increased sick days—a clear solution by workers, for workers.

In light of removing the requirement for sick notes—often mental health workers need sick notes because of what they have on their job, PTSD or other work-related illnesses, which seems like a belated nod to common sense. Why does this bill stop short of extending this to include more comprehensive job protection measures? What do you see is missing here?