I wanted to say thank you for a very thoughtful presentation from the member from Ottawa Centre. I listened intently, obviously, because many of the organizations he mentioned, in particular Rideauwood as well as CHC in Somerset, are very important to the constituents that I represent as well, and I’ve had interactions with them over the past 18 years. I know our government has done a lot of work—and I appreciate the member opposite bringing the fact in that we have made some investments, including at Dave Smith treatment centre, including at the Queensway Carleton health unit and of course the nurse practitioner-led clinic.

But I do have a question for him, and that is, in his constituency he holds the Royal Ottawa hospital as well as the Roberts Smart Centre for very vulnerable youth. I believe both of those need expansions. In terms of the Royal, it needs an emergency centre, and certainly Roberts Smart, dealing with the most vulnerable youth in the province of Ontario—it’s almost heartbreaking to see the place that they’re actually encased in—and I call it “encased.” I’d like his views on those two properties. Well, it’s actually one property but two very different types of mental health institutions.

One of the things that really bothered most Canadians, not just the people from Pictou County, Nova Scotia, about Westray was the lack of accountability. The member opposite mentioned that. They evaded that type of accountability for quite some time. It was people like Vern Theriault, who is a friend of mine and who has written a book on Westray, that advocated for the Westray act in Parliament, where I was a staffer at the time.

What I would ask the member opposite is, does he have any further suggestion of accountability mechanisms that he doesn’t see within this legislation, and if so, what are they? I’d be interested, not just as a member of this assembly but as somebody who comes from the community where the Westray mine disaster occurred.

It’s a pleasure today to stand and speak about this bill. It has a number of measures to support workers in it, and many of them make sense. Almost all of them make sense.

I’m going to focus my remarks on schedule 6 of this bill, but before I do that, I just want to mention one measure which makes a lot of sense to me, and that is to get rid of family doctor notes and replace them with something else, like an attestation or whatever is decided in the future when it comes to justifying sick day entitlements. That’s going to save valuable time for family doctors, something that we need to create more of to resolve our health care crisis. It goes back to the practice that was in place under the previous Liberal government, and I think it’s a bit of red tape that this government should not have created in the first place.

Let me get to schedule 6, which modifies the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act, 1997. It addresses wildland firefighters and fire investigators. This is a very seasonal kind of work. In the middle of the firefighting season, we could have around a thousand people in Ontario working in the ministry on wildland firefighting. It’s good to know that the workplace safety and insurance coverage will be applied to these workers. We’re talking about not only firefighters, but you’ve got helicopter and water bomber pilots and people who work with the radio, warehousing and logistics, as well as firefighting. What this bill covers is, it covers PTSD and it covers skin cancer, and it covers it in a way where there’s a presumption that if you suffer from these things, you don’t have the burden of proof to show that it was caused by your workplace.

We know that a lot of things that burn in fires are carcinogenic, and there’s also an issue with protective equipment which contains these forever chemicals. I’ll get to that a bit later but let me just say that I very much support the idea that Bill 190 would extend this presumptive coverage for post-traumatic stress disorder to wildland firefighters and wildland fire investigators, and as well extend the presumptive coverage for skin cancer.

One thing that I want to mention in addition to smoke and the carcinogenic effects of smoke is the firefighters’ protective clothing. It’s called turnout gear. It’s essential for working in dangerous environments, like where there’s a fire. You’ve got waterproofing, heatproofing, fireproofing and so on. The firefighting community has raised concerns about whether these chemicals—these per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, PFAS, otherwise known as “forever chemicals” because they degrade with great difficulty in the environment—can affect the health of firefighters. Some of them have been linked to cancer, and they’re used in the current gear.

Until recently, there has been not that much information regarding the specific types of PFAS chemicals and the quantities and where in the equipment that was located. It was only last year in the United States that the National Institute of Standards and Technology issued a report which studied this really, really carefully, where the PFAS chemicals were in the firefighting gear. So this is a relatively new thing, and because of that, we should be a little bit careful and realize that that could be affecting the health of firefighters.

I want to go on now a little bit past schedule 6, because I think it’s important to cover wildland firefighters for skin cancer and PTSD, but there are a couple of things I think that this bill could have done to help with our ability to maintain a strong workforce to fight wildland fires.

When I went to visit Thunder Bay recently, I found out that in Thunder Bay, the Ministry of Natural Resources has been losing firefighters to the Thunder Bay city fire department because, again, fighting fires is a seasonal job. Because it’s a seasonal job, a lot of the times the workers are finding other things to do in the off-season, or we hire a lot of students who then go to class. But then, if people are thinking about starting a career, they move to something like the city fire department, which was documented in Thunder Bay. That is not a good thing for having a strong, experienced workforce to fight wildland fires.

Something that could be done by our government to improve working conditions and to preserve that institutional wildland firefighting knowledge is to have more crew leaders who are full-time, year-round employees. They may not be fighting fires all year round, but the idea is that we can find other things for them to do in the government. This has been done in the past.

What are crew leaders? These are people who would lead a team of four people; get dropped, say, by helicopter into a fire area; and they’d be carrying equipment as well—maybe, I was told, a long hose, like a 2,400-foot hose and other equipment to fight fire. None of these crew leaders are full-time right now. It would be a good thing to make sure that they’re full-time so they make a career of being a wildland firefighter and preserve that institutional memory, which allows them to fight fires more effectively and more safely for the rest of their crew.

This is not a trivial task. It will require a little bit of extra management effort to make sure that they have other useful things to do during the other parts of the year. But I think it would be something that would be good to do. Otherwise, we’ll get more turnover than is optimal.

The government said recently that they would be creating 100 permanent positions. I think we’re still waiting, if I’m not mistaken, for clarification about what exactly that means. Which jobs will become permanent positions? Does that mean year-round or what?

Another thing that’s missing that I think could help that I discovered when I was speaking to a company in Thunder Bay, and also firefighters, is there’s a shortage of helicopter pilots. There’s a shortage of pilots but especially helicopter pilots.

I went and talked to a friend of mine who commanded a helicopter squadron in the Canadian Forces and was also a dean at a community college, so he knew a lot about training and about what it takes to train highly skilled helicopter pilots. I asked him, “What is the barrier to getting people to go into a career as a helicopter pilot?” He said, “The barrier is it’s very expensive to become a helicopter pilot.”

First of all, you have to get your fixed-wing licence. You have to spend hundreds of hours to get your licence to be a fixed-wing pilot. Each one of these hours, you’re operating a substantial piece of equipment, so that’s a lot of hours of fuel and wear and tear on the equipment to get that experience. Only then can you go and become a helicopter pilot.

And you can’t just become any kind of helicopter pilot who flies from one airport to another airport; you have to have special skills. So, for example, you might have to hover over rough ground while discharging firefighters and their equipment, and that’s not something that you would do if you’re only trained to fly from airport to airport.

So one of the things that we need to do to relieve this helicopter pilot shortage—and I know that this government has looked into ways to get more skilled labour to help our economy, but when it comes to helicopter pilots, who are in short supply, are important for our mining industry and also natural resources, fighting wildland fires, we have to think carefully about whether we should be helping with the cost of training to become a helicopter pilot for these purposes.

I believe that this bill has a number of good measures. But, generally speaking, I think there are many other things that could be done, and I’ve tried to address a couple of them in my speech today. I look forward to answering any questions.

Further debate?

Really great question. I know a little less about the trucking industry, but again, in that previous employment I had, I had occasion to talk to the teamsters’ union and other organizations operating in that sector. They told me a lot about this, about how one of the ways in which companies try to save money is hiring folks with precarious immigration status. Now, let’s be real: We want those folks to get those jobs, we want them to be employed, but we don’t want them to be unsafe on the job.

I think the government could investigate health and safety rules, and if anybody who is working one of those jobs is watching this, an option you have with your colleagues is joining a union, forming a union or scoping into an existing union, because those are the organizations that are supposed to exist at a community level to keep you safe. It is your right in this province to organize a union without retaliation, and if that retaliation happens, the system is going to be there to protect you. That’s why I’m very proud to be a pro-union politician.

Thank you to the member from Kingston and the Islands for your comments. Wildland firefighting—there used to be permanent jobs there, so I don’t think it’s going to be hard for them to figure out how to use them over the full year. One thing they could do would be to update the training manual so that workers aren’t told to wear a bandana as a way of protecting themselves from smoke inhalation.

You’re talking about retention, and we heard from the speaker earlier that the wages are actually quite a bit lower than they were years ago. They’ve been offered bonuses, but there’s a difference between a bonus and a wage increase. I wonder if you could just talk about what that difference is in terms of retention and really attracting people to stay.

It’s an honour to rise this afternoon in support of Bill 190, the latest Working for Workers act, introduced by the Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development. This is our government’s fifth Working for Workers bill and the fourth one that I’ve had the privilege to speak about in the House. If passed, Bill 190 would expand on the historic reforms in the first four acts, which are already helping millions of Ontario workers.

I want to thank the minister and his team, including his parliamentary assistant from Ajax and his two former parliamentary assistants from Mississauga–Malton and Scarborough Centre, for all their work on this bill. Of course, I also want to mention the incredible work of our former minister, Monte McNaughton. They travelled across the province to consult with workers, unions and employers, advocating for the skilled trades and workers’ health and safety and many more.

I also want to thank all the stakeholders who joined us at my own labour round table in January at Lakeview Village in Mississauga–Lakeshore, including Finn Johnson from the Carpenters’ District Council of Ontario, Local 27; Moya MacKinnon from Achēv; and Artan Spahiu from Polycultural Immigrant and Community Services and about 20 more. Speaker, I know their feedback was invaluable in helping to shape Bill 190 and I know that, moving forward, we will continue to rely on their advice.

Before I begin my remarks, the Day of Mourning for workers killed or injured in the workplace was last week, on April 28. Thousands of people across the province held a moment of silence in memory of workers who made the ultimate sacrifice and as a powerful reminder of the ongoing need to improve workplace safety in Ontario.

I was able to attend an event at the Italian Fallen Workers Memorial at the Columbus Centre in North York with the Italian consul general Luca Zelioli, Vaughan mayor Steven Del Duca and many others to honour the memory of thousands of Italian fallen workers, including my own father, who was a welder at the old Texaco refinery in Port Credit. He died of lung cancer and asbestosis when I was only 18, so I want to thank the minister and his team for working to include asbestos in the Occupational Exposure Registry, which is expected next year.

Adam Melnick, the Canadian director of the International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers, said, and I agree, that:

“We commend [the minister] and the government of Ontario, for recognizing the harm that asbestos continues to cause workers, and their families.

“The inclusion of asbestos in the provincial Occupational Exposure Registry is necessary to understand the ongoing dangers of asbestos in our already-built environment, and the destructive legacy” it has left for so many workers and their families, including my own. He said—and I agree—that this is a very important step towards a provincial asbestos strategy, so again, I want to thank the minister for this.

Speaker, I’ll begin today with schedule 1, which includes amendments to the Building Opportunities in the Skilled Trades Act. Back in 2013, the Conference Board of Canada reported that the skills gap—the gap between the skills our students are graduating with and the skills that our employees need across the province—was costing Ontario over $24 billion, or about 4% of the provincial GDP, because hundreds of thousands of skilled jobs are left vacant across the province. We’ve made great progress since then, but there are still about 237,000 jobs available, which is costing us billions in lost productivity. In part, this is because of the ongoing stigma against the skilled trades.

As the minister announced in Brampton last week, schedule 1 of Bill 190 would help to open new pathways into the skilled trades for older, experienced workers interested in the skilled trades as a second career, but who might not meet the current academic requirements to register as an apprentice. They would be able to use alternative criteria, like professional experience, to give them a second chance at a better job and a bigger paycheque.

We’re developing a new online job-matching platform to help employers and apprentices to network and share opportunities. And, Speaker, we’re building on the successful Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program with a new stream, Focused Apprenticeship Skills Training, to help provide more opportunities for grade 11 and grade 12 students to get hands-on learning experience and learn the critical skills they need to succeed in well-paying careers in the skilled trades through co-op credits in high school.

Speaker, this delivers on a commitment that the Premier made over a year ago to expand options for high school students, beginning in grade 11, to help them enter the skilled trades faster and work towards a full-time apprenticeship. I’d like to thank the minister again, as well as the Minister of Education, for their leadership on this policy.

It is quite a contrast with some members of the other side. After the announcement, Cheri DiNovo, the former NDP member from Parkdale–High Park, shared her reaction on Twitter, which is now X. She wrote, “Who needs to learn history, science, reading when you can stay uneducated and vote Conservative?” As the minister said, there are many young people, including young women, who want to build a career for themselves in the skilled trades. The elitist attitude that the people in the trades are uneducated is exactly what has got Ontario into the labour crisis we face today.

As many members know, before I was elected, I was a dues-paying union member for 31 years at Unifor Local 707 and the Canadian Auto Workers before that. I worked for Ford Canada in Oakville for 31 years, most recently as a vehicle auditor. But when I was running for office in 2018, Michelle Baker, the Liberal chief of staff to Bonnie Crombie at the city of Mississauga, tweeted that I was just “a person who counts car parts.” You know what? If they were able to count, we wouldn’t have run the largest sub-national debt in the province of Ontario.

But I’m very proud of my career at Ford. Again, after my father died of asbestosis, it was an opportunity to support my family and build a better life, but it was a career that was in jeopardy under the former Liberal government as Ontario lost 300,000 manufacturing jobs. The former Liberal Minister of Finance said that assembly line manufacturing was just “a thing of the past.” This is why I ran for office against the former Minister of Finance, because the Liberals and NDP had abandoned working class people in Ontario.

Last week, I joined the Premier in Caledon to announce that the construction of the Highway 413 would begin next year, creating 3,500 more good union jobs. Victoria Mancinelli from LIUNA said that our government “has done more to advance skilled trades than any government in Ontario’s history.”

She said, “Careers in skilled trades have transformed lives. They have lifted individuals out of poverty, out of violence and difficult situations. They have empowered a sense of purpose, financial stability and a new outlook on life,” and, “Our province, our economy and our country can’t succeed, grow or function without” the incredible, intelligent and skilled workers in the trades. Insulting them is “appalling, ignorant and disrespectful.” I can’t say it better myself.

Next, schedule 2 of Bill 190 would amend the Employment Standards Act to make the hiring process more fair with several new requirements for employers. If passed, sections 8.5 and 8.6 would require job ads to clearly state whether a position is currently available or just for potential future needs. This was based on a story in the Toronto Star about so-called ghost jobs. Employers would also have to provide a decision within a reasonable time after a job interview.

We’re also reducing the administrative burden for sick workers and health care professionals and putting patients before paperwork. For example, Bill 190 would amend section 50 of the act to reduce paperwork burdens for health care workers by preventing employers from requiring sick notes for a worker’s job-protected leave. We know that family doctors already spend up to 19 hours every week filling out forms and other documents, including sick notes. That’s up to half of their work week spent on paperwork and other red tape instead of treating their patients.

The WSIB is also streamlining and modernizing their systems, enabling direct deposits, digital submissions and online claims. I know they’re working together with health sector organizations to explore even more options to reduce administrative burdens on workers and doctors.

Next, we would amend section 132 of the act to double the fines for individuals from $50,000 to $100,000 which would be the highest fine in Canada. We’re also proposing to increase the penalties for repeat offenders. Under the former Liberal government, penalties for repeat offenders who exploited their workers were only $1,000, less than the cost of an iPhone today. Our government is raising this penalty to $5,000 for each employee, each time, which again is one of the highest in Canada, because we know that it is completely unacceptable for bad actors to buy their way out of the consequences of putting their workers at risk.

Finally, I want to thank the minister for consulting on potential future amendments to the Employment Standards Act. In particular, I know he is looking at including IT workers in certain sections, to ensure that everyone is treated fairly and every worker has a basic right for lunch breaks and overtime pay.

Schedule 3 and 5 of Bill 190 would also help to provide fair access to the regulated professions, including engineers, lawyers, teachers and so on, for internationally trained workers. If passed, these professions would be required to develop new policies to accept alternative documents whenever the standard ones are not available for reasons beyond the control of a job applicant, such as a natural disaster or a war, like we’ve seen with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Ontario would become the first province in Canada to require these professions to have a policy in place to accept alternative documents and to allow job applicants to get through several steps of the registration process all at once, so they’re not held up at any part of the process, which would be another first in Canada.

The government is also increasing the number of occupations that will be eligible for our Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program’s stream for in-demand skills, and schedule 5 would allow reviewers appointed under the Ontario Immigration Act to delegate their authority to other public servants to help increase the decision-making capacity in the program and to speed up decisions.

I know that moving forward, the minister is also consulting on a new trusted employer model to help reduce the administrative burden on reliable employers that are working with the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program, and I look forward to seeing this as part of Working for Workers number six.

Next, schedule 4 of the bill would amend the Occupational Health and Safety Act to help make the skilled trades more accessible for women and to support women at work. For the first time in Canada, employers at construction sites and other workplaces would be required to keep their washrooms clean and sanitary and to maintain records on washroom cleaning. As well, menstrual products would be required on large construction sites with more than 20 people where the project is expected to last for three months or more.

Speaker, these policies are a direct response to the women in the skilled trades, like Michelle Small in Mississauga, who have told us we need to do this to encourage more women to join the construction industry.

Schedule 4 would also modernize the definition of workplace harassment to include new protections against virtual harassment, including virtual sexual harassment, to better reflect the nature of the modern workplace. And again, Speaker, the minister will consult with victims of harassment, legal experts and other stakeholders to identify potential future amendments to create a duty to act for employers where investigations find that there has been harassment in the workplace.

Lastly, I want to thank the minister for the amendments to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act in schedule 6 of this bill that would help keep our front-line workers, including first responders, healthy and safe. This includes changes to section 14 and 15 of the act to improve coverage for skin cancer for firefighters, fire investigators and volunteers by lowering the current requirement from 15 years of service to 10. Speaker, this would be the lowest in Canada, and it responds to growing evidence that firefighters have an increased risk of developing cancer, and not just because of the exposure to toxic chemicals during emergencies. An audit in Mississauga in 2019 found asbestos in several of the fire stations where firefighters live, eat and sleep during their shift, including stations 102, 103 and 104 in Mississauga–Lakeshore.

Again, I want to thank the Minister of Finance for the $30-million Fire Protection Grant program that was announced in the 2024 budget. This will make a real difference to help protect firefighters from exposure to toxic chemicals like asbestos and many others.

Speaker, I was at station 104 in Port Credit just last night for a tour with the Mississauga historical society and a presentation by award-winning photographer Stephen Uhraney about his experience with the firefighters of station 104. I urge all members to visit the photo exhibit—it’s called On Duty—if you have a chance to come to Mississauga–Lakeshore.

Speaker, schedule 6 would also expand the coverage for certain cancers, heart injuries and PTSD to wildland firefighters and fire investigators who worked so hard to keep Ontario safe last year, during the most difficult wildfire season in the province’s history. These changes would ensure that they have the same coverage as municipal firefighters, so I want to thank the Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry and the member from Thunder Bay–Atikokan for all their work on this. Again, I know that the minister will continue to consult about expanding coverage even further; for example, for PTSD and for those who have to review body cam evidence. I look forward to speaking about that in Working for Workers Six.

Again, Speaker, I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak on Bill 190 this afternoon. As I said, this bill builds on the historic reforms that our government has already made. It is the next step to support workers, from our first responders to women in the skilled trades, to job seekers young and old, injured workers and everyone in between. I hope that all the members in this House will support this bill moving forward.

Questions? I recognized member from Toronto–Danforth—no, no, no.

Further debate?

That’s a very good question, and I know that this idea of which kinds of workplace injuries or cancers, for example, and how long that person has been working—it has changed recently, but the answer is, I don’t know. I don’t have enough experience. But what I will say is that I believe in, as much as possible, facts and evidence.

Now, deciding who has the burden of proof, that’s a different question. It depends on what kind of precautions you want to take. I’d certainly be open to it, but I haven’t really thought carefully about that, I will admit.

I would even go beyond construction sites. Another very dangerous occupation is agriculture. The very last trip I made to southwestern Ontario, I heard a story from somebody I was driving with about how somebody in their family died at a young age from a farming accident.

So I think that anything we can do—every generation, we’re going to make improvements to workplace safety, and I support that.

It’s really important to make sure that people just aren’t attracted by the bonus, but they’re attracted by the job and doing it well.

I want to thank the member opposite from Kingston and the Islands for some great remarks. I know the member comes from a science background.

Early in my career, I was unfortunately a witness to a construction accident. I got to know two workers, one of whom had died on the site, and I’ll never forget the image of the last conversation I had with him.

This legislation has some supports for investigating a comprehensive review of fatalities in the construction sector and expanding on the types of equipment to be provided on construction projects. That’s where I witnessed this particular accident.

So I would like to get the member’s thoughts, his overview of this sector as it is today, when it comes to fatalities and whether or not he thinks this legislation goes in the right direction.

I’m glad that wildland firefighting is getting such an airing of conversation today because it’s certainly an important topic, and I appreciate the comments and remarks and Q&As from the member opposite.

I’m going to go ahead and make some assumptions here. I’m going to assume that you supported the 107 FTEs that we added to wildland firefighting this year, which I don’t think you bothered to mention in your comments. I think you probably didn’t bother to send out anything on your social media channels encouraging people to apply to be wildland firefighters in Ontario this year when we were offering that recruitment and retention bonus.

I am heartened that you’re concerned so much about wildland firefighters, but I’d like to know, from the member, what exactly did you do to get more people to enter into wildland firefighting this year to keep Ontarians safe?

Further questions?

I want to thank the member for that question. Growing up like I did and knowing that your father had cancer, and you knew that there was no hope for him, and being at home watching him deteriorate every day was very hard on me. I believe that every worker should be able to come home every night and be with their family. So, yes, I believe we should do more.

And we are doing more. Over the years, you can see how we have improved our workplaces in Ontario. I wish other jurisdictions in the world would do what we’re doing.

There’s always more work to be done. I’m not going to say there isn’t. There’s always more work to be done, but we are going in the right direction, more than I can say for the previous government, which did nothing for workers in the province of Ontario. So I know we have to do more work but we are doing work to get to that place.

I want to thank the member for his comments. I found those very informative. I knew about your workplace history, but I didn’t know about your dad. That’s quite a story.

I had occasion to learn a bit about the Hoggs Hollow tragedy of March 17, 1960, that involved five immigrant Italian workers. I’m sure that was part of what you were remembering at the celebration—sorry, not a celebration; the day of mourning that you referenced.

I just want to introduce for the record and get your reaction to the Heron Road Workers Memorial Bridge. That’s our tragedy in Ottawa. On August 10, 1966, it killed nine workers and injured 60 others when an improperly built bridge collapsed and sent 183 to hospital. It was a real tragedy, Speaker, and I’m just wondering if the member, inspired by his comments on this bill—do you think this should be written into the curriculum, that the children in elementary and secondary school should be required to learn a little bit about these sacrifices that were made to build the infrastructure and how we should never be repeating these precedents again, to make sure everybody gets to go to work safe and gets to come home safe?

I want to thank my colleague for speaking to the importance of this bill. You have a riding that’s very diverse. The member represents a lot of people, especially young people. In your riding you know that young people are the future and there is a lot of development that needs to happen in your riding.

I’m just wondering if you could speak to how this bill is going to help encourage a lot of young people, but especially women. Being the minister for women, I think it’s so important to see women get into the skilled trades. I just wonder if you can elaborate on how you think this bill is going to help support the many women and young people to engage in the trades and to help build Ontario.

Further questions?

Further questions?

I just want to thank the member for that response he just gave. I wholeheartedly agree. The word that I’m familiar with is “parity of esteem.” There should be a parity of esteem across critical occupations that keep our province going. I agree: Skilled trades are very important.

But back to my question, because I want to give my friend another chance to answer this, because I think this is something we can agree on in this House. I think elementary school kids and high school kids could benefit from health and safety experts—the member knows this well in the automotive industry—who have those lessons of history that we can teach young people in elementary and secondary school so tragedies like Hoggs Hollow, the Heron Road Workers Memorial Bridge, or, as I was talking about earlier in debate this afternoon, the 39-year-old Uber Eats driver who was killed on Avenue Road, the fourth cyclist killed this year—so all those people get to go home safe.

My question to the member: Would he support some collaborative work in this House to make sure labour history and health and safety are written into what the kids learn at school so that it becomes a priority for them too?

I want to thank the minister for that question. I think the skilled trades are very important. But you know what I do? I blame parents sometimes for the skilled trades, that they don’t want their children in the skilled trades. We want our children to be doctors, lawyers and accountants.

I noticed with my sons—I have two sons. I have one that’s 24 and one that’s 21. One is becoming a CPA; the other one is becoming a mining engineer. All their friends who are in the skilled trades right now are already buying houses because the skilled trades are well-paying jobs. When we were working at Ford Motor Co., all our skilled trades workers were making way more than we make here in this Legislature. It is a future for our children.

What we have to do in Ontario—because there’s been a stigma for many years for women, and young men as well, to get into the skilled trades—is we have to get rid of that stigma and have them come into the skilled trades so we can build the 1.5 million homes, we can build the 413 and the Brantford Bypass, we can build Ontario, build our hospitals and our long-term-care homes. Because without the workers we can’t get to where we have to get.

So I want to thank all these young kids out there that are watching today. Get into the skilled trades—

Interjection: Matthew McConaughey.

That’s what I do. I always look at what happened before to what happens now. I can use the 2017 budget in this House. Spending was $152 billion and today it’s $214 billion. I look at health care: Under the Liberal government it was $59.4 billion. Today it’s $85 billion. I could go on—even education. It was $23 billion. Today it’s $28 billion.

Yes, we can work with our young children in schools to have them know what happened before so they can move forward in the skilled trades and build Ontario. As I said, we need to build our hospitals, we need to build our long-term care. We need our highways and our transit. We need our skilled trades workers to build Ontario.

Every immigrant that does come into Canada, let’s get them in the skilled trades as well so we can continue building the better province that we all believe in.

Like you said, not only do we need homes, we need highways, we need transit, we need pretty well everything that was neglected for 15 years under the Liberal government. We lost 300,000 manufacturing jobs in the province of Ontario at that time because Ontario was not succeeding, it wasn’t punching at the level they should have been.

Right now, under this Premier and this Minister of Finance and yourself, we know that we have to continue to work together to get our young children and our immigrants who are coming into the country into the trades so we can build the 1.5 million homes and build the infrastructure we need to move Ontario to the place that it belongs.

I appreciated listening to my colleague’s remarks. As I’ve travelled the province in the last couple of months visiting traditional home builders, modular or factory-built home builders, there’s one common theme: We need 1.5 million homes built in this province and we need the people to build them. No matter how much automation we invest in, we still need the skilled trades’ talent and expertise to get these houses built. The biggest concern these builders have is where we are going to get the labour. It is the number one constraint to their capacity, their growth, their potential.

My question to my colleague is how is this bill going to help accentuate, facilitate and, most importantly, complement the capacity increase we need to get more homes built and faster in this province?

It’s always an honour for me to rise and add the voices and perspectives of the wonderful people of London North Centre here in this chamber.

As I rise today to debate Bill 190, I’m reluctant to use the title itself because I often find that with this government there are unintentionally ironic titles to pieces of legislation that they create. As I take a look at this bill, I want to consider following the money, because, quite frankly, with much of the legislation that this government enacts, they simply don’t respond to the cost-of-living crisis that we see here in our province, and the plight of workers who are struggling to make ends meet, to pay for a roof over their heads, to pay their utility bills and to put healthy food on the table for themselves as well as their children.

The Fraser Institute actually just released a report just today that shows the trend of incomes in Ontario over the last two decades. It is entitled Ontario’s Two Lost Economic Decades: 2002-2022. It finds, by using a big-picture perspective and using several key indicators, that minimal economic progress was made for Ontarians during this time and that we actually lost ground relative to the country. It found that the GDP per-person growth was the second worst nationwide; business investment per worker over the 20-year period was only 61% of the national average. Here in Ontario, businesses are not investing in their people. The report was created by Ben Eisen, senior fellow from the Fraser Institute, and Eisen states, “On a number of important economic metrics, Ontario is lagging the rest of the country, which ultimately means Ontario workers are falling behind, along with opportunities for them.”

As we follow the money, I can’t help but also need to communicate to this government, despite their ideological opposition to health care workers as evidenced through Bill 124, as well as their ideological opposition to education workers with the bill that was until it wasn’t, we see a lot of really punishingly low wages for people across health care sectors.

I had the opportunity with the MPP from London West and the MPP from London–Fanshawe to meet with the RNAO and Janet Hunt, who spoke about so many issues that are facing nurses in the community sector. They gave us really harrowing stories about trying to struggle to meet clients’ basic needs, while being paid dramatically lower than their peers.

I should also point out that when we consider wage parity, that the Ontario Nonprofit Network pointed to a number of different places in which the province is a laggard and is making sure that people aren’t being paid what they deserve. For registered early childhood educators, if they work within a school board or a municipal centre, they will make roughly $25 an hour whereas those working in a not-for-profit licensed child care will earn $18 an hour.

In home and community care, PSWs are paid a fraction of what they deserve and what they’re worth. In home and community care, they earn 17% less than those in long-term care. But also, those home and community care PSWs earn 21% less than hospitals.

The list goes on: child and youth workers, disability support service workers, language instructors, settlement counsellors, social service workers—all in the community-based non-profit sector—earn $10 an hour less than hospitals, school boards and child welfare.

When you consider drop-in and shelter workers, those who are employed in not-for-profits will earn roughly $15 an hour, whereas those in municipal respite centres will earn $30 an hour, twice as much.

The Ontario Nonprofit Network has shown through its reporting that when you consider pay and benefits all together, people earn 30% less than they ought to be. And that’s something that this government could answer.

Recently, CUPE had actions trying to show this government how little they were being paid as a result of Bill 124 and seeing real degradation of their pay over the last several years. They’ve been handed excuses and delays. I would like to quote CUPE Local 8916 president Shaun Steven who said, “Our members work very hard behind the scenes to ensure that members of our community have access to health care and support for their needs at home and in community clinics, and we deserve a settlement that takes our hard work and the cost of living into account.” I could not agree more, Speaker. This is something that the government could act on, should act on, yet has chosen not to act on.

The RNAO has provided the following quotations, and this is from front-line workers: “In the community, we have clients who are waiting weeks to get routine procedures done because we are so short. Sometimes, the wait is so long that the client gets an infection or cannot wait any longer and must go to the ER to get care. This is a cycle that repeats.”

And another RNAO member stated, “We are struggling to find people who want to work in the community because their pay is so much lower than bedside nurses’, yet they are expected to do the exact same work. Our patients in the community are sicker than before.”

And from a veteran nurse who stated, “Historical decisions made in the 1990s are showing now, everywhere from changing how we fund health care from a nursing-hour model to a per-bed model. Nurses have been calling for change and warning about this for decades, and now, we are stuck having to pay for it.”

And another health care provider: “In the community where I work, I am frequently given a list of up to 14 patients to see in a day. It is often impossible to see all the patients in a day without going over my time but then I don’t get compensated. I get paid per visit but the patients they send to the RN are some of the sickest and need thorough assessments. Often I am called at the end of my day to go see someone whose condition has changed and family have called in looking for help. I then must call my other clients and tell them I can’t make it to see them. It often leads to angry words as they feel abandoned, and they then have to go to ER for whatever it was I was meant to do for them.”

Speaker, this is unconscionable that workers are being treated in this way, and this government is well aware of the plight of wage parity, and yet they simply choose not to act. During the tour for the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs, we heard again and again and again that wage parity is an issue affecting people across the province, yet we see legislation that’s titled purporting to support workers and yet ignoring their inability to pay workers properly.

But if we also follow the money, taking a look at the way this government has ignored some of the systems that they are responsible for, I also think about injured workers in this province. I think about the WSIB that has long not stood up for people who have become injured on the job. There was a 2015 study, and it found that 46% of injured workers will live in poverty nearly five years after their injury; 46% of the workers who really need the help, who are disabled, are stuck in poverty. Speaker, that was not the system the WSIB was created for. It was created to support workers, not to deny them.

There’s also been many, many recent studies showing that—and this is actually studies done by the Ministry of Labour that have shown the WSIB’s claims allowed rate has fallen from just under 2% of employed workers in 2004 to just over 1% in 2013. The number of fatalities and the number of critical injuries is going up, and yet there has been almost no change in the amount of claims being allowed by WSIB. We have to ask why that is. If we’re seeing numbers going up in terms of injuries and fatalities, how is it possible that that number is remaining stagnant?

Furthermore, if this government would like to support the title of its bill, it would do things such as getting rid of deeming. Deeming is the practice used by the WSIB to pretend an injured worker has a job that they do not actually have; it’s a phantom job. It’s used as an excuse to withdraw and to cut and to make sure that they are holding back money from that person who is injured and unable to work.

If this government really wanted to support workers, they would actually listen to physicians that attend to these injured workers. It’s been long exposed in Prescription Over-Ruled—which was created by a number of different doctors as well as the Ontario Federation of Labour. That has shown the stories of workers who were injured and were then supposedly treated by doctors who never actually saw them, never actually spoke to them, who looked at a piece of paper and made decisions based on a piece of paper.

I want to share, from that Prescription Over-Ruled, Keith’s story. Keith’s name has been changed to protect their identity:

“Keith suffered a brain injury and serious spinal injury when he fell eight feet and landed on his head. Despite immediate and ongoing physical and psychological distress, receiving treatment remains a constant struggle for this injured worker.

“Keith was working underground at the time of the accident. Unfortunately, his helmet came off during the fall and offered him no protection. When his head struck rock, witnesses say that they thought he was dead.

“In contrast to what Keith’s medical team has advised, the board has decided that he does not have a permanent injury. Even though Keith has a solid and consistent work history, and even though he sustained three spinal compression fractures from the fall, they are calling his ongoing pain ‘pre-existing.’

“While the board originally funded some physiotherapy, they ultimately turned down the physiotherapist’s strongly worded request for ongoing treatments to manage Keith’s continuing chronic pain. His condition has continued to degrade, and requests for more therapy—at the recommendation of a health care professional—continue to be denied. Now, he is on so many medications related to his pain that his doctors ordered him not to drive and functioning day to day is a struggle.

“But Keith is suffering from more than physical pain. Shortly after the injury, Keith’s doctor became concerned about his depression and poor sleep due to a possible brain injury. As his treating physician, he suggested Keith see a psychologist. The WSIB denied this request. When his depression reached what his doctor called ‘profound levels,’ he again requested psychological support for his patient. He was again denied. Some two years later and many requests later, Keith was finally granted limited sessions, though any activities related to brain injury rehabilitation or occupational therapy (both of which the psychologist has strongly recommended) have been flatly turned down.

“While Keith’s mental health has been improving, his psychologist remains concerned that he struggles with severe depression, a lack of purpose and is at risk of suicide. Their funded sessions together are now complete. His psychologist doesn’t anticipate receiving approval for more, but even if they do, it will take months.

“Every medical professional in Keith’s life agrees that he needs continued physical and psychological support in order to regain and retain some quality of life. The WSIB—who are not doctors and who have never met Keith—have ignored the recommendations and requests of all of them.”

Speaker, as well, I’d like to turn to some of the words from our excellent labour critic, the MPP from Sudbury, who in the line of his following the money has pointed out quite rightly that this government has made a lot of promises and changes within this legislation, yet much of it will never really be realized.

In Working for Workers, we call this a “headline bill” or pretending to be tough on bosses. As our critic pointed out, the fine maximums have been changed for violations of the act from $50,000 to $100,000 for an individual. Also, it should be noted that currently, under the ESA, corporations can already be fined up to $100,000 and repeat corporate offenders as much as $500,000. But it should be pointed out—and this was very well pointed out by our critic—that the highest fine levied in 2022 was $31,250. If we’re following the money, we can increase the thresholds all you like, but if that’s not actually going to be enforced, if that’s not going to be levied, then it is relatively meaningless.

In addition, our critic pointed out that in 2018-19, there were 2,345 proactive workplace inspections, but a few short years later, in 2022-23, there had been only 788. It’s like they don’t want to know what’s going on.

And if we follow the money further, stolen money, wage theft—money that belongs to workers, that this government is aware of but is not getting for those workers—is ridiculous. In 2018, that number was $10 million. The Workers’ Action Centre stated—and this is Ella Bedard—that workers need proactive inspections to ensure employers obey the law, and we need effective collection of stolen wages when the Ministry of Labour has ordered an employer to pay back workers’ wages. How can it be possible, Speaker, that the Ministry of Labour can order an employer to pay back workers’ wages and the workers don’t actually see that money? But that is what happens in Ontario.

Between 2020 and 2022, there were 8,400 successful claims, and that amounted to $36 million. But the province was a failure—an abject failure—in making sure workers got that money. They recovered less than 40% of the money that should be in the pockets of the hard-working people here in this province: $36 million was owed to workers and only $13 million was collected.

So, Speaker, in Ontario, we see legislation that talks about bad actors, and yet we see a government that is not actually holding them to account. How is that possible? Why do we have titles of legislation that are strangely ironic? Why do we have words that are not enforced? Why do we have actions by the ministry of labour itself that are not being completed, that are not being effectively taken care of? Think of that $23 million that should be owed to people, that they have worked for. They should not have to go and settle for a province that does not have their back, that will not look after them.

So, Speaker, I will say that, with Bill 190, it’s not all bad. It is not the worst piece of legislation, but it is the kind of legislation that I do think time will show that this title is yet again strangely ironic, that there are so many opportunities for the government to do the right thing to look after things such as wage parity across health care sectors and across community support services. They could look after workers by ensuring that the money that was owed to them by their employer was returned to them. They could make sure that people who are injured on the job have the protections that they require, that they’re being treated properly, that they’re being treated fairly, that they’re not being deemed, that they’re not having phantom jobs.

Further, Speaker, a very last thing, if this government really wanted to stand up for the working people in this province, they would pass NDP legislation to make sure that scab labour is something that is not allowed in this province. I’m very thankful that the government has listened to the advocacy of the great team with the official opposition and has expanded presumptive coverage for firefighters. There’s so much that is missing within this bill.

I hope that this government will take the time, pay people what they’re worth, make sure that the money that they have earned actually gets into their pocket, that bad actors are taken to task and are forced to pay what they owe people.

It’s unreasonable to think that the province is not doing its part to make sure that people are being paid what they deserve.