I wanted to ask my question to the political minister for Ottawa, but I realized he’s not elected to this place, Mr. Speaker. In fact, he has never been elected. So my question is to the Premier.

The person the Premier recently named as his political point man in Ottawa is the newest passenger on the Conservative gravy train—a former lobbyist and executive with Shoppers Drug Mart, and, of course, the failed candidate in Kanata–Carleton. The announcement was met with near universal criticism. Some people thought that hell froze over, because even the member from Nepean agreed with me on that one.

Ottawa is Ontario’s second-largest city, with over a million people. We deserve an elected voice around the cabinet table; not a political appointee dispatched as if we were some far-flung place in need of an ambassador.

Will the Premier explain why his defeated candidate from Kanata is up to the job, when he clearly believes his three MPPs from Ottawa are not?

Interjections.

Let me quote the Sun—“Reports were coming in of a rare sighting of an Ontario Premier in Ottawa last week, like an errant booby bird accidentally blown in from the faraway tropics of Lake Ontario.”

Let me further quote: “The mayor rolled out the welcome mat for the Premier ... but his announcement while in town suggests he still sees us as a doormat.”

The Ford government ambassador to Ottawa was so committed to representing the voices of the people that he failed to attend all-candidates meetings during his own election in Kanata. If he wasn’t willing to show up for the residents of the riding he was trying to represent, why should we believe he’ll show up for the rest of us in Ottawa?

It’s grasping at straws, Mr. Speaker, but the rest of us know better. This is just another gravy train appointment putting a lobbyist and a Conservative insider in a highly paid position of power and authority over top of his three MPPs from Ottawa. When will the Premier recognize Ottawa as an important place in Ontario and designate—

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

Interjections.

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.

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.