SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Ontario Assembly

43rd Parl. 1st Sess.
May 16, 2024 09:00AM

First of all, I certainly believe in skilled trades. I think we have some of the best skilled trades in the entire country. Make no mistake about it.

But your comments—I’m going to hold up the bill. I know I’m not supposed to do that, because I’m not supposed to have props. Why don’t you show me where it is in the bill? On what you just said, show it to me in the bill. So, why don’t you hold that up? Hold it up and show me where it says that in the bill—

And because I didn’t have a lot of time to speak about it I’m glad you said that question. Do you know what happens that I didn’t say? Because of the fact that they end up living in poverty, it puts an incredible stress on the marriage and the family. So now, the kids can’t go to dance, or they can’t go to figure skating. They can’t play women’s hockey. They can’t go to university. Do you know what happens to most of those workers? They end up splitting up. They end up losing their family. They end up losing their wives—no fault of their own, because the only mistake they made: They went to work on that Tuesday and got injured on the job.

Now, I begged this government. I begged them at committee. We put amendments for it on every one of these bills. I can’t answer the question why they won’t do it. I can’t answer the question why they won’t take care of caregivers in the province of Ontario. But I’m not going away until they decide to get rid of deeming in the province of Ontario and protect workers.

So, it looks good. It’s a good headline: “Conservative Government Increases the Penalties,” but it’s never enforced, and then they don’t do any inspections. Before you come into government, we used to do—I think it was 2,300 inspections in the province of Ontario. Do you know how many we’re doing today under your leadership? It’s 780. So you cut the inspections down, and you cut the fines down for—

Monte said it the best. I can say “Monte” now; he’s not here. Monte, at that last labour council—he said we’ve got to get rid of those bad employers. And do you know who’s a bad employer when you bring in bills like Bill 124? Yourselves.

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