Cowards. You’re all cowards.

Interjections.

It is very interesting for me to hear the remorse and the regret from the Liberals over Bill 115. Of course, I am here because of Bill 115. Just in case some of you don’t remember this: When Elizabeth Witmer resigned her seat here in the Legislature, she went off to WSIB. This opened up a seat here. The Liberals were trying to look like Conservatives to win the riding of Waterloo, so they brought in Bill 115, the hammer, and bypassed the collective bargaining process. Of course, we know what happened with Bill 115—at least, we should know, because history should inform our future actions. What happened was that this piece of legislation ended up in court, and the people of the province paid for that hubris that the Liberal Party exhibited during that time.

But I do appreciate the context from the member, as well, and I think that he actually, in a genuine sense, reached across the aisle and said, “Learn from our mistakes.” When you undermine the collective bargaining process—because collective bargaining was not brought forward or won by the people in this House; it was won by the people of this province. And you can pretend that your interest is really with the students, but we have a lot of evidence that counters that narrative.

I want to just start with the money, because the money tells the story of the real priorities of a government. What we have seen over the last 4.5 years is that the government has been very circumspect about the money that they invest and that they don’t invest. We actually have a budget officer here for the Legislature who is non-partisan and who has been able to tell the people of this province that the money actually is there, as is the programming shortfall, including a $6-billion shortfall in education. When I look at the numbers—and this is directly from the FAO—the government will be sitting on a $44-billion, historically high unallocated contingency fund. The FAO, to his credit, last week said it’s “prudent”—that’s the finance minister; that was your language, you want to be prudent. One billion dollars in a contingency fund is reasonable, especially with some potential economic instability; $8 billion a year in an unallocated contingency fund is not.

What I’m saying to the Speaker—

He also wrote those mandate letters. We’ve never seen those mandate letters. I have to tell you, the mandate letters are of great interest, because in those mandate letters is there an indication that this Minister of Education has to fast-track a piece of legislation like this through this Legislature? Why is that the priority, to fast-track this piece of legislation? Is it in the mandate letters? You know what? We don’t know, because even when the privacy commissioner told the Premier to release the mandate letters, he appealed to the Divisional Court. When the Divisional Court told you to release the mandate letters, you went to the Ontario Court of Appeal. When the Court of Appeal told you the same thing, you appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, where it is now, four years later.

What is the true—

I do want to say, the people who are directly impacted by this legislation—the educational assistants, the ECEs, the secretaries, the child and youth workers, the hall monitors who keep our schools safe—want to hear us clearly articulate to them why this motion is trumping everything else.

At the end of the day, they have a majority. They will trample over the collective bargaining rights unless we try to appeal to them that the mistakes of the former Liberal Party back in 2012—actually they’re still the Liberal Party, but not recognized because, you remember, the House leader removed your party status. These are issues that I think the people of this province deserve to have some clarity on. And I know the government doesn’t want that. I’m sure that it’s very uncomfortable for them to be going down this road, especially over some of the things that they said about Bill 115, which will be interesting in the broader debate.

This, ultimately, is a failure to follow through on the main goal of the Minister of Education, which is to ensure that the very people who are doing the work in our schools, the very people who are keeping our students safe and who are nurturing them and who are really strengthening the public education system—it is very clear to us that whatever happened at that bargaining table was definitely not done in good faith. You need to get back to the table, get the job done, invest in public education so we don’t have to come back at 1 o’clock tomorrow or 5 o’clock in the morning and fast-track a piece of legislation which—you will lose this case again in the courts. Thank goodness for the courts.