A report came out this morning noting that more and more seniors are winding up homeless and living in shelters. Is this the government’s answer to the families who are here today whose parents are currently being renovicted out of Heritage Glen as we speak? The minister knows there is no other safe housing available that these seniors can afford. The offer of three months’ rent means nothing if you are being ripped out of your home, and it means nothing if you can’t afford month four.

You are the government, you have the tools available. What are you going to do to keep seniors from losing their homes, their communities and their security?

I was saying neither one nor the other. What I was saying is that there is a two-year wait, and that the reason there is such a long wait is because the Conservative government removed many of the people who were there and then took years and years to appoint new adjudicators.

What the Ombudsman’s report says clearly is that it takes time for adjudicators to be trained, and that is part of why there are so many delays in getting hearings at the Landlord and Tenant Board.

What we have is many, many people coming into our region who are hoping to find a place to live, who are hoping to find work, but often they are coming with nothing, with no supports at all, so it is very difficult.

I have some optimism toward the government’s plan—which is not yet a part of this bill—to support housing for our homeless population. I do have some optimism there, but I don’t see anything in this bill itself that contributes to solving that problem.

Oh, yes, you have to start on Ontario Works.

And I can also tell you that if you talk to people who are homeless, find out how many of those homeless people had workplace injuries and were not able to get any support to go on. They’re homeless, and that’s what we do to people.

So I’m extremely worried about what is going to happen to those young workers who are going to enter the skilled trades with so much enthusiasm and life force and energy, and we know that some of those workers will experience serious injuries—statistically, we know that—and we know that they are going to be thrown under the bus, because that’s what happens to all other workers in this province.

There is also another piece that we don’t talk about here very much, and that is the fact that there are these incentives for employers to hide the fact that an accident has taken place. They bribe the other employees with fancy leather jackets, or whatever it is, so that they don’t report the accident. That means that the injured worker, again, is left on their own, his or her own, with no support and no ability to verify what has actually happened to them. It’s become a very dirty business. This government sent employers—what was it?—over $2 billion returned to employers while denying workers the money that they have paid, that they are legally entitled to. They are entitled to that support, but it was given back to employers, and I can tell you workers are so angry about that, so hurt, and the hurt is real because it affects their—

I would like to point out again that the Meredith Principles from over a hundred years ago “rest on the historic compromise in which employers fund the compensation system and share the liability”—

Interjection.

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“Employers would be protected from lawsuits by injured workers and be able to calculate payments as a cost of doing business.

“Injured workers would receive prompt benefits for as long as the disability lasted in a non-adversarial system.”

Isn’t that amazing? It’s so far from what is happening now. I implore the government to look seriously at turning WSIB back to what it was intended to do.

In Thunder Bay, there are 42 methadone and suboxone clinics, an amazingly high number for a population of about 90,000. Because most of these are for-profit, people are kept dependent for years on end on what are meant to be transitional drugs.

OPSEU’s mental health and addictions workers are advocating for increased capacity in publicly funded, publicly run treatment centres, because they offer far better health outcomes and cost savings. They’re also advocating for mobile crisis response teams supported by ongoing operating funds so that communities can count on these crucial services. These workers also recognize that systemic racism leads to high levels of mental distress amongst racialized people, along with their over-incarceration. For this reason, mental health court diversion programs need to be developed, implemented and promoted.

Being homeless and poor causes significant mental and physical harm. Supportive housing with 24-hour staff care needs to be expanded, and OW and ODSP rates must be increased so that people have the help they need to move on to permanent housing.

Finally, in support of the mental and physical well-being of the workers providing these crucial services, Bill 124 must be rescinded.

Many workers who experience permanent injuries while on the job are forced into poverty and homelessness because the WSIB has a routine policy of turning down claims, forcing injured workers to launch appeals that take years to resolve. Instead of workers getting the financial support they need and are entitled to, they wind up trying to survive on ODSP. That’s off-loading the financial responsibility of employers onto the public—a free ride for employers and a lose-lose situation for workers and the public.

Yesterday, the Minister of Economic Development bragged about cutting employers’ WSIB premiums by 30%—and then, later that year, at the same time as injured workers are being forced onto ODSP, he gave $1.2 billion back to employers.

This year, injured workers were betrayed yet again when their cost-of-living allowance was set a full 2% lower than stipulated in law and in WSIB policy. While this government thinks nothing of showering businesses with money intended to support injured workers, they are happy to rip off workers by deliberately shortchanging them on their cost-of-living increase. This is disgraceful and cruel.

Your treatment of people with disabilities is unacceptable.

My question is to the Premier. Street Outreach Services, known as SOS, provides a critical service for vulnerable people in Thunder Bay. For those experiencing homelessness, the SOS van provides a warm space, meals, transportation to shelters, and has literally saved lives these last two winters. Unfortunately, Thunder Bay’s Shelter House has announced that it must permanently close its SOS service because it hasn’t been able to secure funding.

Will this government step forward and supply the funding needed to keep people alive this winter in Thunder Bay?

Anna Betty Achneepineskum, a Deputy Grand Chief with the Nishnawbe Aski Nation, notes that with Thunder Bay being the hub for many individuals—not only First Nations but other individuals who come here for services—the lack of street outreach threatens lives. With winter quickly approaching, will the Premier move further to do what is necessary and provide the funding needed to keep these important street outreach services open in Thunder Bay?