I would like to welcome Madison Schell and Alina Cameron from the Ontario Autism Coalition, who have come here from the neighbouring riding of Thunder Bay–Atikokan. Thank you for being here.

The government allotted $10 million for dementia support, including respite care for families, but not a single dollar of this commitment has ever been spent.

The recent report on the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act stated that without a significant change in direction, the Ford government would fail to make Ontario fully accessible by 2025—however, rather than increasing efforts to meet the needs of Ontarians with disabilities, the budget for this ministry has been cut by $50 million.

The Ford government also shot down my bill to create an advocate for older adults as an independent officer of the Legislature; however, creating an independent advocate remains one of the primary recommendations of seniors’ organizations across the province, including RTOERO, which represents 80,000 retirees from the education sector.

With such a large gap between rhetoric and what is actually being done, the Ford government is gaslighting older adults and people with disabilities. This needs to change.

I am calling on the government to create an independent advocate to address the needs of older adults, guarantee the funding needed to make Ontario fully accessible, and get those dollars out the door to support dementia services.

This petition is entitled: “Safe Roads for All.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas drivers with inadequate training are being licensed to drive transport trucks in Ontario;

“Whereas audits of carriers, and the qualifications of their drivers, are not taking place on a systematic basis in Ontario;

“Whereas drivers are experiencing wage theft from unscrupulous carriers;

“Whereas many prospective drivers are paying for training they are not receiving;

“Whereas drivers are being pressured to meet unrealistic delivery deadlines in order to access their full pay;

“Whereas OPP statistics show the number of accidents involving transport trucks has increased dramatically, putting all road users at risk;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, call upon the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to improve road safety:

“By requiring ministry enforcement officers to audit carriers to ensure they are operating at the highest possible safety standards;

“By investigating and cracking down on carriers engaged in wage theft;

“By bringing charges and significant fines against carriers that fail to meet safety standards;

“By establishing, monitoring, and enforcing the required number of one-on-one hours of behind-the-wheel training, including practice with loaded trailers and practice with winter driving;

“By restricting immediate driver test retakes;

“By having weigh scales and inspection stations open during a substantial amount of time each week, in every region of the province;

“By establishing a reporting system for unsafe driving.”

I fully support this petition, will affix my signature to it and give it to Sophia.

To the Premier: According to a recent Food Banks Canada report, 43% of people in Ontario feel they are worse off than last year. The evidence? Food banks are struggling across the province. The director of Thunder Bay’s regional food distribution centre notes that over the next four years, their costs will increase by 80%. Incredibly, since 2021, the London Food Bank has seen a 91% increase in people coming to them for food. So, no, things are not 1,000% better than when the Premier took office five years ago.

The NDP has a plan to address this crisis by doubling OW and ODSP and implementing real rent control. When will the Premier stop the gravy train for his friends and take the obvious and necessary steps to address food insecurity in this province?

I’d like to welcome board members Pamela Baker and Stephen Harvey from RTOERO. Welcome. RTOERO is an association of retirees associated with education. Welcome to your House.

This is a bill that is relevant to southern Ontario, but doesn’t have anything to say about transit in northern Ontario. That’s the part of the province you see when you flip the map over.

Years ago, the Mulroney Conservative government killed passenger train transit to Thunder Bay. During the last few years, we lost—well, all communities lost—access to Greyhound bus transit. We went for months with no intercity transit at all, and now we have a patchwork of expensive bus services. Right now, it costs $350 to get from Geraldton to Thunder Bay—that’s about a three-hour drive—for a medical appointment, but the Northern Health Travel Grant only covers about half of that cost.

There are two parts to my question: (1) Will the government take the transportation needs of northerners seriously and reduce the costs of transit in northwestern Ontario? (2) Will the government increase the Northern Health Travel Grant so that northerners can afford to access health care when and where they need it?

Thank you very much for talking to us, really, about the situation for people with disabilities on public transit. I was recently at Yonge and Bloor. I finally discovered the accessible entrance and the elevator. I stood there for 10 minutes and the elevator didn’t come. I saw somebody who really, really needed that elevator, and he’d been standing there for 10 minutes too. There was no signage at all saying it was out of service, and there were no directions as to where to go if the elevator wasn’t working.

I’m wondering if you could just talk a bit about how frequently that kind of situation comes up.

There are provisions in the bill that suggest that the province is not planning on funding the building of all GO stations. Rather, they’re looking for already-strapped municipalities to come up with the money.

My question is, would there not be more than enough provincial dollars available to build GO stations without pressuring municipalities if the government reined in the gravy train currently being ridden by the 59 VPs of Metrolinx?

It does seem to be a government that is good with some kinds of infrastructure but really lousy with workers and proper employment and paying decent wages and making sure that they actually have protection for when they are exposed to hazardous materials in their job. I truly don’t understand. I know that there are members on that side of the House who do understand the risks of firefighting, but I do not understand why that side of the House does not respect wildland firefighters enough to pay them properly and make sure that they are covered for work exposure to carcinogens. That needs to happen now; it could have happened months ago. It needs to be in this bill.

The minister knows full well that there are very, very legitimate concerns about how nuclear energy is going to roll out. If there is no space on that side of the House to actually entertain those concerns, they are not doing their job as a responsible government. Thank you very much.

I’d also like to mention that this is also taking place with workers in the trucking industry—

I have two points. The coverage is not explicit enough in the bill as it is for firefighters.

Regarding climate action by this government, I simply need to point to the greenbelt and the giveaway of farmland; the giveaway of farmland that we’re seeing in the Hamilton area and the loss of wetlands and the things that they were told—“Absolutely, do not do this.” They were begged for months and months and months: “Do not do this. It will be harmful to the environment. It undoes anything else you might be doing to address climate change.” You can’t just take away with one hand and do something over here and expect they will never come together.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to Bill 79. Much like the previous two bills introduced by the former Minister of Labour, there are a number of important issues addressed in the bill, but it tends to tinker around the edges. There’s a lot of substance missing. It gives the appearance of doing something for workers without actually taking on the most concerning issues.

I would like to start by looking at schedule 1, and I have here notes from the submission to the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs’ review of Bill 79, submitted by the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, Workers’ Action Centre and Parkdale Community Legal Services. What they have said is that when the labour minister introduced the Working for Workers Act, he stated that it would strengthen protections for foreign workers. However, Bill 79, as drafted—and no amendments by the official opposition were accepted by the government—will not benefit most migrant workers facing exorbitant recruitment fees and labour exploitation. EPFNA only applies to foreign nationals who have valid work permits or are in the process of applying for a work permit. Many migrant workers fall outside of this narrow application. For instance, recruiters often bring migrant workers to Ontario on visitor permits. Because of the use of visitor permits, the EPFNA does not apply to those workers, who find themselves open to illegal fees and labour exploitation. This bill does nothing for those migrant workers.

The government talks of penalties and increased fines under violations of EPFNA; however, Bill 79 only proposes to apply higher fines to employers and recruiters that withhold passports and work permits. Nothing in this bill applies to penalties for illegal recruitment fees. Evidence exists that migrant workers have been forced to pay as much as $10,000 to get to work in Ontario. Therefore, schedule 1 also should have addressed workers in fear of employee retaliation for raising concerns of exploitation. Very few workers will come forward to raise claims of withheld documents and illegal fees. Those few migrant workers that do come forward and are successful in their claims find that fines and penalties are effectively not levelled against recruiters and employers found in violation of the act.

What we’ve seen is that according to this bill, the fines have been increased, but between 2009 and 2017, only two employers were given a fine—of $250—out of 35 employers found in violation of the EPFNA. Similarly, under the Employment Standards Act, prosecutions of employers in violation of the act went from 79 in 2017-18 to only 12 in 2021. Clearly, we need to increase the proactive enforcement of both the EPFNA and the Employment Standards Act.

Considering the significant barriers that migrant workers face, a complaint-based approach to minimum standards compliance cannot effectively address the systemic mistreatment and wage theft that we see migrant workers face. A more effective strategy of enforcement is through proactive inspections of recruiters and employers of migrant workers. Proactive inspections are supposed to be conducted by the employment standards officer in a manner that protects the identity of individual workers that may have made a complaint. Unfortunately, under this government, proactive inspections have declined from almost 3,000 in 2017 to 224 in 2021. It really begs the question of how sincere the government is in applying fines to wage theft and other forms of exploitation of migrant workers. Indeed, the deterrence of the fines proposed in Bill 79 is negligible if those fines are never actually levied against anyone.

Finally, they have another recommendation. The ministry also publicizes prosecutions under the Employment Standards Act. Given that the ESA and the EPFNA are complementary pieces of legislation and part of the same minimum standards, prosecutions under the EPFNA should also be published. That’s about section 1.

We in the official opposition know that we need to create new jobs as part of our transition to a low-carbon economy. I must say, I’m very interested to hear what the members of the Ford Conservative caucus are prepared to admit about the existence of climate change after our summer of incredible floods and fires.

I’m just going back to some statements that were made in the House at the end of the spring session. At that time, we had drifting smoke from wildfires triggering special air quality advisories for large swaths of Ontario—we recall that here, in this House and outside this building—with Environment Canada warning of high levels of air pollution that can be harmful to everyone’s health, even at low concentrations.

“At Queen’s Park, Premier Doug Ford acknowledged the ‘major impact’ of the blanket of smoke across the greater Toronto area but said the province is ‘responding in full force’ with 142 fire ranger crews, 28 aircraft and nine heavy water bombers.”

Now, I’m going to come to these numbers again later, because numbers can be very deceptive. We don’t know what these numbers compare to, so, in fact, we don’t know whether these numbers and the number of people fighting wildfires are actually sufficient.

“During question period, NDP leader Marit Stiles claimed this isn’t an ordinary fire season and expressed concern about the ‘new normal’ in Ontario as children are forced to stay indoors due to poor air quality.

“‘This is not normal, with the very real impacts of climate change being felt by millions of Ontarians,’ Stiles told the Legislature. ‘Yesterday, the Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry refused to acknowledge a connection between the climate crisis and these forest fires.’

“Ford, who accused the NDP is politicizing the wildfires, pinned the blame on campers and the weather.

“‘I have heard approximately 50% of the fires are started by lightning strikes, the other 50% are people starting campfires and not putting out the campfires properly.... I’m asking every Ontarian, please do not light any campfires.’

“When pressed on whether climate change is contributing to the current wildfire season, Ford dismissed the suggestion.

“‘They happen every single year similar to the floods,’ Ford said. ‘The wildfires fires start every single year.’”

I have another article here. The headline is “World on Fire: 2023 Is Canada’s Worst Wildfire Season on Record, and It’s Not Over Yet.” That was on September 4.

“More than 15 million hectares have gone up in smoke across the country this year, shattering the previous record of 7.6 million hectares in 1989 as well as the 10-year average of 2.5 million hectares.”

Oh, my goodness. And we know that four wildfire firefighters died this summer, one from Ontario, working out in BC. People have lost their homes, communities have been evacuated again and again, and clearly—although it might not be admitted on that side of the House—climate change has arrived. It’s urgent that we deal with it.

In fact, it was interesting: I listened to something on the CBC. It was a series of 30-year-old interviews with David Suzuki, and those interviews 30 years ago were saying, “This is urgent. We absolutely must do something now. We can’t fiddle around.” Well, apparently we are still fiddling around, at least on one side of the House.

I want to move on to wildland firefighters, because there are many issues here. I received a number of copies of this letter, and I will read it. It’s from a constituent in my riding.

“I’m writing to you today to express my extreme disappointment at the Ford government’s cuts to wildfire management programs and unfair treatment of those on the front lines working hard to protect us and our communities.

“Forest fire workers are working around the clock to manage record-breaking fires with minimal resources provided. But the Ford government is gambling with their safety, and our ability to breathe clean air. There are runaway fires burning right now that could have been contained, but there are not enough crews. This year, Ontario is 50 crews short, because the Ford government cut 67% of funding for wildfire management programs.”

This brings me back to the uselessness, or the tactic, of giving numbers—how much money is being spent—when we don’t know how much it compares to and how much is actually missing. So it’s a 67% cut of funding for wildfire management programs.

“High turnover persists in Ontario’s aviation, forest fire and emergency services because of low pay and precarious work. Bill 124”—oh, we’ve come back to Bill 124 again—“has made the crisis even worse. Experienced workers are moving to different jobs where they’re better paid and have more job security. This means there are not enough experienced fire rangers to lead crews.

“Representatives from 14 bases met with the minister to reiterate their demands for:

“—better wages;

“—danger pay;

“—more permanent, full-time jobs;

“—proper training and equipment.

“This government has the power to fix this crisis. It is gambling with our safety with cuts and wage caps across the public sector. As a constituent in your riding, I urge you to listen to forest fire workers and move quickly to fix the crisis.”

This letter is signed by Khelsey Benson, who is from the riding of Thunder Bay–Superior North.

I want to continue on the topic of wildland firefighters. Last night, on CBC News, there was a very sad story, and I’m going to read a little bit of this: “Kim Leblanc is the widow of Thomas Leblanc, a former wildland firefighter who died from cancer in 2010. She fought for almost 10 years to get Ontario’s workers’ compensation system to recognize that his illness was caused by 35 years of wildfire exposure.

“Thomas Leblanc spent 35 years fighting wildfires in Montana, Alberta, British Columbia and his home province of Ontario, but when he developed a cancer linked to firefighting, he was repeatedly denied workplace coverage.

“‘Being outside was his dream,’ his widow, Kim Leblanc, said from the family home in Coldwater, Ont. ‘He loved it. He was like a Dalmatian sitting in the front seat of that fire truck and waiting for the call.’

“In 2009, Leblanc found a lump in his neck and was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, one of more than a dozen cancers considered a presumptive work-related illness in most parts of Canada for structural firefighters.” That means urban firefighters. “That means the illness is automatically accepted as likely being caused by occupational exposure—making it easier to access workplace compensation and supports.

“Leblanc applied to” the WSIB “for compensation but was rejected.

“In all but four jurisdictions in Canada, wildland firefighters are excluded in legislation from the presumptions granted to structural firefighters, who respond to fires inside buildings, fire alarms, chemical spills and accidents....

“Thomas Leblanc died at the age of 54 in August 2010, roughly a year after he was first diagnosed. He asked his wife to keep fighting the WSIB claim.

“‘He said nobody, nobody should have to go through this,’ she said.”

This is something that surely could have been addressed in one of these three workers bills, but it is not addressed, and I know that it has been raised. It’s been raised numerous times.

I just want to go back to some of the warnings that were expressed earlier in this year. This is from June 2, just before we ended our session at the Legislature:

“A water bomber flies overhead of Parry Sound 33, one of the more aggressive fires Ontario rangers dealt with in recent years.

“While provincial firefighters are trying to douse the flames of several forest fires in northern Ontario, their union is raising concerns about how the Ontario government is running the wildfire program.

“JP Hornick, president of the Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union (OPSEU), said the province is short 50 fire crews this season....

“A big problem, the union leader says, is how the province has been approaching the recruitment—and retention—of its” firefighters.

“‘Every season [the province] faces the same problem.... There’s a scramble to manage with too few workers.’

“‘What you have is that young workers start but there are too few permanent jobs, and so they leave.’

“According to Hornick, the province offers firefighters three to six-month contracts, rather than year-round employment.

“It wasn’t always this way....

“‘Used to be that in the non-fire season what the rangers would do is clear brush,’ Hornick said.

“‘They would do the kind of upkeep work in other areas of the ministry or across ministries to actually help prevent forest fires the following season and to help with things like snow clearing and whatnot.’

“‘With the cost of living crisis as it is and housing and travel that’s required, people simply either aren’t applying or they’re finding jobs in other sectors where they can find that permanent employment....’

“Adding to the challenge of recruitment is the lure of full-time firefighting work with municipalities—and their more lucrative salaries—which draws a lot of bodies out of the potential pool of firefighters....

“‘It should be a no-brainer that the wage gap needs to be closed, period,’ Hornick said. ‘They need their pay increase, but they also need that contract problem addressed.’

“‘There is no world in which we think that fire rangers should be on short-term contracts at this point with climate change the way it is....’

“The ministry has adjusted to staffing challenges” apparently “by mobilizing slightly larger crews,” even though they were still short 50 crews, “which they hope will provide enough experience to train future leaders.

“The province also has several agreements with neighbouring provinces and states to tackle larger fires, and if needed, can call on reinforcements from countries like Mexico, Australia, and New Zealand.”

But it’s important to note—I had a very long conversation with an experienced fire crew leader who had been around for a long time, and what he said to me is that you need at least seven years’ experience fighting specific kinds of fires. For example, in northern Ontario, that would be boreal forest fires. He said it’s great when the international firefighters come, but they can only assign them to the simplest kinds of fires to put out because they don’t have the experience with the kind of fires that they’re facing. They need people to have permanent jobs so that that experience is built up over time. There are certainly young people out there, and I know of young people—because I met the father of one this summer who said his son had been a wildland firefighter. He had hoped it would be his career, but he got wind that there were only going to be part-time contracts available, so he quit and moved into something else.

In conclusion, again I want to emphasize that the work of wildland firefighters could have been addressed in this bill. The WSIB protections could have been addressed. They’re not here. It’s critical if we’re going to face climate change. Thank you very much.

My question is to the Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry. On April 21, I received a letter signed by this minister stating that conservation officers did not deserve to be reclassified, thus denying them wage parity with other enforcement officers. So imagine my surprise when, 10 days ago, this very same minister stated that conservation officer classifications are being reviewed with OPSEU, together with the ministry director of enforcement.

Well, OPSEU was as surprised as I was and described the minister’s statement as not accurate and misleading the public. So I ask: Will the minister come clean on the truth? He has the power. Does he—

I ask the minister, does he or does he not intend to reclassify conservation officers to give them wage parity with other enforcement officers?

The Workers’ Compensation Board of 1914 represents a historic compromise between employers and workers. In a non-adversarial system, employers would be protected from lawsuits and injured workers would receive prompt benefits for as long as their disability lasted. However, beginning with the Mike Harris Conservative government, continued by the Ford government, these principles have been turned on their head, betraying at every turn workers injured or made ill on the job.

The WSIB now looks for every means to suppress claims. They call on doctors who have never met the worker to decide if an injury has taken place. They push people back to work against medical advice, resulting in further injury. They reduce supports based on phantom jobs. The Minister of Labour promises to increase wage-replacement rates but breaks his promise. They cut the cost-of-living allowance for injured workers. Then, incredibly, the government gives $1.2 billion to employers, money that injured workers and their families need and are entitled to. Now this government plans on reducing the time to appeal to one month.

These are crimes against all workers. Today, let us demand a return to the original purpose of workers’ compensation: respect and care for injured workers, and prompt benefits for as long as the disability lasts. Thank you. Merci. Meegwetch.

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.

I would say that if we’re going to talk about examinations, I would send you both back to school, but hey. Because frankly, to simply parrot “supply and demand” without any understanding of the rest of the market is to show a lack of understanding of what people are actually dealing with.

Interjection.

I noticed that the bill did correct some drafting errors—reminding us, frankly, of Bill 23’s draconian elimination of planning appeal rights for conservation authorities and upper-tier municipalities, a reminder also of the broken promises about the greenbelt and certainly the appearance of widespread corruption in regard to the greenbelt—

The questions about who is benefiting certainly haven’t come from me alone. Those questions are widespread in the media and amongst people throughout the province who are very, very concerned at how easy it is to say one thing one day, and the next day say something completely different and do something completely different.

In terms of the greenbelt, in order to put luxury homes on conservation land—it certainly doesn’t make sense. And then, of course, this idea of taking even more farmland and subdividing it—well, we know that the farming community has organized itself and spoken against this, and it sounds like the government may be listening. I hope that’s the case, because we need that farmland. We need that food.

I am coming to the end of what I wanted to talk about. Again, I think that we have such an incredible problem with people being kicked out, with rents made completely unaffordable, and there is so little here to help. The problems keep getting worse and worse and worse, and then even when solutions are offered, there’s no support for those solutions.

Honestly, it boggles my mind that there is nothing there to support Suomi Koti or Giiwa on Court. Suomi Koti could even be coming out of a seniors’ fund for housing. Do we not have any funding available to support more seniors’ housing? Supportive housing? It doesn’t have to be fully staffed with PSWs. It might have one PSW. There’s a whole range of different levels that seniors are looking for when they can no longer—and no longer want to—manage a home and everything that goes with a home. What is the plan for that? Because I can tell you again, in my region—seven-year waiting lists. Well, in my mother’s case, she probably will be dead by then, I imagine.

So there are very, very clear problems that are not addressed in the bill. And there is so much more that the government could be doing to support housing so that everybody can afford to get into the market to get a place, to rent a place, to keep a roof over their heads.

Again, you point out that this is the fourth bill, and yet there’s no help for renters and there’s no help for seniors, for example. So I hope that the government will do more.

Well, so many things have come up, it’s hard to know where to start. I’ve heard from the member from Essex that things are grand in the landlord-tenant tribunals, but that’s of course in direct contrast to the Ombudsman’s report, which says, “The Ombudsman received more than 4,000 complaints from people on both sides of the landlord-tenant relationship. Many described the financial and mental harm they suffered while ‘trapped in the queue,’ waiting for their applications to be heard.”

There’s quite a lot here: “a shortage of qualified adjudicators ... compounded by a lengthy, cumbersome appointment and training process”.

I’d like to say, the problems at the Landlord and Tenant Board fall squarely on the shoulders of this government, because when they came to power in 2018, they decided not to renew any contracts. They had to put their own stamp and their own people in regardless of the fact that they were not trained, and so they left those positions empty for years. We are finally seeing some of those adjudicating positions filled, but it takes a long time to actually acquire the insight to be a good adjudicator. So instead, what we’re seeing is that—everything is online now. Even though, on paper, it might still say, yes, you can get in-person hearing, you can’t.

I know of a case in Thunder Bay where, with the support of, actually, one of the legal clinics—so this person wasn’t necessarily on their own. But the technology failed. Well, the adjudicator decided that was that. That was the end of the hearing. That person is out of luck. They’ve been waiting for years and years to have the opportunity to have their hearing before the Landlord and Tenant Board, and because of the technology and the refusal to have any in-person hearings, it was a bust. That person is out of luck. That is not unusual, and frankly, I’m surprised that the member from Essex was really singing the praises of how things were going for people, both small landowners and also tenants. It’s harming both. I’ve certainly gotten letters from both tenants and landlords saying that they are in crisis because they’re waiting eight months to 12 months to longer to get a hearing.

But I will go back to my original plan here, because there are a few things in the bill that I like. I do like that there’s some movement towards mandating air conditioning. I think it could be stronger. I think that you need to set an upper limit on temperature, and I think you’ve got to get rid of all the wiggle room for getting out of it.

Now, I see that there are guidelines being set for long-term care, with a maximum of 25 degrees Celsius, but really, that needs to apply to tenants everywhere, whether in free-standing apartment buildings, units within people’s homes or in seniors’ residences. For example, my mother lives in a retirement home owned by Revera. Her unit has been over 30 degrees Celsius for weeks. There’s air conditioning there, but it’s not the right date to turn it on, apparently. It was, “So sad, you’re out of luck. Go buy a fan.”

People pay a great deal of money to live in those seniors’ residences. I would like to see it mandated that the air conditioning be turned on the moment it is above 25 degrees in any single unit in the building.

Fines for violations: Well, it’s interesting to see the fines increased, but I would love to do a freedom-of-information inquiry to see how many times landlords have actually had a fine imposed on them for evicting somebody in order to move themselves or a member of their family into the unit, because the fines have not stopped illegal renovictions—far from it.

Part of this is that Bill 97 leaves the entire burden on renters to protest and to bring charges, and frankly, they don’t have the means to do that. In fact, once they’ve been evicted, they have the overwhelming problem of finding a new place to live in an extremely tight market where there is little to no affordable housing available. So they don’t exactly have time on their hands to launch a legal battle with a landlord outside the tribunal system. Of course, we know within the tribunal system, they’re going to be waiting for over half a year at least, so where do they go in the meantime?

The need for meaningful rent control: In 2018, the government basically gave landlords a get-out-of-jail-free card by not including buildings from that period under rent control, so we’re seeing increases of up to 57%. It’s absurd. It’s really hard to fathom that that makes sense in anybody’s world.

Then I looked at something else in here, this mysterious office, the Provincial Land and Development Facilitator, that addresses undisclosed projects requiring undisclosed payments to provide for other undisclosed things. There will be four deputy facilitators added to this office at a cost of just shy of $1 million. That’s $234,000 a year. That’s a lot of money to work in an office that very few people know anything about. The minister will also have new powers over this office of undisclosed purpose, something I think the people of Ontario would love to learn more about. Unfortunately, there is no information about that.

Bill 97, once again, relies almost entirely on deregulation and tax cuts to incentivize the for-profit private market to deliver 1.5 million homes over a decade. This narrow-minded approach is evidently failing, with the recent budget revealing that projected housing starts in Ontario are actually going down instead of up. In contrast, the NDP has called for a strong public sector role to deliver new affordable and non-market housing that the for-profit private sector can’t or won’t deliver. There is no provision in Bill 97 to facilitate new non-market housing.

We know that the Liberals had 15 years to help. By the way, it was preceding that that we had wonderful development of co-op housing. We have two really solid co-op housing developments in Thunder Bay. They continue to have affordable rent. They also have rent-geared-to-income, but even for the people who are not getting a subsidized rent, it’s affordable. It’s a very nice place to live and it’s been a very successful model.

The Liberals, yes, had 15 years after that to do something; they chose not to. For 14 of 15 years in power—supported by the Conservatives, I might add—the Liberal rent control policy was the same as the Harris PC rent control policy before it, shifting enormous power to private landlords and away from tenants, while failing to deliver new purpose-built rental housing.

I have been trying since August, really, to deliver—I have two fantastic housing projects in Thunder Bay that would provide 104 new affordable units. One of them, called Suomi Koti, is for seniors. I actually had the pleasure of touring Suomi Koti when the leader of the official opposition was in Thunder Bay. It’s a 30-year-old facility. You would never know it was 30 years old. It’s been kept immaculately. People love living there. You can even have your own garden. It’s a beautiful, beautiful space. All of this was put together by a volunteer board. Now, for 30 years, they have intended to build a second building. There is a seven-year wait-list to get into Suomi Koti, as there is to get into any of the reasonably priced seniors’ residences. So they’ve been trying. They have done all kinds of things to raise money. They’ve used their own money to hire accountants, to get the designs done. Everything has been done, but unfortunately there is no support available from this government to support what I’m going to call non-market housing. So 20% of that building would be rent-geared-to-income, but the other 80% would be still below commercial rental rates. It’s a very desirable place to live, but there’s no support for this middle-level housing, and if people were able to move into this space—for example, my mother looked at this—it’s impossible. This would have been affordable. Instead, she, like many other people, are using up their life savings, hoping they don’t live too long and run out of money.

Another housing project, also a beautiful one, sponsored by a Biigtigong Nishnaabeg First Nation, is called Giwaa on Court. It involves actually using a historical building, so it would be recovering, repurposing a historical building in the middle of downtown Port Arthur. It’s the old post office. Their plan, again, is affordable housing, 20% rent-geared-to-income, the remaining below commercial, at 80% of commercial rates.

Both of these projects have been ready to go. To me, they’re a gift on a platter to the Conservative government to show that they’re prepared to support mid-level housing, non-profit housing, but there is nothing there. They may in a pinch qualify. I do want to acknowledge that the government has given my region a considerable amount of money to alleviate the homelessness crisis. Okay, but that is a very specific kind of housing, and whether either of these projects will qualify under the terms of that agreement, I don’t know. They don’t know either at this point. When we talk about all of this housing that you’re going to build, and we have two projects that have been ready to go, shovel-ready for months, and there’s no support—and they don’t need a lot of support, but they need enough support in order to qualify for CMHC grants—so, nothing, nada.

Now, I like to think about what is actually going to bring rents down, and I really want to question this whole thing about supply and demand. Supply and demand is really a simplistic, narrow doctrine that we can hear continually about from the government side of the House, and frankly—and I’ve heard this from the Minister of Housing. I know the minister is a smart person, so I’m pretty confident that he knows full well that the vast majority of supply is actually in very few hands and they will control the prices no matter how much unmet demand there is. This doctrine also masks the role of housing speculation and housing financialization that continues to drive up the cost of housing beyond the reach of ordinary Canadians.

Imagine this: If we actually had enough housing that was affordable, so there’s more housing available, guess what? We’re going to see the costs come down, but they’re not going to come down when the supply is at this upper, upper level that so many people can’t afford. And frankly, it’s controlled by far too few people, and then there is also all the speculation that goes into it.

I’m even seeing this in small communities. Where mines are going in, I’m seeing people going in and buying up all the potential rental housing. It’s going to be owned by one person and that person is going to set the rates in that community. That is not that much different from what is happening in other places.

I think it’s time that this myth of supply and demand without context, without depth—

Interjections.

A year ago, the Minister of Labour promised to raise WSIB income replacement rates to 90% of pre-injury wages. This increase has not taken place. Then, the WSIB cut the cost-of-living allowance for injured workers by a further 2%. While cutting benefits and creating new red tape for injured workers to wade through, the government then took $1.2 billion out of the fund and gave it back to their corporate buddies. Now, they’ve commissioned a report to say that the time to appeal WSIB decisions should be cut to one month.

An injury at work has thrown your life completely upside down, and now the government is telling you that if you want the compensation to which you’re entitled and which your family needs, you’re going to have a month to appeal a bad WSIB decision.

The Ontario NDP believes that no worker should ever be unjustly denied access to WSIB. Does the minister share that commitment, or will he be cutting the time to appeal WSIB claims?

Ontario’s tribunal system is broken. There are huge delays. It’s difficult to navigate, and it’s hard to find legal assistance. And yet, when workers make it through the system, a lot of them are finding justice. Claims that have previously been denied are being approved on appeal, and it’s completely life-changing. Well, it seems that the government wants to take even that hope away from people by cutting the time for appeals. Workers deserve justice. It’s the right thing to do. But when WSIB is not there for workers, guess who pays? The public.

Will the minister do the right thing and commit not to cut the appeal time for WSIB claims?

I would like to welcome Janice Folk-Dawson from the Ontario Federation of Labour; Francis Pineda and Jim Zeng from the Injured Workers Community Legal Clinic; Wayne Harris from the Ontario Network of Injured Workers; and from the Industrial Accident Victims’ Group of Ontario, Maryth Yachnin, David Arruda, Aleks Ivovic, Patrick Cowley, Caleb Goff, Jenny Tang, Mohammad Naqvi, Julie Wang, Mark Wang, Alicia Cunningham, Zonia Guerrero and San Hun; and, from United Steelworkers Local 1005, Ron Wells, Jim McColl and Tony McLaughlin. Thank you so much for being here. Welcome to your House.

I have a long list of visitors I would like to welcome this morning so please bear with me: from northwestern Ontario, representing We the Nuclear Free North, Charles Faust, Bonnie Satten, Wendy O’Connor, Brennain Lloyd, Neecha Dupuis, Audrey Redman; and from South Bruce-Teeswater, representing Protect Our Waterways—No Nuclear Waste, Anja van der Vlies, Rita Groen, Gerald Groen, Yoka Scott, Michelle Stein, Sharon McDonald, Jim McDonald, Don Wall, Linda Wall and Bill Noll.

Thank you so much for coming. Welcome to your House.

Thank you for your presentation. You were talking about really shortchanging schools in terms of their funding. I know that the COVID funding was never replaced that they were supposed to have replaced and that the funding does not come close to matching inflation. We’re also hearing about increased violence in schools. I’m wondering if you can make the connection for us between the lack of funding and resources and what is actually happening in schools right now.