No one else is going to stand up; I might as well stand up—

Interjections.

I’m going to keep it really simple, talking about the fall economic statement, for my colleagues across the way. In the fall economic statement, the centrepiece, the place where you all got up and clapped and cheered and roared, was the fact that you were creating a bank.

So the Premier—who wrote the Bank of Canada not once, but twice—in his fall economic statement, put at the top of the list making his own bank—absolutely not doing anything for the average Ontarians with regard to affordability. He made a bank. He’s got his own bank now. I’m sure he can be proud of it, but it’s not putting food on the table or paying the rent or keeping the house warm.

So when the Premier had an opportunity to, say, for instance, raise the Ontario Child Benefit by $50 a month to help those families that are really struggling to put food on the table, did he do it? No. He created a bank, which is going to do nothing for those families who are struggling.

When he had an opportunity to return to real rent control in the fall economic statement, to make sure that those people who are living in buildings built after 2018—did he do it? No, but he created a bank. He created himself a bank. Is that going to help any of those families who are struggling right now to pay rent increases that they can’t afford? No, it’s not going to do that.

When he had the opportunity to say to families, “We’re going to help you a little bit with the activities that your children have after school. We’re going to help you out. And so we’re going to make this small credit”—people are looking for some indication this government knows that they’re there, and they’re not getting any. Did they do that? No, but they created a bank. And what’s that bank going to do for those families? Absolutely nothing, but it’s the same bank where all of you got up and cheered like it was the second coming.

We have an affordability crisis here in Ontario, and when the government had an opportunity in the fall economic statement to say to families, “We want to help you. We know you’re hurting. We know you need just a little something,” they couldn’t even give the families of Ontario just a little something. But we’re going to create a bank, and we’re going to cheer about it, because it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. It’s not going to help any of those families one bit.

When you had the opportunity to take the HST off home heating fuel and inputs, you didn’t do it. What did you do? You created a bank. The Premier has got his own bank. I’m not going to say his own little piggy bank—that may be something totally different, and we could talk about that later—but he created a bank.

Speaker, I’m pleased to debate Bill 139. I would like to take this opportunity to have members across the way ask me some questions.

Interjections.

But here’s the thing: You’re right. The government has basically said to universities, “You have to cut tuition costs, but we’re not giving you any support. We’re actually going to hold back.” Now, they’re asking universities to find efficiencies. Here’s the problem: How are we going to get the most highly educated, highly skilled workforce if our institutions are being squeezed and underfunded? We should be investing in it.

The member is right. Happy to answer that question.

Thank you to the member for Ottawa South for his comments. The member will know that the red tape bill includes a number of schedules that extend the term of a chair of a board of governors at five specific universities in Ontario. It extends that term from six years to eight years.

Given the Liberal government’s record, when they left office, of students paying the highest tuition fees in Ontario compared to the rest of all of Canada, and this government’s record of now the lowest per-student funding for both college and university in all of Canada, does the member think that increasing the term of the chair of a board of governors from six years to eight years is an appropriate response to the crisis in our post-secondary system?

He answered a question with a question.

I didn’t realize we were debating the fall economic statement, because we’re looking at a red tape bill here. But I’m going to just ask the member if he’s voting in support of the red tape bill.

Good morning. Let us pray.

Prayers.

Resuming the debate adjourned on November 16, 2023, on the motion for third reading of the following bill:

Bill 139, An Act to amend various Acts / Projet de loi 139, Loi modifiant diverses lois.

The next question will be the member for London West.

Well, you did your hair this morning.

It does help families.

And yet, the member here says that this legislation doesn’t matter. He essentially stood up and said, “Oh, we shouldn’t even be talking about this.” He was responding earlier and acting as if this legislation is somehow almost useless. That was the intent, or at least the way he was portraying this conversation.

And so, I want to ask if the member is going to apologize to those hard-working families and to those hard-working job creators who know that this legislation is going to reduce the burden on their backs and ensure they’re able to create more jobs, put food on the table and support their families.

I don’t think there is enough time for another question and response, so we’re going to move on.

Further debate?

I’m pleased to be rising in the House today to debate Bill 39, the Less Red Tape, More Common Sense Act. I always smile when I read the titles of the government’s bills, because sometimes the title of the bill is very different than what’s in the bill itself. Right now, I’m doing some work on the government’s affordable housing bill, where the government is looking at changing the definition of affordable housing to something which is actually going to create less affordable housing than we currently have. It’s very interesting.

I’m going to talk a little bit about this bill. Overall, this bill isn’t that bad. It has some housekeeping items which are needed to be done. I’m going to go through some of them right now.

Number one: Schedule 1 looks at the Agricultural and Horticultural Organizations Act, and it has some minor technical amendments for that.

Then schedule 2 looks at the Algoma University Act, and it also has some technical amendments in that. It would allow the chair of the board to sit for a period of up to eight years, to be determined by the board, and it could only be accomplished by the institution’s board of governors. We don’t see any huge red flags with that. But when we are starting to get into the schedules, the thing that comes to mind is around priorities. What are this government’s priorities? When I think about how we can fix the post-secondary education sector, extending the term that a chair of the board can sit is not the top priority for universities and colleges today.

In my riding, I have the University of Toronto. We’re the biggest university in Canada. We’re a huge economic driver for my riding in Toronto. When I host student forums, or when I speak to the faculty association, or I communicate with the board of governors, they don’t bring up the length of terms for board chairs; what they bring up is the high cost of student fees. When we increase student fees, it means people with means, people who have families with means, are more able to go to university, and people who don’t—that door to go to college or university is closed. Or if they do go through that door, it means they will take on an increasing amount of debt, which, in this day and age, especially for young people, is very challenging, because it has never been more expensive to live in Ontario, especially if you’re a young person. Rent is so high, food costs are so high, transportation and transit are exorbitant, and then you’ve got exponentially increasing student fees on top of that. That’s the big issue I hear when I talk to students.

We’ll go on. I don’t see anything about making post-secondary education more affordable, and I don’t believe allowing the chair of the board to sit for a period up to eight years is going to achieve that.

Next we have schedule 3, the Charities Accounting Act. This removes the notice of requirement to the public guardian and trustee where, in a will, property or right or interest in property is given to a person for a religious, educational, charitable or public purpose. We don’t have any red flags there.

Schedule 4, the Commodity Futures Act: This amendment is to reduce the minimum period during which the Ontario Securities Commission is required to give a reasonable opportunity to interested persons or companies to make written representations with respect to a proposed rule from 90 to 60 days—okay.

Then we’ve got schedule 5, the Corporations Act. Once again, this is a housekeeping amendment. This proposes amendments to the Corporations Act. These are technical amendments that enable the government to reduce the risk of dissolution of social clubs: “Currently, section 2.1 of the Corporations Act governs the continuance of social companies from the act to the Non-Profit Corporations Act, 2010, the Co-operative Corporations Act or the Business Corporations Act. And subsection 2.1(4) currently provides that if a social company has more than one class of shareholders, the special resolution passed by the corporation to authorize the continuance must be approved by each class of shareholders by a separate vote.” That subsection is proposed to be repealed—definitely a housekeeping bill. A complementary amendment is proposed to subsection 2.1(7). So no huge red flags there.

Then, we’ve got schedule 6. This is a technical amendment—another one—that would make it easier for credit unions to issue shares to purchase other credit unions, prepare investor offering statements and take deposits from brokers who manage money on behalf of clients, and it would allow a credit union to accept deposits from a member in trust for a named beneficiary, and there’s a regulatory proposal out on that. It seems reasonable. My hope is that you’ve done outreach to the credit unions in Ontario. My guess is that they’re asking for it.

Schedule 7 is the Farm Registration and Farm Organizations Funding Act. There are minor technical amendments there.

Schedule 8 is the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario Act. This proposed amendment is to reduce the minimum period during which the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario is required for feedback from 90 days to 60 days—again, housekeeping, technical amendments. Okay.

Schedule 9 is Modernizing Ontario for People and Businesses Act—love those titles. You’ve got some housekeeping here. You’re changing the definition of “minister” so that it names the Minister of Red Tape Reduction—classic, classic Conservative move—and changes the term “businesses” in one provision to “regulated entities.”

Schedule 10: minor technical amendments to the Motor Vehicle Dealers Act.

Schedule 11: the Niagara Escarpment Planning and Development Act. This changes section 23(c). It provides for exemptions of classes of persons, and not just classes of development, from requiring a development permit. Since the statute already grants the minister broad authority to prescribe exemptions for classes of developments, I suppose this could be an incremental change and does not necessarily signal an intention to exempt more activities from requiring a development permit in the Niagara Escarpment, which is part of the greenbelt. We’re not entirely sure what this means, so we’re doing outreach to stakeholders.

When we’re talking about schedule 11 and the Niagara Escarpment Planning and Development Act, the thing that comes to mind for me is this government’s continued attempt to open up precious farmland, forests and wetlands to development, which is a problem. Whenever I see anything related to the Niagara Escarpment or the greenbelt or municipal boundaries, instantly what I think is, “Oh, is this another clever way where the Conservatives are looking at opening up land so their developer donor friends can win big because they buy the land cheap when it’s zoned for farming and then, once it’s zoned for development, the land is worth a whole lot more?” Often, these developers don’t even build on the land. They just sell it because they’ll get the profit margin even more quickly. So we are curious about what schedule 11 means.

Schedule 12 is the Nipissing University Act. This is a minor amendment to schedule 2, and it applies to Nipissing and would allow the chair, under certain circumstances, to serve for eight years instead of six. It could only be accomplished by the institution’s board of governors. Once again, no red flags.

Schedule 13 is the Ontario College of Art and Design University Act. This is the same as schedule 2 and schedule 12. It would allow the chair, under certain circumstances, to serve for eight years instead of six. Once again, it can only be accomplished by the institution’s board of governors—no red flags.

Schedule 14 is the Ontario Heritage Act—ooh, heritage. It always makes my eyes open wider when I see this government wanting to meddle with heritage. This is what this says: This bill will amend the Ontario Heritage Act to allow alterations of heritage attributes related to religious practices in a building used for religious practices. If the alterations are required for religious practices and all prescribed conditions are met, a limited religious exemption seems reasonable. The associated regulatory notice, which we have looked at, lists the criteria in which a municipality would be required to allow an alteration on religious grounds to the building, to the heritage attributes to be altered, to the alteration of the heritage attributes for religious practices—this makes sense to me—any additional conditions prescribed by regulation, and the applicant provides counsel with an affidavit or sworn declaration that the application meets the conditions in the act or prescribed in regulation.

Schedule 15, the Professional Engineers Act: This repeals section 7(1)10, which eliminates the ability of the PEO council to prescribe forms of applications for licences, certificates of authorization, temporary licences, provisional licences and limited licences and requiring their use. There are related amendments to this restriction. The issuance of these temporary licences and so on is now through the registrar. Other amendments here appear technical, again, in order to modernize the act. It changes reporting requirements when the registrar is investigating a potential act of professional misconduct or incompetence. The registrar must report the findings to the complaints committee instead of the council of the association. It adds the requirement to report the findings of the investigation to the subject of the investigation.

Then, we’ve got schedule 16, the Retirement Homes Act. There are some minor technical amendments there.

In my work as the housing critic, we have done some work to amend the Retirement Homes Act, and the reason is because we do have some fantastic retirement homes in our riding, and then we’ve had some retirement homes that we’ve lost. The one that comes to mind is Davenhill. Davenhill was a retirement home just south of the Toronto Reference Library. Unfortunately, the land underneath Davenhill was sold, and the building was bought by a company that wanted to turn it into a condo. What we found in working with the residents there is that there aren’t enough protections for people who live in retirement homes. What we found is that when you move into a retirement home, you are protected by rent control for the actual cost of renting your small room, but there are no restrictions on how much the owner of the retirement home can raise the fees for the services that you need to live there. If you are using nursing services, if you require regular medication, if you are going to use the dining room or use food or parking—there are no restrictions on how much those fees can be raised. What we saw, in talking to residents, is that if a retirement home wants to remove someone or generate more revenue, they’ll increase the cost of those fees to a point where residents have to give up and move out. I think that’s very concerning. We have introduced legislation to call on the government to look into this loophole that allows big increases for fees for people who live in retirement homes, and I think it’s worth the Conservatives taking a look at it. When you are a senior, you’ve got health issues, you don’t work anymore, you’re on a fixed income, so a small increase in the amount of money that you have to pay for your home and for the services can have a really negative impact on your life. So it makes a lot of sense, when we’re looking at amending the Retirement Homes Act, that this government take a look at how we can make things more affordable for people who live in retirement homes.

Schedule 17 is the Securities Act. This is similar to the provisions that have been outlined above. It reduces written feedback for proposed changes from 90 days to 60 days.

Schedule 18 is the St. Lawrence Parks Commission Act. It adds a clause to section 6 of the act, allowing the commission to dispose of an interest in land by the grant of an easement without the approval of the Lieutenant Governor in Council. Essentially, the commission would be able to use commission lands for a limited purpose unilaterally. Section 6 currently grants powers to the commission, at the behest of cabinet, to acquire purchase, lease or appropriate any land. The St. Lawrence parklands are part of the historic Crawford Purchase treaty and border a number of First Nations.

I have never visited the St. Lawrence parklands; I would love to do so.

Schedule 19 is the Université de l’Ontario français Act. It is similar to other provisions in this bill. It allows the chair of the board to sit for eight years instead of six in certain circumstances, and it can only be accomplished by the institution’s board of governors—no red flag.

And then schedule 20 is really similar to other provisions. It applies to the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, and it would allow the chair of the board to sit for eight years instead of six in certain circumstances.

So that’s a summary of the schedules in this bill, Bill 139. Overall, I think it’s safe to say that there are not a lot of red flags in this bill. Many of the proposed schedule changes are supportable, and it’s essentially a series of housekeeping amendments to tidy stuff up. I do wonder when I read a bill like this—I think about what’s missing. And when I think about red tape—the government loves to use the term red tape. In fact, this schedule even has a proposal to change the minister’s name to the Minister of Red Tape Reduction.

I think about some of the letters that have been sent into my office that have talked about red tape, and I’d like to read one to you now. This letter is a Q&A, and it comes from a family doctor in my riding who is very concerned about the amount of red tape they experience just doing their job of meeting patients and working to heal them and help them. We asked them a bunch of questions, and this is what they said. This person is Dr. Vivienne Lemos.

Dr. Vivienne Lemos has about 850 patients. She works part-time. We asked her, “Are you forced to turn away new patients?”, and she said, “Yes. I currently only accept newborns whose parents are currently my patients. I receive multiple requests a day to accept family and friends of patients and have people cold-call my office to request the same.” This experience that this doctor is having is very similar to the experience that I hear from other doctors in my riding, and it’s also similar to the experience I hear from constituents who can’t get access to a family doctor. They just can’t. They’re one of the 2.2 million people in Ontario who can’t get access to a family doctor or a primary care provider, which is a huge concern.

So then we asked the doctor, “What’s the volume ... like, and how does it affect care?” She said, “The volume is very high. Despite having an hour each day I am in the office for same-day urgent appointments, I am” completely “overwhelmed. These slots fill up within minutes of them becoming available....

“My practice largely consists of patients over the age of 60 who are medically complex. Each appointment often 30 minutes and some require translators. In order for me to provide the high level of care to which my patients are accustomed, I have to book fewer of them, which in turn is reflected on my billings and my availability to my patients.”

Then we asked her about the administrative burden. The reason why I want to talk about the administrative burden is that when we’re talking about red tape, this is an administrative burden that seems like an example of red tape that is actually a problem. This is how she describes her administrative work:

“The administrative burden has become unmanageable. I spend 20 hours or more a week on paperwork. Despite the part-time clinic hours, the rest of the time I am not in clinic is spent in the quagmire of paperwork that is involved in running a practice: redirecting referrals, prescription refills, responding to patient emails, reviewing results, meetings with lawyers and contractors about our upcoming (non-OHIP-funded) office renovations, bookkeeping, human resources issues etc.

“I would not have the time to do any of these things if I was working in clinic full-time.”

She says, “The costs of running a practice are overwhelming and our income has not even kept up with inflation. My overhead is 40% of what OHIP pays me every month—the average for most physicians is 25% to 30% but we are located in downtown Toronto and our rent is high. There is little left after paying taxes.”

The reason why I bring up this example is because when I think about my riding and what really affects the constituents in my riding, I think about access to a family doctor. I think about how we can reduce the administrative burden for family doctors, so that they can see more people. I think about how we can expand the scope of registered nurses, midwives and more, so that they can see people directly and be a primary care provider. I think about the high cost of housing. I think about education and how our classrooms are full. I think about how we are doing nothing—nothing—to address the climate crisis and the environmental issues we face.

And I wonder why this government, at this time, is looking at introducing a housekeeping bill when there is so much more that we could be talking about.

Thank you to my friend from University–Rosedale for her words. I would like to ask her, as our critic for housing for the official opposition, what she would have liked to see in a reducing-red-tape bill that would be good for tenants in Toronto and across Ontario.

Speaker, I move that the question be now be put.

Interjections.

Thank you to the member for Essex for that question.

You know, there is a lot in this bill that is supportable. A lot of these minor technical amendments that are in the Motor Vehicle Dealers Act that you describe—this is something we are looking at, that we’re talking to stakeholders about. But overall, for us, our concern is less around the bill itself and more around priorities.

When we’re talking about what kind of bills we could be introducing in this Legislature, what I would really hope to see is a bill that ensures that everyone has access to a primary care provider, that housing is affordable, that people who rent—the 30% of Ontarians who rent—can afford their rent and not go on to be illegally evicted.

It would be nice to see a bill that focuses on the education issues that we have in our province. I have kids in the TDSB school system. The class sizes are so large and kids that are struggling just don’t get the teacher’s attention. When I talk to my constituents—

Right now, if you have an issue with a tenant or you have an issue with a landlord, you are waiting a very long time to get your hearing date: six months if you’re a landlord and up to two years if you’re a tenant. And then what we’re also finding is that even if an adjudicator rules in your favour—say you’re a tenant and you were illegally evicted—the Landlord and Tenant Board is not following up and they’re not enforcing their ruling. So most landlords aren’t paying the fine, which is small to begin with, and they’ve gotten away with illegally evicting a tenant, for example. So if we’re looking at something that can be done, that’s practical, it would be to make our tribunal system and our Landlord and Tenant Board work for Ontarians.

What the Ontario Medical Association also asked for is for this government to get serious about fixing the crisis in primary care so that those 2.2 million Ontarians can have access to a family doctor. Also, the OMA also had a lot of concerns about the difficulty it is for people with complex medical conditions who live at home to have access to home care. It’s very hard to get comprehensive home care so that your loved one can have some time off and so on. They’re the two additional things that the OMA asked for and they’re not in this bill.

What we can say is, you mentioned the Minister of Health is looking at bringing in home care legislation and, unfortunately, we do have a lot of concerns with the home care legislation, specifically because we feel that it opens the door even further to privatization. When we allow the privatization of home care, it means more money goes into shareholders’ pockets, CEOs’ pockets and less money goes to personal support workers and nurses who are providing that front-line quality care. So, we have a lot of concerns about that.

The reason why it’s so important to me right now is because we just did a forum in Chinatown. We spoke to many older Chinese Canadians, and they told us loud and clear that they don’t have access to a family doctor who is fluent in Cantonese or Mandarin. Then we did a little bit of a deep dive and looked at how many doctors in the area provide services in Cantonese and Mandarin, and we discovered that the average age of those doctors is 70. So all these people who are being served by these family doctors are in a really tough spot, because many of them are going to retire, which means that there is a real opportunity there and a real need to bring in more nurse practitioners to provide primary care and to really address the family doctor shortage in communities that are already being underserved.

I appreciate interacting with my friend from University–Rosedale. We’ve heard that already from the member from Ottawa South and now from University–Rosedale: The opposition and the independent Liberals aren’t necessarily so much against this legislation, as they don’t think that it’s such a big deal.

I want to riff a little bit off my colleague from Niagara West’s comments earlier—maybe a little bit more heated—because when you actually look through some of the legislation that we’re planning on saving Ontario doctors 95,000 hours of paperwork instead of patient care, when we’re working with Skilled Trades Ontario to make data sharing more important—you know, government is like a big ship moving in a certain direction. It’s very difficult to change the direction of that ship, but by nibbling away at some of these easy wins and low-hanging fruit, we make big changes but slowly and steadily.

I was wondering if the member can comment on the fact these just good, smart things to reduce red tape are actually important and good for the people of Ontario.

I’m curious because I think the Minister of Health is actually going into committee today at some point in order to talk about our improvements to home care, and so it’s good to hear the member from University–Rosedale actually supporting the things we’re doing to try to solve the primary care crisis in the province of Ontario and to try to take care of some of those other things.

I’ll leave her with this, because time’s running short, and it doesn’t seem like there’s too many people rising to ask questions in this House this morning: Will the member be voting in favour of this legislation? I think the answer is yes. I think I already heard that from the member from Ottawa South, but I’m wondering if the member from University–Rosedale will be voting in favour of this common-sense red tape reduction bill to make life easier for to the average ordinary Ontarian.

Okay. That’s time for the debate. We’re going to move to questions.

So we’re at the question period for the member of University–Rosedale.

It’s always a pleasure to hear these submissions made by the member from University–Rosedale. I’d like to ask the member if she would please take a look at schedule 10 of the bill before us, if she hasn’t had an opportunity to do so already. Schedule 10 increases the fine under the Motor Vehicle Dealers Act from $2,500 to $5,000, and I would just like to know her views on that. Does she think that fine is too high, too low or somewhere in between?

Thank you to the member from University–Rosedale for your comments. Now, we know that the Ontario Medical Association was also very concerned about fixing the crisis in primary care and expanding and integrating home and community care. There are a number of serious concerns about the privatization of community care. I’m also wondering if perhaps you could speak to the need to expand nurse practitioner-led clinics.

That is time.

We we’re going to move to further debate. I recognize the member for Niagara West.

I’ll recognize the member for Beaches–East York.

I will then apologize, and I will go back to the member for Niagara West for further debate.

Orders of the day?

Interjection.

Mr. Gill has moved third reading of Bill 139, An Act to amend various Acts. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.

Be it resolved that the bill do now pass and be entitled as in the motion.

Third reading agreed to.

Resuming the debate adjourned on November 16, 2023, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 149, An Act to amend various statutes with respect to employment and labour and other matters / Projet de loi 149, Loi modifiant diverses lois en ce qui concerne l’emploi, le travail et d’autres questions.

It is a great pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill 149, An Act to amend various statutes with respect to employment and labour and other matters.

I regret that the labour critic for the official opposition, the member for Sudbury, is unable to be here, and that is because the government called this bill at—I think it was close to midnight on Thursday, which is when the member for Sudbury had the opportunity to begin his leadoff remarks on this legislation. He has done extensive consultation with stakeholders in labour, with unions, with worker advocates, to get their feedback on this bill. Unfortunately, he was unable to complete his one-hour remarks, which would have been, I think, very helpful for the government to be able to hear, because he has done the kind of extensive consultation that this government has repeatedly failed to do—if they really want to understand the issues that working people in this province are facing, and if they really want to bring forward legislation that would actually address the issues that workers are struggling with in this province.

Bill 149 amends four separate pieces of legislation. It amends the Digital Platform Workers’ Rights Act, 2022, which, interestingly, is not even in force yet. Once again, we see this government passing legislation—quite recently; that legislation was debated in this House, passed in this House, back in 2022. It’s not even in force, and yet the government is bringing forward amendments to its sloppy legislation that they had drafted initially, that already requires revisions. This bill also amends the Employment Standards Act—and I’ll have quite a bit more to say about the amendments to the Employment Standards Act. It amends the Fair Access to Regulated Professions and Compulsory Trades Act, 2006. And finally, it amends the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act.

I’m going to start with the final schedule, schedule 4, the amendments to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act. This legislation finally provides the presumptive coverage for esophageal cancer in firefighters. We heard lots of boasting from this government about how they were going to be moving ahead with these changes in their last employment omnibus bill. They made that commitment. We fully support that commitment. Through the efforts of my colleague the member for Niagara Centre, we actually led that initiative to provide that presumptive coverage, and I want to thank and congratulate my colleague for his efforts, for his advocacy on behalf of Captain Craig Bowman, and for the private member’s bill that he brought forward, Bill 127, which had first reading in June 2023. The government could have moved forward with this change several months ago, with that private member’s bill; they could have moved forward with this change when they introduced their previous employment omnibus bill, but they didn’t. But here we are today, and we appreciate that change. It is a long-overdue change that is well past due in this province.

We also want to highlight that this presumptive coverage is not just important for firefighters who work in municipal fire services across this province, but it should be extended to include wildfire fire workers. That category of firefighters is excluded from the definition of firefighters that is covered by presumptive clauses under the WSIA.

That change is not included in this legislation, and I have to question why. We know that with the impact of climate change we are seeing severe weather events on a scale that we haven’t experienced before in this province. We all remember the smoke that was coming from the wildfires in Quebec and northern Ontario and the impact that was having on our air quality here in Ontario and well down into the United States. Wildfire fire workers have been combatting these consequences of climate change to an extent that we haven’t seen before, and yet they are excluded from this ability to access presumptive coverage under WSIA.

Not only did the government exclude wildfire fire workers from this legislation, but they have cut the number of fire crews that we have in this province when they reduced funding for wildfire management programs by 67%. A 67% reduction to funding for wildfire management programs as we are in the midst of—or in the summer, certainly—a wildfire crisis across the province. We are 50 fire crews short because of this government’s decision to cut that funding for wildfire management programs.

Otherwise, Speaker, the changes that are set out in the first three schedules of this bill will have some impact on workers in the province, but they are very much baby steps. They are the kind of incremental changes that workers don’t deserve. Workers deserve a government that is going to listen to the challenges that they are facing and make the kind of changes that would really have an impact on their lives.

I’m going to now go to schedule 1 of the bill, the Digital Platform Workers’ Rights Act, 2022. A new section is added that requires that a pay period as set out in the act not exceed the prescribed number of days. What does this section do, Speaker? What this does is it waters down the already flimsy minimum-wage protections of the Digital Platform Workers’ Rights Act by adding the clause “Unless the regulations provide otherwise” to section 9(2) of the act. That section of the current legislation sets out that employers must pay minimum wage for assignments. In other words, the minimum-wage provisions only apply when a gig worker—a digital platform worker, an Uber driver, a Skip the Dishes delivery person—the minimum wage only applies to when that worker is in the process of delivering. It does not apply to the time between assignments and to the time it takes to get to an assignment or to the next assignment. What that means is that these workers are effectively protected by the minimum wage provisions of this bill just an estimated 60% of the time that they are on the job.

Speaker, I think that you were a member in this House when I brought forward a private member’s bill called the Preventing Worker Misclassification Act, which was also legislation that would protect digital platform workers, the gig workers. We have seen an erosion of the quality of work in this province. We have seen an explosion of the gig economy, with too many workers forced to patchwork together gig jobs, contract jobs, jobs which, until the government introduced its bill, had no protections whatsoever in terms of labour.

This is at a time when we are seeing, internationally, recognition for gig workers to be recognized as the employees they are. We’re seeing decisions in Spain, the UK, New York City, other jurisdictions, where the courts have ruled that digital workers are employees and should be covered by all of the protections and benefits of the Employment Standards Act, and that’s what my bill would have done.

My bill addressed worker misclassification. It addressed the reality that too many gig workers are doing work that should be legitimately covered by the Employment Standards Act but are completely excluded. It created a new test for how you identify an employee under the Employment Standards Act, so that those gig workers would not be misclassified as independent contractors; those gig workers would be recognized as the employees that they are, and therefore entitled to minimum wage protections—fancy that, Speaker. They would be entitled to vacation pay. They would be entitled to scheduled breaks in the days that they work. They would be entitled to protections around hours worked.

And so that legislation that I introduced was debated in this chamber, and the government refused to support that direction. The government refused to acknowledge the rights that digital workers should have and that the courts, as I said, are recognizing in other jurisdictions. Instead, they went ahead with their own Digital Platform Workers’ Rights Act.

So let’s talk some more about digital platform workers. They spend, on average, as I said, about 40% of their work time waiting for deliveries or rides, and that is the 40% of their workday that is not going to be covered, now, by any of the protections of the government’s Digital Platform Workers’ Rights Act. It would also allow large international companies like Uber and Lyft to avoid paying workers, as I mentioned, for the time that they are not actually on assignment.

The amendments to this act do not protect platform worker wages from being further reduced below minimum wage, because when 40% of your workday is not covered by any minimum wage protections, you can imagine that, over the course of a workweek, a digital platform worker, when it’s all averaged out, will actually be earning much less than is required by Ontario’s minimum wage laws.

In the short time I have left—it’s surprising how quickly 20 minutes go—I want to talk about the schedule of the bill that the government claims is going to provide some pay transparency. Speaker, I don’t think you were elected at the time, but when the Liberal government, just prior to its ouster by the people of this province in 2018—just prior to that election, the Liberal government of the time introduced a Pay Transparency Act.

I have to commend and acknowledge the hard work and the efforts of the Equal Pay Coalition, and in particular, the two lawyers who have been driving forces behind the Equal Pay Coalition and driving forces behind advocacy to get the government to move forward with pay transparency legislation. Those two lawyers, that I’ve had the great privilege of working closely with, are Fay Faraday and Jan Borowy. They have been formidable champions of equal pay and pay equity and pay transparency.

Again, we have seen in other jurisdictions, other countries, that pay transparency is a critical tool to help close the gender wage gap in Ontario. It is a critical tool to ensure that women are no longer earning 75% of what a man earns.

Every year, Equal Pay Day is recognized in Ontario—not by this government, of course; they don’t want to draw any attention to the fact they have failed to do anything effective to help close that gender wage gap, but on this side of the House, we certainly highlight Equal Pay Day each year, which marks how much further into the next year a woman has to work in order to earn the same amount that her male counterpart would have earned in the previous year. And, Speaker, typically, that day falls somewhere at the end of March or early April, because that is the reality for women in this province—in particular, it is the reality for racialized women, women who are living with a disability, Indigenous women. Equal Pay Day for some women actually falls much closer into the middle of the year, or even the following autumn. That is how underpaid certain groups of women are in this province. So pay transparency is, as I said, a critical tool to help close the gender wage gap.

So what this bill does is it requires employers to post information about expected compensation levels for any position that they are hiring for. Does this address the goal of the previous legislation, the Pay Transparency Act, Speaker? Not in the slightest. This very modest, simple requirement will not go anywhere as far as we need to go, which was set out in the previous Pay Transparency Act.

In fact, Speaker, instead, we could have saved the government some time. Instead of working on a schedule—a change that’s included in the bill—the government could have enacted the Pay Transparency Act because that legislation was introduced, as I said, just prior to the 2018 election. It was debated in this House for second reading, went to committee, it was debated in this House for third reading—it was passed, Speaker. It got royal assent, Speaker. Has it been enacted, Speaker? No, it has not. This government pulled that legislation and has been sitting on that legislation while they claimed to be doing a consultation with employers about that bill.

Now, that would have been something that would have really made a difference for women workers in this province—had the government announced that they were going to actually enact the Pay Transparency Act. It’s the provisions in that Pay Transparency Act which—again, I want to credit Jan Borowy and her efforts for helping improve that legislation at committee and ensuring that those measures that were included in that bill would actually start to close that gender wage gap that has been so damaging for women in Ontario.

Thank you very much, Speaker, and good morning, everyone. It’s always a pleasure to be with you here in the beautiful chamber—

Interjection.

Thank you very much, Speaker. I—