It’s fortunate that I switched my House duty with my colleague today because last week, as you know, the government House leader gave us an update of what we’re going to be debating this week, and Bill 149 wasn’t on that list of things we would be debating. I found it odd because, on Thursday morning, they brought it for debate so the minister could have his hour lead, and then it collapsed because of question period. We couldn’t proceed. They didn’t call it back in the afternoon. This is a weird standard that they’ve set for these employment bills, because on second reading, they brought forward the debate at 5 p.m. on a Thursday—or a Wednesday; I apologize. They brought forward the debate at 5 p.m.—I believe it was on a Thursday—the minister had his hour lead, and then because of orders of the day, at 6 p.m. we went to different business, and then we didn’t resume debate until 11:30 p.m.

If you want to have fulsome debate, you have to hear the criticisms of the bill. It isn’t that this bill is a terrible bill—there are good parts to it; there are some terrible parts to it. Honestly, in this bill, there are some good parts, there’s a really bad part, and there’s a bunch of parts that really didn’t have to be there because they are already existing laws.

The bill is Bill 149. Technically, it’s called An Act to amend various statutes with respect to employment and labour and other matters. It has four schedules. It’s an omnibus bill. Schedule 1 is the Digital Platform Workers’ Rights Act; I’m going to get to that in a minute. Schedule 2 is the Employment Standards Act. Schedule 3 is Fair Access to Regulated Professions and Compulsory Trades Act. And schedule 4 is the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act.

I’m going to start with part of the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act because that’s the part of the bill, for the most part, that is very positive. That’s the part of the bill that was basically piggybacked from a private member’s bill that my colleague from Niagara Centre had—

Interjection.

Knowing how the occupational disease affects people, from my background with health and safety working in the mining industry, I know that, like Captain Bowman, a lot of these people are really just hanging on to hear that there will be some good news for their family. They know the finish line is coming. They just want to hear something. They want to hear that their WSIB claim has been accepted, that there will be some compensation and recognition for what they’re going through and what their family is going through. And I’m very happy to hear that Captain Bowman had heard that this bill was moving forward before.

Last week, I was able to go up and talk to the family and let them know that, although we do have issues with this bill—primarily the Digital Platform Workers’ Rights Act, which is a bizarre name for something that’s kneecapping digital workers—we would be supporting this bill because of the importance of what it’s going to do for firefighters in our province. We’ll have another way to work on this digital workers’ section.

So that being said, that’s the cornerstone of the bill. That’s the solid part of the bill. There are some sort of wishy-washy things in the bill that are not really legislation that I’ll get into afterwards.

I do want to talk about this Digital Platform Workers’ Rights Act. This is one of those creative writing things. I’ve said often that a lot of these Conservative bills are basically for headlines. This sounds like a great thing. These are your gig workers—if you don’t want to read through it—these are your Uber drivers, food delivery drivers; these are these app workers. It sounds like a fantastic thing, “digital platform workers’ rights”—you’re going to have some rights. We know these workers have been exploited and taken advantage of, but it really doesn’t do anything for them. What it does is, it spells out that they can make a complaint, and the complaint can be investigated—and that sounds great—but it also enshrines that you’re only paid for the time that you’re active in service. If you think of this morning, for example—I think up to now there have been seven people who spoke. Some spoke for 10 minutes. Some spoke for maybe a minute and a half, to answer a question or to ask a question. You would only be paid for the time that you spoke. It doesn’t matter that you came to the Legislature. It didn’t matter that you’re on House duty for hours on end. It didn’t matter that you’re in committee—and I’m not taking cheap shots at anybody. We work hard here; I know it’s a joke to say that politicians don’t. We work hard, and there are a lot of hours in here. But if we were protected under this Digital Platform Workers’ Rights Act, I’d be getting paid right now, but nobody else would—not even you, Speaker; you’d probably get the least amount, because you just get up for a second to say, “Further debate?” or “I recognize the member.” This is unfair in any workplace.

When I was a flash furnace operator, I was paid to fill the trains with slag, and I was paid when the trains were switching out. When I was waiting for new pots to come in, my pay didn’t stop.

When I was a kid, working at Baskin-Robbins in the winter, when it was slow and we had fewer people, I wasn’t paid just when people showed up to get ice cream. I was paid for the amount of time I was there ready, willing, waiting to work. That’s what needs to happen for these app workers.

In this thing, when it says that you have a right to complain that your employer is paying you less than minimum wage per hour—but nothing will happen, because the Conservative government is enshrining the right for these companies to pay their workers less than minimum wage per hour. You’re only paid for your engaged time. That means that, for example, if you stop by a grocery store or a pharmacy on the way home and you have to pick up soap, bread or something like that, the cashier would only be paid for the time that you got there, and when they scan your device, and while they did the transaction. Then, their pay stops. Think about a chess match. Every time they hit the clock—that’s how these workers are paid.

There was a document—I know I can’t hold it up, but I’m going to have it to read from. Legislated Poverty was from RideFair. This was presented to us the day before we went to committee on this: “Under current city and provincial regulations, Toronto’s ride-hail drivers’ median pay is an estimated $6.37-$10.60/hour, a collective annual loss of up to ~$200 million/year.”

This is about app delivery drivers. This is about ride-share companies, like Lyft and Uber. This is an amazing business plan. You come up with the app, and the workers provide all the equipment. The workers do all of the work. They pay for their vehicles. It doesn’t matter if it’s a car—you want to get an Uber Black, you get a high-end car, and you’re paying a lease on it. You’re doing food delivery, and you get on an e-bike that some people are renting or trying to pay off. And you hear about these rates of pay—because Uber is telling you that you make about 30 bucks an hour. That’s 30 bucks an hour if you only count the time when you’re working.

The Conservative government has created a law where—“Yes, we stand with Uber. We stand with the billionaires.” This is sort of a familiar refrain from the Conservative government. They love billionaires, but they don’t stand with regular working-class people.

A couple of quotes in here: “Toronto ride-hail drivers received an estimated median pay as low as $6.37/hr”— that’s before the deductions. That’s before gas. That’s before their lease. That’s before they pay for the bike. That’s out-of-pocket expenses.

Our minimum wage is $16.55. I want you to compare that—and I’m going to say it again: $16.55. What the Conservative government is saying is, “It’s okay if a company pays their workers $6.37 an hour instead.” That is flabbergasting. In this economy, in this time of financial strife, when people are feeling the affordability pinch—middle-class people, higher-income people are thinking about what they’re purchasing. They’re putting things back on the shelves. People who can afford it are just saying, “This is ridiculous, the way we’re being gouged.”

You have a Conservative government saying, “I think it’s great that this billionaire company is exploiting these workers. In fact, I’m going to write it into law so they can keep getting away with it.” It’s disgraceful.

Further, they did some analysis on this, and their estimate was that Uber’s proposed—Uber says they make 120% of minimum wage for engaged time, but only while they’re actually working. While they’re waiting for an order to come in, and if Uber decides—they know how the app works. If Uber decides, “I’m going to keep sending it to this person and ignore this person”—it’s only while they’re going; you get zero while you’re waiting.

One of the deputants who spoke to us at clause-by-clause told us about being out in snowstorms—because you get more orders for food in snowstorms—and waiting in Toronto with his bike and making $2.50 an hour, which, coincidentally, is what they estimate that works out to, actually, as an hourly minimum wage. It’s a little bit of smoke and mirrors, because the engaged time pay is pretty good, but if Uber doesn’t give you any deliveries, it’s pretty bad.

Again, think of us all here: Right now, I’m getting paid because I’m engaged; none of you are. None of you deserve a cent for what you’re doing. It makes no sense. It’s completely unfair.

So Uber is telling people—they’ve got a thing called Uber math; I guess that’s a trending thing. Basically, what they say is, you’re making $40.69 an hour—which is great, if you actually made that for the hour, but that’s only when they add up your engaged time over a long period. So, your engaged time, seven hours and 24 minutes—do you know how long the worker has to work to have seven hours and 24 minutes of engaged time? It’s 26 hours and 18 minutes. So to work an eight-hour shift for Uber, you have to work more than 24 hours a day. If you break it down to what they actually make per hour, in this instance, it’s $11.45.

I can go on and on about this, but there are other parts of the bill to get to. I’m spelling this out as clear as I can, though, because this is punishing for workers. We had several come who are Uber drivers and food delivery workers, and I asked one of them—I’ll hear, often, when people hear of somebody who has a job that doesn’t pay well, “Just quit and get another job.” So I said, “Why don’t you just quit and get another job?” He said, “There are no other jobs. I have to put food on the table for my family, and so what I do is, I sit in my car and I wait. I don’t spend time with my family. I sit in my car for 16 to 18 hours a day, and then I collapse from exhaustion and sleep, and I sit in my car again.”

Interjection.