I’m proud to welcome OPSEU Local 535 AGO workers to Queen’s Park today: Paul Ayers, local president; Ruth Jones, who works in facilities: Teya Vitko, bargaining team member; Charles Audu, local vice-president; and Mark Thornberry, bargaining team member. Welcome to your House, for the love of the arts.

To the Premier: Over 400 Art Gallery of Ontario workers are on strike, and many of these cultural workers are artists themselves. They’re here today. These are the people who welcome us into the AGO. They set up and they dismount art installations. They hang the art. They provide educational enrichment through tours. They helped raise funds for the AGO’s new building. They clean the gallery. But they are struggling to pay rent and buy food. Because of their hard work, the AGO has become a world-class destination, and yet this government hasn’t increased the AGO’s budget in over 10 years.

My question is to the Premier: Will this Conservative government properly fund arts institutions so their deficits aren’t being balanced on the backs of the least-paid workers? Will the Premier show them the “Monet”?

Back to the Premier: Over 60% of AGO workers are precarious part-time workers, and they’re kept that way—they are contract. They can’t make enough hours to meet the full-time threshold, because, they told me yesterday, the AGO puts up roadblocks. All this, while the AGO contracts out, while AGO execs have recently received salary bonuses of up to 59.6%. While there’s “no more money for wages,” we’ve got the AGO CEO making over $400,000 a year, with bonuses of $250,000 annually.

My question is back to the Premier: Does this government think this is fair? How are they prepared to work with the AGO and get the employer to the table to have these workers get what they deserve: fair wages, full-time opportunities, protection against contracting out and livable hours of work?