Visiting Queen’s Park for, I believe, the first time are the mayor of Orangeville, Lisa Post; councillor of Orangeville Todd Taylor, who also happened to serve as s Dufferin county councillor; and the CAO for the county of Dufferin, Sonya Pritchard. Welcome to the House.

It’s my pleasure to rise in the House today to highlight very exciting news for Brampton. Just in time for the 2024-25 Ontario Hockey League season, I’m proud to announce that Brampton will be getting our own OHL team when the Steelheads come to town. That’s right; after more than a decade since the Battalion left, OHL hockey is coming back to Brampton. This is great news, not just for my constituents, but for hockey fans across Brampton.

And yes, Mr. Speaker, Brampton is a hockey town. Brampton is proud to have developed some of the best talent the game has seen, including Cassie Campbell, Sean Monahan, Rick Nash and Tyler Seguin, just to name a few. More recently, our city was proud to host Hockey Night in Brampton last August, where Brampton’s passionate hockey fan base came together to raise over $1 million for our second hospital.

This move represents why Brampton is the place to be. With our vibrant and diverse population and our passion for developing the next generation of sports talent, Brampton is quickly becoming the breeding ground for sports excellence nationwide. Not only will this move give Brampton youth a chance to play for their hometown, but it will give our city front-row seats to watch them grow into the next generation of hockey stars.

I can’t wait to don a Brampton Steelheads jersey and cheer on our boys this fall.

Today, I’d like to welcome to the House Drew Spoelstra, president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture. He’s here with his provincial directors, but more importantly, a number of young farmers from across Ontario. I’d like to welcome Vanessa Renaud, Angela Cammaert, Julie McIntosh, Derek Van De Walle, Jonathan Miller, Brad Snobelen and Matt Chapple.

I’d like to invite everyone to the OFA reception later this afternoon in the dining room.

I’d also like to give a warm welcome to Stephanie, who’s with me today, a student from York University.

J’aimerais souhaiter la bienvenue à Anne-Marie Gélineault, Francine Vaillancourt, Sébastien Fontaine et Catherine Chereau-Sharp du Conseil scolaire du Grand Nord. Bienvenue.

I just want to wish a happy birthday to my colleague Sarah Jama and our wonderful Trevor. Happy birthday.

Il me fait plaisir de vous présenter et souhaiter la bienvenue à Denis Labelle, président, et Jeannette Labrèche, deux représentants du Nord pour l’Association des conseils scolaires des écoles publiques de l’Ontario. Bienvenue à Queen’s Park. Encore, ça m’a fait plaisir de vous voir ce matin au déjeuner.

We want to welcome the amazing French public school board trustees and leaders from across Ontario. Thank you for your leadership in Ontario.

J’aimerais accueillir nos amis de l’ACÉPO, l’Association des conseils scolaires des écoles publiques de l’Ontario, aujourd’hui, y compris leur président, Denis Labelle; leur vice-présidente, Samia Ouled Ali, qui habite dans ma circonscription d’Ottawa-Ouest–Nepean; la directrice générale, Isabelle Girard; aussi d’Ottawa, Christian-Charle Bouchard; et tous les conseillers scolaires et les directeurs d’éducation qui nous joignent ce matin. Bienvenue.

I would also like to welcome, from the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, Teresa Van Raay, Andrea McCoy-Naperstkow, Clint Cameron and Jonathan Miller. I’m looking forward to our meeting this afternoon.

We have with us in the Speaker’s gallery today Oleh Nikolenko, the consul general of Ukraine in Toronto. Please join me in warmly welcoming our guest to the Legislative Assembly today.

I want to take the opportunity to welcome, from Thunder Bay–Atikokan, my good friend Bill Groenheide, who’s here with the OFA today.

I, too, would like to introduce one of my local farmers from Lafontaine. He’s also a director with the Ontario Federation of Agriculture: Paul Maurice. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

I have a couple of people to introduce—one is the charming communications branch from the Ministry of the Solicitor General. I ran into them in the hallway, and they’re here. Welcome.

I also have energetic Eldon Mascoll to introduce. He’s an iconic cultural hero and the producer of Canadian Black History Experience, which is an immersive touring show celebrating Black Canadian trailblazers.

Welcome to your House, Eldon.

I want to introduce Bruce Cazabon, vice-president, and Yves Laliberté, director of education, from le Conseil scolaire public du Nord-Est de l’Ontario. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

J’aimerais aussi souhaiter la bienvenue aux membres du Conseil des écoles publiques de l’Est de l’Ontario. Les membres du CEPEO sont ici à Queen’s Park avec d’autres membres de l’ACÉPO, l’Association des conseils scolaires des écoles publiques de l’Ontario. C’était un plaisir de les rencontrer, ces gens-là, pour déjeuner ce matin. On a eu de belles discussions.

Je voulais juste dire que je me joindrai aux membres du CEPEO jeudi soir au centre Shenkman à Orléans pour prendre part aux célébrations en l’honneur du 25^e anniversaire du Conseil des écoles publiques de l’Est de l’Ontario.

Merci d’être parmi nous aujourd’hui. Bienvenue à Queen’s Park.

The Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development.

The Associate Minister of Women’s Social and Economic Opportunity.

Again, the Associate Minister of Women’s Social and Economic Opportunity.

Today marks Equal Pay Day. It’s the day when we mark how far into the next year women have to work to catch up to what most men had earned the previous year. When you’re racialized, Indigenous, a member of the LQBTQ community, the wait for equal pay day is even longer. Women of all age groups, across the board, earn less than men.

So my question to the Premier is, will he commit to ensuring that every woman worker earns as much as her male counterparts?

Closing the gender pay gap and supporting women and gender-diverse peoples’ economic equality is a government responsibility.

Women frequently work in jobs taking care of people and the community—from the doctors, nurses and PSWs who keep our health care system going to the ECEs in our child care centres who care for our children while we’re at work.

Will the Premier commit to properly funding the strong public services that support women’s economic equality?

Interjections.

If we don’t have strong public services like affordable child care and health care and education, women will be left behind. If child care is so out of reach, you’re not going to be able to climb the corporate ladder. If you’re at home taking care of your aging parents, you can’t log those extra hours to get that promotion.

Here’s what I’ve been thinking about lately: our mothers and our grandmothers who fought so hard for these rights and services so that we and our daughters—my daughters—our granddaughters, all of us women in this chamber can have a chance. In an increasingly hostile environment for women, we cannot take those rights and services for granted.

What is the Premier’s plan to protect the rights and services that women have fought so hard for?

Interjections.

We believe people doing the same work should be paid the same regardless of their gender; workers in the health care system expect the same. That’s why front-line health care workers belonging to SEIU and the Ontario Nurses’ Association have spent over a decade fighting for a gender-neutral wage under the Pay Equity Act. The Premier calls these working women heroes—he loves to call them heroes—but he has done nothing to improve their wages or work with them on the Pay Equity Act. Instead, he has repeatedly taken them to court.

Why is the Premier repeatedly taking hard-working women to court instead of giving them what they’re owed?

In short, yes, we’ll continue to work to ensure that across Ontario.

I would say, to date, we’ve done a number of important things as a government to ensure women have equal opportunities to men and are paid equally. We have a pay equity commissioner we’ve been working very closely with: Kadie Ward.

Speaker, we’ve also taken a number of bold steps. To think that up until this Premier was elected, we virtually ignored 50% of the workforce in building the critical infrastructure we need—the hospitals, the schools, the bridges, everything we need in this province. Statistically, it’s working. We now see a 30% increase in women registration in apprenticeships; we see a 116% increase in the building trades.

We’re going to keep working to ensure that every young girl across Ontario achieves their full potential.

In the supplementary, I’ll turn it over to my colleague.

Speaker, our government will always stand up for pay equity in the workplace and for a woman’s right to be paid fairly for the work that she does.

Employers cannot pay women less based on their gender. And we will continue to hold bad actors accountable, which is why we have the pay equity commission, which has been working with us very closely to ensure we close that gap.

Let’s be real, Mr. Speaker. We can’t go back to the failed policies of the Liberals, supported by the NDP, that chased away thousands of jobs. Do you know what that did? It forced many women to be the sole income earner for homes. It forced many women on social assistance, forcing the government to have to take care of them.

This is why we changed the name of our ministry to “women’s social and economic opportunity”—because we believe in empowering women, because we believe that women can do the jobs that any man can do. That’s why we’ve invested billions in the skills development program, the invest in women program and the Women’s Economic Security Program. We’ve done historic changes to our child care program. We’ve closed the gap. We’ve seen more women working today than we have before. And we’re going continue to do this work.

That’s why if a woman chooses to go to work, we want to make sure we have the infrastructure in place to support that choice. That’s also why we’ve been able to secure the largest portion of funding from the federal government out of any province in Canada, through our Minister of Education, to ensure that the portion of families who need child care from a for-profit child care service provider can still get the child care they deserve. We’ve seen that this has made an impact. More women with children aged zero to five are working—the first time we’ve had an increase since 1976.

These are things to celebrate, and these are the things that we’re doing in our government to make sure that we’re bringing back our economy, through our Minister of Economic Development, attracting many businesses back to Canada and Ontario so that women are able to be at the forefront of these beneficiaries.

The OECD global report on pay transparency and pay equity stated that Ontario’s Pay Equity Act punches well above the global legislative weight, having one of the most rigorous applications. Ontario was one of the first governments, globally, to articulate and legislate pay equity based on the foundational concept of equal pay for work of equal value.

Mr. Speaker, we are working to correct the historical undervaluation of jobs typically held by women, and we’re going to continue to do that, and also ensure that women can choose to enter any sector they want, like STEM, like the skilled trades. We’re getting it done. We’re getting more women working in jobs that pay well so that they can take care of their family and keep themselves and their families safe.

Members will please take their seats.

The associate minister.

Again, to reply, the associate minister.

The minister is right; there always is something more we could do. We could stop trying to take them to court every five minutes.

I’m going to go back to the Premier again. The vast majority of long-term-care workers and home care workers in this province are women—but the CEOs of the three largest nursing home corporations? All men. Extendicare, Chartwell, Sienna—linked hand in glove with this government—are massive corporations, spending millions of dollars to take these women, their employees and members of SEIU and ONA to court to deny them pay equity. At the same time, those three companies alone are running a gravy train that has rolled out millions in executive compensation and over $500 million in shareholder profits—and I want to say, that was just since the pandemic—all while these women are struggling to pay rent.

On Equal Pay Day, whose side is this government on? The millionaire fat cats who profit from government contracts or the working women who simply want equal pay for equal work?

Interjections.

Monsieur le Premier Ministre, aujourd’hui, c’est la journée de l’équité salariale. Trouvez-vous sincèrement que ces femmes reçoivent leur juste part pour le fruit de leur travail ?

Today is Equal Pay Day, yet the gender pay gap continues to average at 32%; for Black and Indigenous women, the gap is 42%. Arab women are the lowest-paid women in Ontario’s labour market, with a shocking 47% wage gap—that’s 53 cents for every dollar a man makes.

Ontario’s public child care, education, social and community service providers are mostly women, mainly racialized women. They’re overworked, they’re underpaid, and they’re undervalued.

Since 2018, this government has cut spending to community and social services by 12.1%. Since 2022, Ontario has spent the least amount on social and community services than any province in our nation.

My question is to the Premier. Is this Conservative government okay with shortchanging women?

Instead, the Conservatives are preoccupied with funding cuts and privatization schemes, which we know will only further the gender wage gap.

While this government’s Bill 149 requires some employers to publicly post pay ranges, it did nothing to ensure these ranges are actually realistic and aren’t simply perpetuating the gender pay gap.

The government continues to block the Pay Transparency Act, 2018.

Back to the Premier: Today is Equal Pay Day. Will the Premier finally implement the Pay Transparency Act, 2018, to help narrow the gender wage gap and increase women’s economic liberation?

Interjections.