Falling up.

Speaker, the Ontario Line the government has proposed that would end up at its science centre, with its world-leading spa run by this Austrian company, is now costing, according to experts like Steve Munro, who is one of our country’s experts on transit, up to $1 billion a kilometre. The Spadina extension that was approved before came in at about $370 million a kilometre. Now, I know, people will tell me, “Oh, well, the war in Ukraine, the commodities crisis, global supply chain issues”—a tripling of cost per kilometre? A tripling of cost per kilometre presided over a company—let’s face it, Metrolinx, in my opinion, has not assumed its role as a agency responsible for the well-being of our transit infrastructure—

Interjection.

This is an agglomeration of managing consultants supervising other consultants. Perhaps—I’m just speculating here—they don’t want transit projects to be complete because then the gravy train stops. But the hard-working people who have suffered and made sacrifices—because that’s what construction is; you’ve got to put up with disruption until your project is complete. You’re from Hamilton, Speaker, you’re familiar with this debate.

Let me talk about them for a moment, because I think that will help the government understand what this looks like at a community level. I want to talk about Dane Williams. Dane Williams, a wonderful community leader I had the occasion to meet, is the co-founder and director of partnerships at Black Urbanism Toronto. He has seen the impact of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT project on Black-owned businesses in Little Jamaica in and around this area.

We did a round table, and these were the words that Mr. Williams submitted to that round table: “Metrolinx has shown gross negligence in the way they operate on the ground, and this has impacted small business owners’ ability to thrive and grow. There have been barricades on the roads, debris blocking business establishments, lack of parking for patrons. Many of the business owners in Little Jamaica who were in operation in 2011 when the project started are no longer operating. This LRT project has been at the expense of business owners who have been in operation for 20 to 30 years before it.

“There must be a policy change that requires a more fair economy. This means implementing a system of compensation directly to the small business owners affected by any LRT construction project. This would not only provide support for the impacted business owners, but also build more accountability into LRT construction projects”—that makes a lot of sense to me.

Further down the road, I want to cite the words of Dante Thorne, who is a lead building operator at the Holy Blossom Temple. He’s been working in Eglinton West for six years. He’s a daily commuter that uses transit, and these were his observations about Metrolinx—who is our partner for bills like this one—and their capacity to build transit. Mr. Thorne says, “There’s a reason people feel disconnected from the political process. People know that those who are responsible and making money from this are not facing consequences and will just move on to the next project.

“When I first moved here, I saw huge rats running around Yonge and Eglinton because this project and its surrounding space were not treated with respect”—the detonations. There were warnings about this, but it was unsettling to see.

“There is a stretch on Eglinton where the concrete barriers came out so far into the street that there is insufficient space for two TTC buses to safely pass each other. This is another example of negligence and the right hand not knowing what the left is doing on this project.

“The LRT project is funded by taxpayer dollars and lacks an incentive to finish on schedule, as there is no punishment or consequence for delays. The longer they take, the more paycheques come in.”

Speaker, I think I want to return to the positive aspects of where I began. There’s no person in this House that doesn’t want to see more public transit and more rapid transit. I’m taking that on faith. There is no person in this House that doesn’t want the people who operate our transit systems and encourage people to use active transit to be supported. We all do. But the conundrum happens when we think about who we rely upon to make these things come to be. That’s missing from this bill.

Let’s return, on a lighter note, because my friend from Kiiwetinoong is here and I’ve heard you, my friend, say this in the past—let’s acknowledge that public transit and what this bill will do will help some communities, but not all communities. The member for Kiiwetinoong has often joked that there are no subways that service the 28 fly-in communities he serves. There are limitations on what we can do with this bill in encouraging public transit in the rural areas and the wild areas of Ontario.

But the fact remains, Speaker, that 80% of people in Ontario do live in metro areas and there are 107 transit agencies operating in this province, according to a recent estimate. And believe it or not, there’s been a lot of innovations in smaller towns. Some towns I had occasion to visit, like Brighton, Ontario, on my bike ride down here from Ottawa, are coming up with different busing initiatives for seniors and persons with disabilities to help them get around because they don’t have access to their own vehicle and they want to stay living in a beautiful town like Brighton where they are. So public transit takes many different shapes and sizes, and I think the case for encouraging it remains incredibly strong.

I want to cite from a recent report by the International Transport Forum. I’m going to quote directly from it so people will have a sense of what public transit can do to help us become more sustainable and to help us create jobs: “Buses and trains can release up to a fifth of emissions per passenger kilometre” as opposed to “ride-hailing and about a third that of a private vehicle. Simply put, public transport, along with bicycling and walking, is a climate solution staring us in the face. Embracing it in this next decade will be a determining factor in reaching climate goals.” This is a global assessment.

“Public transport,” they also write, is “key to an intersectional approach to addressing climate change in the transport sector—connecting with equity, health and economic development. When done well, it can provide more equal access to jobs, education, services and other economic opportunities, particularly to those without private vehicles and in underserved areas—all at a lower cost to consumers” than if they had to deal with it on their own. “The transit industry also provides millions of jobs globally that are important to local economies.”

There are other health challenges addressed through public transit, Speaker. I am a booster this afternoon. “Cities with good public transport have fewer traffic fatalities. Transit riders tend to have more active lifestyles,” like walking home from a station or rolling home from a station or on their way to work, “and cleaner buses carrying more people than private cars can improve air quality and reduce exposure to dangerous pollutants in traffic.” So the next time you’re stuck on a 400-series highway, let’s return to that collective mission we have in this place to encourage public transit, because that’s one critical way we can work together.

In the time I have left, I want to go back to schedule 1 of this bill, because I talked about the labour rights dimension of this, which I expressed to the ministers responsible. I think there are good moves this government can make this week to resolve that. We don’t need a conflict. But let’s just quickly talk about what could happen if we let it fester—if I come back next Tuesday and we still have the incompetent management of Metrolinx and if we still have a potential major conflict with the people who operate our transit systems.

The law has been pretty clear on whether or not Legislatures can interfere in the collective bargaining process. They said very clearly that section 2(d) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees collective bargaining as a right, and it’s not a right that can be suspended or massively interfered with by legislation that we put in this place.

I will point to a ruling for Bill 28, that the government introduced, in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, which said they “accepted the applicants’ position that a governmental measure, such as legislation, will interfere with the collective bargaining process if it:

“(1) prevents or denies meaningful discussion about working conditions;

“(2) prohibits provisions from being dealt with in collective agreements;

“(3) prevents employees from having their views heard in the context of a meaningful process of consultation and discussion; or”—and this is important—“(4) imposes arbitrary terms on collective agreements.”

Speaker, I read from the arbitrator’s ruling, Mr. William Kaplan, who very much affirmed this. So I know that sometimes governments can say, “Well, we’re elected. We want to drive policy. We don’t share the concern that ATU 113 has. We think that the TTC has their best interests at heart, and we’re not going to concern ourselves with operating any way other than opening up the City of Toronto Act and saying, ‘Your contracting-out provisions for your collective agreement don’t apply.’”

With benefit for my colleagues here, let me just share an anecdote I had in commuting back home to Ottawa once in the midst of that massive labour uprising that happened around Bill 28. I’m taking the VIA train—which has a lot of issues; we’ll talk about it another time. I’ve complained to the federal Minister of Transportation several times—but I’m taking the VIA train home, and I’m getting past Kingston, where the cell reception is working relatively well. A text comes across my phone from taxi drivers I know in the city of Ottawa, because I’ve done a lot of work with them over the years about their working conditions. And they write, “The plan is to take the road in front of the Ottawa airport.” I immediately respond by saying, “I’m an elected official. I’m not a member of your union. Please take me off this chat.”

But what I found striking about that was that they were seized with what they perceived as the injustice being brought to bear on low-paid education workers in the public school system in Ontario. The 55,000 people who are ECEs, EAs, library technicians, receptionists, custodians—as I saw in the text stream, which they looped me into, and then I looped myself out—were incensed and had family members who worked in these occupations. And they said, “Look, these people make some of the lowest wages. Our union, which isn’t even party to the negotiation, out of sympathy with the negotiation, is going to shut down the airport parkway in” my city. That would have an enormous impact on transit coming in and out of Ottawa. It would shut the airport down, probably.

And I put the phone down after getting myself off that, and I said to myself, this could really be a galvanizing moment for the labour movement. I spent many years in my life, blessed, learning from people who have organized unions, people who have negotiated collective agreements, doing research for them, and I’ve met people in all different sectors, in all different places in this country. And what I always remember is their lives are so busy. They’re like politicians; their phones are tied to their head. They are always trying to figure out ways to help members with their problems to address grievances, but when bargaining comes up, to make sure the union is as well represented as it can be at that critical, critical, critical table. It’s a sacred place, the bargaining table.

But here are unionized taxi drivers in the city of Ottawa telling me that, in a fight that is not their direct fight and a labour negotiation that is not their direct negotiation, they are prepared to blockade the airport parkway in solidarity with education workers—55,000 of them across Ontario. And they indicated, before I jumped off, that this wasn’t just an Ottawa thing. This was going to happen everywhere. And anecdotally, when I started talking to people—and you remember those times, Speaker, I’m sure; we had a lot of people visiting the Legislature, upset and rallying and such—I heard that story from other employee groups.

I have lots of Conservative friends back home. One gentleman rung me up and told me I shouldn’t be supporting the strikers. We had a good conversation. He said, “Well, the government has introduced a bill, Bill 28, Joel, that will levy $4,000 fines on those people if they decide to strike and defy the law, and a $500,000 fine on their union. They will absolutely back down. That’s the power of the province there. They’ve got to listen to the people who were elected.” This is what the neighbour told me. And I said back to the neighbour, “Well, who do you think levies that fine on the striker? It’s an OPSEU member. It’s somebody working for the Ministry of Labour.” How motivated do you think that person is going to be to walk up to an EA, who works eight months of the year, and makes an average of—what was it, member for Sudbury, the average wage—

Interjection.