Good morning, Speaker. My question is for the Premier. Ontario’s health care system is on the brink of collapse because of Bill 124. While jurisdictions around the world try to attract our health care workers, this government chose to freeze their pay and dock their wages and fight them in court. And then they lost again.

Now it’s time to pay up, at least $6 billion so far. The Financial Accountability Office is saying the government could owe workers more than $13 billion. To the Premier: How much money is this government currently withholding from working people?

Today is Equal Pay Day in Ontario. It symbolizes how far into the next year the average woman has to work to earn what the average man has earned in the previous year. And we haven’t yet reached the Equal Pay Day if you’re a woman who’s racialized, Indigenous, 2SLGBTQIA+ or disabled.

Pay equity is the law in this province. So my question to the Premier is, will he commit to enforcing the law to ensure every woman worker earns as much as her male counterparts?

The cost of living is going up and up and up, and many women are having trouble covering even basic necessities, all while this government does next to nothing to tackle the affordability crisis. I’m sorry to say that their for-profit health scheme is only going to make it worse. It’s going to cost women more in health care user fees and upselling. And women health care workers are going to earn even less, too, because research shows that privatizing public services leads to lower wages for women.

Back to the Premier: Will he stop his privatization agenda to deliver fairness for women?

I guess that’s a no, Speaker. It’s very unfortunate. But it’s not just nurses and personal support workers, it’s education workers in the province who have faced a similar sexist fight with this government. Some 70% of CUPE’s education workers are women, and more than half of them are working additional jobs to make ends meet. Instead of giving them a fair wage, this government used the “notwithstanding” clause against them like a sledgehammer, until they were forced to learn an important lesson, I think, for this government: Women will not back down. We will not back down.

My question to the Premier is, will he stop holding down women’s wages?

Again, to the Premier, will you stop fighting women who just want what’s fair?

Interjections.