Before I begin, I want to thank my mother and my partner for their unwavering support, their love and their endurance during this last year, one of if not the hardest for us three. We’ve stuck through it together. I love you both dearly. And I’m glad to stand, of course, representing you two, constituents of mine and the many other community members in St. Paul’s.

It’s my honour to stand and speak today in recognition of International Women’s Day on behalf of the ONDP official opposition. Each of us in this Legislature has at least one woman in our lives, past or present, whom we could never thank enough for us being who and where we are today. And I have to believe that we would do everything in our power to ensure the amazing women in our lives are well supported throughout all life stages so they can thrive. For those of us who have lost beloved women in our lives, I’m certain we continue to hold their legacy strong, and the life lessons they have left with us.

This year’s International Women’s Day theme centres inclusion. It demands of us that we remember, as Rosemary Brown, the first Black woman to ever run for federal leadership in Canada, said, “Until all of us have made it, none of us have made it.” Said otherwise, no one is free until we are all free. Well, what is freedom? According to the dictionary, freedom means the power or right to act, speak or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint; the absence of subjection to foreign domination or a tyrannical government; the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved.

Social conditions, I would argue, also contribute to women’s ability to be free. We need freedom over our reproductive rights and our choices. We need contraceptives available under OHIP. This government is free to do that today if they so choose and invest the political will to do so. Freedom involves having and enjoying the safety and stability of an affordable home where you can live without the fear of displacement, where you know your rent is never in danger of skyrocketing rent increases without limits. Shout-out to rent control—we can have it any day now if it’s this government’s political will, and it will help women in Ontario.

Housing, shelter, is and should be a human right but, in practice, especially under this government, we are far away from that—very, very far, as far as they are from their 1.5 million homes.

Freedom involves having access to nutritious and diverse food choices. It means not living in fear of food price gouging or having to mix your child’s milk with water to stretch it over their favourite cereal.

Women, we are resilient. We are creative. We are excellent problem-solvers. But this doesn’t absolve the government from their responsibility to adequately fund our education system so we can see the fruits of investment in the very young women and girls we’re all talking to in our communities tomorrow for International Women’s Day at our local elementary and post-secondary schools.

Freedom means having access to a justice system properly invested in by a government that doesn’t re-victimize survivors of violence but instead believes them, takes their cases seriously and ensures they see their day in court. I worry that this cannot get done with the inappropriate and, frankly, dangerous comments we’ve heard from this Premier about his desire for like-minded judges. I don’t want judges with like-minded values of this Premier, who seems to think it’s okay to chronically underfund rape crisis centres, sexual assault centres, to cut victims’ support services or legal aid, or who has silenced the very voices of women in this Legislature. That is not allyship.

And there is no freedom without women’s economic freedom, without equal pay, without safe workplaces without harassment. I believe the government actually voted down a bill on helping to create safe workplaces in municipal workplaces. That’s pretty sad, actually.

Women still haven’t seen the reality of pay equity here in Ontario although the legislation passed some 30 years ago, and this government’s tinkering with pay transparency, well, has barely begun to scratch the surface. We have witnessed this government take midwives to court, fight education workers, all of whom are predominantly women and, frankly, even racialized women at that. We’ve seen them refuse to cover 100% of take-home cancer drugs, for goodness’ sake, even at a time when we see rises in breast cancer.

All this to say, I want to thank women for being strong, for being tenacious, but I know that our strength and resilience isn’t enough; and it shouldn’t be enough. We need to have a government that stands up for all women in Ontario, especially those who have experienced the most marginalization.

This year’s theme for International Women’s Day is #EmbraceEquity.

I’m honoured to speak on behalf of our caucus, as our critic for women’s social and economic opportunity.

Equality is giving everyone the same thing, regardless of their needs.

Equity is giving people exactly what they need, when they need it, without barriers and without stigma or blame.

I’d like to remind this Conservative government that it is impossible for them to embrace equity if they continue taking nurses, who are disproportionately women—and Black women and racialized women, at that—to court. This Conservative government must give our front-line health care workers what they need to be successful. Embrace equity. Bill 124 was ruled unconstitutional, yet this government continues their appeal against this ruling, attacking yet again some of the very women workers who have been disproportionately hit over these last challenging years.

This Conservative government’s privatization and profitization of health care in Bill 60 is gutting our public health care system by yet again attacking predominantly women, our front-line health care workers. We cannot recruit, retain and return nurses to a public health care system that has been grossly underfunded and understaffed by this government.

Embracing equity is properly funding public health care, so that people have fair and equitable access to exactly what care they need in Ontario—not in the States; just saying.

I want to make it clear that derailing front-line health care workers also derails the families of sick patients. Make no mistake: Society’s gendered division of labour is still very much in place. It is women, yet again, who must often take care of their loved ones, children, partners and aging parents when they fall through the cracks—cracks this government has widened, a crisis this government has worsened due to their Darwinian health care approach. These informal family caregivers are mostly women, doing this unpaid work at their own financial ruin, many without vacation time, without equal pay for equal work, without pay equity, without paid sick days, without supports for their injuries from WSIB, without any access to a caregiver benefit program like what we, the official opposition, proposed to help put some money back into the pockets of folks caring for their loved ones. Some of these women who are caregivers are escaping gender-based violence themselves.

Speaker, our communities are built on the backs of strong women, and it’s high time that this government not just commend women for being resilient, but that they invest in our community-based, non-profit programs, for instance, that are inextricably linked to the health care outcomes of our communities.

I want to extend my thanks to Elder Abuse Prevention Ontario CEO Marta Hajek for her leadership and her advocacy.

I want to say a special thank you to our local community member in St. Paul’s, Jane Teasdale, who is working tirelessly, advocating for the rights and protections of aging adults.

There has been a 250% increase in elder abuse, yet we’ve seen this government, the Conservative government, cut supports for elders during a pandemic—the same elders that mostly women are caring for out of pocket. They need stable funding, and it cannot be below the inflation rate. Funding below an inflation rate is actually a cut.

I want to also recognize that March is Endometriosis Awareness Month, courtesy of legislation spearheaded by our former MPP for Toronto Centre, Suze Morrison, and the official opposition leader, Marit Stiles. Endometriosis impacts one in 10 women, one in 10 people who menstruate. As I learned from endowarriors Leah Haynes and Tami Ellis, founders of Endometriosis Events, and my fellow panellists there, it simply is not enough for the government to say they care—“thoughts and prayers”—while there’s no funding for endometriosis. We need more funding for research. We need more training for doctors and surgeons to properly diagnose. Many with endometriosis have to go out of province and pay out of pocket.

Health care needs to be publicly funded.

Let’s be clear: Diseases that disproportionately impact women are often not the priority of this government. We only need to look at the health care wait-lists for eating disorders, for instance. We only need to look at our fight—we’ve been begging this government to cover take-home cancer drugs 100%. That’s another disease disproportionately impacting women—still crickets from the government.

So on International Women’s Day, while we celebrate the gains, let us remember the realities for far too many women in Ontario. We need help, and no amount of resilience can pay the rent, put food on the table, keep your housing secure—in an affordable housing market created by this government.

It is up to this Conservative government to do right by women and girls, because yes, when women win, we all win.