I’m honoured to stand and share a few words on Bill 166, Strengthening Accountability and Student Supports Act.

The first thing I’d like to say before I start is a huge thank you to the Women and Gender Studies Institute at the University of Toronto. I am a graduate, an alumna, of WGSI, and yesterday we had a chance to sit on a panel—myself with about 13 other graduates of the WGSI program—to celebrate International Women’s Day. It was really a good reminder of just how important the post-secondary sector is to the social, cultural and economic health of our province. I was reminded just listening to some of the stories of the graduates on that panel about how incredibly important it is for us to invest in post-secondary so we can have the leaders in law, in politics, in food justice, in the arts, in education, in health care that were there last night.

I just want to say thank you to WGSI. I was a student there back in 2007, a lifetime ago, and my commitment to trying my best to bring equity issues into this House, to grapple with race and gender and class and sexuality and all of our social locations and how they impact our experiences in institutions like politics, I really do owe that analysis, that lens, to WGSI.

We really do need to properly fund our colleges and universities, because there’s no question that they are at the heart of creating our next generation of leaders, and, frankly, at the heart of keeping a sustainable economy, because that’s where our future hard workers will come from.

I want to say that I appreciate the government’s effort to actually name some equity issues that they’re looking to address in our post-secondary sector. Bill 166 claims to want to address the mental health crisis in post-secondary, and that is commendable, as it’s written in the bill, that you want to address that.

You also mention that you want to address things like anti-Black racism, anti-Semitism, anti-Palestinian racism, all forms of racism; homophobia, transphobia. Equity issues will be addressed at universities, reportedly, by this Bill 166. While that is a very good thought—it’s a good idea; it’s a good goal—I worry about the history of this government. I’ll never forget: One of the first things that shocked me in this Legislature was a few years back when the Conservative government slashed funding to the Anti-Racism Directorate. At one point, it had a budget of $1,000 to address inequities here in the province of Ontario.

So it’s a bit mind-boggling to believe, to be frank, that this government is actually committed to addressing those equity issues that I just mentioned, that are in your bill—and I actually support that piece of the bill, for sure, around addressing equity issues and mental health issues—when this is the same government that has slashed hundreds of millions of dollars in mental health supports. This is the same government that literally attacked our public school curriculum and tried their best to literally erase the lives and experiences of 2SLGBTQIA+ community members in curriculum—the same government, if I may just say, that voted down our bill to have gender-affirming health care recognized, and a simple advisory committee of, guess what, trans folks and other members from our 2SLGBTQIA+ community to be able to speak to the Minister of Health. So it’s difficult to believe that these equity issues are really at the heart of this legislation.

Furthermore, as I heard from my caucus and from other caucuses, the independent members—I wasn’t here yesterday, but the thought of the government trying to shut down the voices of women in this Legislature, that’s a significant inequity hours before International Women’s Day. So again, while I am supportive of what have this bill says in writing about addressing inequities and mental health challenges, based on the track record, I have significant worries about whether or not this is actually the case.

And from my experience, from talking to folks—funnily enough, many of whom don’t want to be named—from a lot of post-secondary institutions—we’ve got one institution in my riding. We have George Brown, and we thank God for George Brown, because they have 12 child care centres located around the city, and we have our own Casa Loma Child Care Centre, which is such a beacon of hope for those students who are eager to join our education, early education, care programs. But we also know that many of these programs are graduating students who, within weeks, months, in the industry, realize that they cannot get jobs that allow them to actually afford to live in this province during an affordability crisis. So what happens? We lose ECEs. We lose folks who could be in our communities working, contributing to our economy, if they were able to get the proper salaries that they deserve.

This issue with supporting our post-secondary institutions—and we know that this has been an issue of chronic underfunding for decades, and it is not only the responsibility of this government. I’ve learned in the five years that I was here that the Liberal government certainly had a thing or two to do with chronic underfunding of our post-secondary institutions. But we are here in 2024, and this is the government of the day, the Conservative government. So I wonder why the government’s own expert panel, the blue-ribbon panel, recommended $2.5 billion of investment over three years just to stay afloat. That’s really important: just to stay afloat. So we’re not necessarily talking about being excellent; we’re talking about “just to stay afloat.” Why would this government fund just barely half of that, and what does that message show?

We want to talk about equity. We want to give more students mental health supports. But who is going to do this? Policy needs people power to help implement said policies and initiatives. And if I’m a post-secondary student walking into an office where I’m seeking counsel because I am struggling—maybe it’s a mental health situation; maybe I’ve just been kicked out of my home for coming out; maybe I can’t afford food and I’m not concentrating in class and my grades are slipping. If I walk into that office and there’s no human body there, how do I get the help I need?

So at the crux, this bill is not addressing the financial crisis that our post-secondary schools are dealing with. And in fact, the bill does not address that this government and the previous Liberal governments have sort of, you know, stuck the price tag on the backs of international students.

If we think about international students—you know, you’re coming here. You may not have many friends, unless you’re connected on social media before you arrive. You want to have a little bit of entertainment, if you can, on the side. You want to be able to go to the movies. You want to be able to have a treat at a restaurant. Heck, you might even find someone in this wonderful province and you might want to take them out on a date. These things are highly impossible when your tuition fees are triple or more the tuition of domestic students. And even the tuition rates for domestic students are quite egregious.

So we’re not properly funding post-secondary education. We’re not addressing the staffing crisis in post-secondary education.

Interjection.

Thank you, Speaker, and thank you to our member for, once again, a passionate presentation.

I want to reiterate in this House that it was the Conservative government that slashed the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario’s office. To me, that really does demonstrate a lack of sincerity with regard to our environment.

So the environmental assessment period—I understand the government wants to waive the 30 days, which takes away an opportunity for folks to speak up and share their concerns. Learning about the bill and chatting with some folks, I understand that issues near and dear to Indigenous community members may be missed if those comments aren’t listened to by the government.

Communities that are concerned with environmental racism, with gentrification, with overdevelopment pushing them out will not be heard by the government with that 30-day waiver.

I’m wondering if the member can share with us what they feel is the purpose. What is the purpose of removing that 30-day opportunity to hear from our communities? How are community members to trust what this government has to say if they are removing an opportunity for transparency and accountability, if they’re removing the voice of the community members impacted by these environmental assessments?

The Ontario Line is 75% over budget. That’s why we said no.

Accountability isn’t all we need. For 10 years, small businesses in midtown and Little Jamaica have been devastated by the LRT’s construction, with more businesses shutting down for good than I can count. Small businesses are a community. The latest LRT delay, pushing the open date to late 2023 at the earliest, will be the last straw.

While many of our small businesses didn’t get help during the pandemic, this Premier gave nearly $1 billion—$1 billion—to corporations and businesses that didn’t need it or didn’t qualify. Some of them weren’t even in Ontario, Speaker.

My question is back to the Premier. Will you be providing substantial financial support for our small businesses so that they can weather this storm that this government has created?

My question is to the Premier. Last week, the Auditor General reported that the P3 contracts used to build Ottawa’s LRT resulted in more problems and less accountability. The same companies contracted in Ottawa through these shady P3s are responsible for the expensive Eglinton Crosstown P3 mess that has frustrated my community in St. Paul’s for over a decade. My community needs accountability from this government more than ever. They need assurance that the Ottawa LRT fiasco won’t repeat itself on Eglinton.

My question is to the Premier: Why are the Premier, the minister and Metrolinx choosing to conceal, instead of answer to the public—the people paying for the actual project—how long this latest Eglinton LRT delay really is going to be?

It’s a pleasure to always rise on behalf of our wonderful community in St. Paul’s. Today, I’m adding my words on Bill 26, Strengthening Post-secondary Institutions and Students Act.

I would first like to give a shout-out to the wonderful folks at Counterpoint Counselling and Educational Cooperative Inc. They run a men’s program. The core of their work provides psycho-educational counselling for men who have been abusive to their partners and have been mandated to participate in PAR by the criminal justice system. Services are provided in English, Spanish and Tagalog. That’s just a little bit of information about a wonderful organization that works with survivors and also perpetrators. They recognize that perpetrators have to be part of the solution. It is not only resting on the shoulders—it should never rest on the shoulders of survivors to fix the system. We have to have perpetrators also taking accountability for their action, but we also have to provide them with the space and the opportunity and the community-based resources so that they can shift and become, hopefully, positive, contributing members of their society.

Speaker, every year, an estimated 636,000 cases of sexual assault are self-reported across Canada, including 41% reported by students at post-secondary education. In 2021, 34,242 cases of sexual assault were reported to the police. That is 18% higher than 2020 and the highest number since 1996. This cannot be okay.

This Conservative Ontario has the lowest per-student funding in Canada. This means that, here in Ontario, some of the highest tuition costs, the highest loan repayments, are sitting on the shoulders of students while they try to navigate the academic, social, emotional and physical realities of post-secondary education. All the while, the government is sitting on billions of surplus dollars that over the next several years—could be useful now while we’re trying to fix our post-secondary institutions, our education sectors, our health care sectors. I could go on.

But anyway, I wanted to say, in our riding of St. Paul’s, we are home to the George Brown Casa Loma Campus situated within our Tarragon Village community. Many post-secondary students in St. Paul’s attend GBC, where students have access to a variety of academic centres and schools, from the School of Apprenticeship and Skilled Trades and School of Mechanical Engineering Technologies to the Centre for Arts, Design and Information Technology, where post-secondary students can thrive; the School of Computer Technology; School of Fashion and Jewellery, etc., etc., etc.—thriving today and building what they hope will be careers tomorrow.

Outside of GBC, of course, St. Paul’s students are all across our country, and while they’re across our country, while they’re anywhere they are in post-secondary education, we’re hoping that they are trying on leadership roles, building healthy relationships, and that they’re building a network that, frankly, they will have a lifetime. What students do not go to school to experience is sexual assault. They shouldn’t have to experience sexual assault. That should never be part of the experience at schools.

For any students watching who may have experienced violence on campus, I want to remind you that it is never your fault. You did not deserve this, and whatever feelings you are feeling right now are incredibly valid.

George Brown College’s sexual violence response adviser can be reached at 416-415-5000, extension 3450. They’re always there to answer the call.

For many post-secondary students, going off to college or university, whether living on or off campus, truly is the first time that you’re away from home, that you’re away from some of those familial connections that you need to feel safe. Post-secondary may also be the space where prior conversations on consent, safe and healthy relationships become centre stage as students are being exposed to school communities much larger than their high schools, for instance, and in some cases much larger than their home communities even.

It is because of this, among many other reasons, why it’s crucial that institutions of higher learning are safe spaces so students, regardless of age, can feel safe and supported. If anything, this bill needs to help create safe spaces for students, but it cannot only look at student or employer-to-student sexual violence; it should also include student-to-student—grad students as well.

I want to mention, on the piece around schedule 1, subsection 1(6), which was even difficult for me to fully weed through, let alone someone who may never have seen a government bill before, it needs to be clear that the NDAs should be banned. The fact that they are allowed until the end of the judicial process could essentially silence someone for two years, two and a half years, three years—however long that process takes. And we know that NDAs are harmful in cases of sexual assault. They work to protect the perpetrator, to prop up their power and privilege while handing perpetrators a licence to repeat their violence, quite frankly, over and over again, untouched, all while sexual assault survivors are muzzled from speaking their truth.

They also have the impact of preventing sexual assault survivors from seeking the counselling or reaching out to their friends and family about their experience for support in fear of breaking the agreement. Students need to have access to the resources of their choice to talk their trauma through. This is fundamental to a survivor’s recovery. So it needs to be clear what this NDA ban does, or what an NDA ban would and would not do. That needs to be clear in your legislation.

The bill also seeks to ban the reemployment of employees within public and private institutions who have been discharged because they have sexually assaulted a student. The bill also defines sexual abuse in relation to a student of a public institution. It seeks to ensure that students are free from a reprisal or threat of reprisal for the rejection of sexual solicitation or advances.

Again, these are pieces that the bill suggests, and I think it needs to be very, very clear how the bill is helping survivors, how the bill is helping build communities, school communities, and, I would even argue, just community-based resources period, because of course, students may be part of their school community but they’re of course part of their larger community as well, too.

I urge this government to look closer at the realities of student life, to expand this bill’s first two schedules, which remain limited, as I said earlier, to employee-student misconduct. Sadly, sexual assault and rape culture on campus is much more pervasive. And as I said earlier, it also includes student-to-student dynamics.

A 2021 article from Maclean’s magazine reported that 23% of Ontario university students have experienced non-consensual sexual contact. Meanwhile, 63% have experienced sexual harassment; 5% of women and 2% of men have said that the perpetrator was a professor or an instructor. So I cannot highlight enough that it cannot simply be only about students and employers. We need to also look at student-to-student ratios.

Another report from Statistics Canada, published in 2020, showed that nearly three quarters of university students in Canada “witnessed or experienced unwanted sexualized behaviour in a post-secondary setting in 2019—either on campus, or in an off-campus situation that involved students or other people associated with the school.”

And I have to say, when I read words like “misconduct” and “unwanted sexual behaviour” and “negative sexual encounters,” I do think that part of addressing the problem is naming the problem. I think we should be using correct language. Rape is rape. Sexual assault is sexual assault. Abuse is abuse. Efforts at “respectable language” does nothing but erase the significance of the violence against sexual assault survivors who, I cannot underscore enough, are disproportionately women.

I want to also take some time to mention the words of the member for Kitchener Centre, who has done fantastic outreach as the critic for colleges and universities: “A lot of the sexual violence happens between students and students—so the other missing piece is grad students. They are both an employee of the institution and a student.... So what happens if they are the perpetrator and they are fired ... but they’re still a student? Does that mean the survivor has to be in that program (with them)?”

Our member from Kitchener Centre has also warned that without minimum standards—the member from Toronto Centre has also raised this—for how these investigations happen or by whom, the government’s tinkering will not get us to our goal. I echo her questions about what implementation of this bill will look like, and whether or not the government is ready to invest actual finances into post-secondary education to end gender-based violence in post-secondary education.

This work requires long-term, stable funding to ensure financial security, but it also involves culturally relevant supports, supports that are in all languages, supports that are ready to reach survivors where they are, along the continuum of healing as well as the continuum of justice.