I just wanted to express congratulations for Mark Stoddart, who is not only a friend of our Ontario Poet Laureate, but was also a recipient, if I’m not mistaken, this year of the Scarborough Walk of Fame award.

Speaker, yesterday this Conservative government said they will support Bill 173, which calls for this government to declare intimate partner violence an epidemic across Ontario. Of course, once an epidemic is declared, we would expect resources to flow.

Naming IPV an epidemic is an excellent first step and validates the lived experiences—the trauma—of countless survivors, their families, and the service providers, frankly, who have been working understaffed and underpaid, under this government, for years to support survivors. It will help honour those who are no longer here. I want to know when the government plans to do this.

My question is to the Premier.

Survivors can’t wait any longer for your committees, your public hearings, your consultations. They have been consulted. The experts have been heard. They shouldn’t have to recount the worst moments of their life.

It’s one word: “epidemic.”

Will this government declare and push through, fast-track, Bill 173 for survivors and declare intimate partner violence an epidemic today?

Interjections.

I would like to thank all those who participated in this morning’s press conference on intimate partner violence. I would also like to thank community members from my home in St. Paul’s: Barbara Captijn and her husband Joost, Habiba Haque and Keren Harvey, who will be joining along this afternoon for the debate.

To the Premier: Over 400 Art Gallery of Ontario workers are on strike, and many of these cultural workers are artists themselves. They’re here today. These are the people who welcome us into the AGO. They set up and they dismount art installations. They hang the art. They provide educational enrichment through tours. They helped raise funds for the AGO’s new building. They clean the gallery. But they are struggling to pay rent and buy food. Because of their hard work, the AGO has become a world-class destination, and yet this government hasn’t increased the AGO’s budget in over 10 years.

My question is to the Premier: Will this Conservative government properly fund arts institutions so their deficits aren’t being balanced on the backs of the least-paid workers? Will the Premier show them the “Monet”?

We must end the public funding of partisan government ads, and the government can do this today by saying yes to our Bill 176.

In 2017, the Auditor General found that the Liberal government spent $17.4 million on partisan advertising; essentially, advertising to make the Liberals look good all while thousands of Ontarians were experiencing the heights of Liberal hallway medicine and just a couple of years, actually, after the Liberals decided to screw teachers over, at the time, out of their rights to collective bargaining, fair wages and the right to strike by ordering them back to work. The Liberal government created its own loopholes. They watered down advertising rules and also weakened the Auditor General’s oversight of government spending.

Today, in 2024, we’re still paying the price with this worse Conservative government that has used the same loopholes they criticized the Liberals for creating to spend over $30 million on partisan ad campaigns, including over $20 million to promote the Ministry of Health—all this while over 2.3 million Ontarians don’t have access to a family doctor; surgical wait-lists are booming; PSWs are being run off their feet in long-term care; our food banks, like those in St. Paul’s—Hillcrest Community Food Bank can’t keep up with the demand and is always running out of food; our local Toronto District School Board is struggling with a $20.8-million deficit, facing possible program cuts that will directly impact Learn4Life adult general interest courses, programs for seniors, daytime programs for seniors, people who are struggling with isolation and loneliness, outdoor education, international languages and African heritage program delivery.

Metrolinx, this Conservative government’s government agency, has been wasting millions of dollars as well making fun of my community members in St. Paul’s and others through cheap-shot ads insulting and mocking our constituents who have expressed frustration with the billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule Eglinton LRT construction and other projects—all while ACTRA members have been locked out for almost two years while this government props up union-busting ad agencies that take on underpaid workers without worker protection.

The Conservative government must support our Bill 176. We must end the public funding of partisan government advertising and ensure taxpayers aren’t paying for government ads that rewrite history and, frankly, are allergic to the truth. Thank you.

Ontario’s arts and culture sector represents over $28 billion, approximately 3.5% of the province’s GDP, and creates some 300,000 jobs and counting. There is no question that this sector is an economic engine that will only grow and remain competitive with real, sustainable government investment.

We are hearing from theatre companies; culture, heritage, arts organizations; individual artists; cultural workers; and festivals. For many, the costs are skyrocketing—costs for insurance, security, venue rentals, staffing and labour, even production cost. Softwood lumber, I’ve learned, has gone up hundreds of per cents over the years due to the closures of mills.

My question is to the Premier: For the love of arts, will this government stop gutting the Ontario Arts Council and Experience Ontario so the curtains don’t close on our culture sector?

Interjections.

My question is back to the Premier. This government referred to the culture sector as the “first hit,” “hardest hit” and “last to recover” during the pandemic; remember that.

In my community, Rastafest organizers are worried, especially Little Jamaica, where festivals like Sinting also saw zero investment from this province. The Toronto Caribbean Carnival—the largest festival in North America, annually contributing nearly half a billion dollars to Ontario’s GDP and creating 4,000 direct jobs—is asking for $2.5 million annually for the next three years so they can keep their heads above water.

Just for Laughs, Hot Docs, Taste of the Danforth, Home County Music and Art Festival in London, Supercrawl and more need real, sustainable help.

Speaker, my question is back to the Premier: Does this government have a provincial culture strategy with teeth, with dollars, to help creative industries keep their lights on, and if not, why not?

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.

The year is 2024 and intimate partner violence, gender-based violence and violence against women is still an epidemic. It is still a public health issue, yet the Conservatives refuse to declare this formally across Ontario in this Legislature. Intimate partner violence and femicide is on the rise. And 68 of the 86 recommendations from the Renfrew inquest fall under provincial jurisdiction and many could easily be implemented by this government. Yet, despite our calls, this government refuses to declare intimate partner violence an epidemic.

I stand here again demanding that the Conservative government declare it an epidemic. It is an epidemic that disproportionately impacts women and girls, trans and non-binary people, women with disabilities, Black women, Indigenous women, women experiencing homelessness, underhoused women and immigrant, refugee and non-status women. Violence is socially and economically debilitating. Survivors have spoken and it’s time they listened.

This week, on February 21 and 22, Skills for Change, from my St. Paul’s community, will host our third annual Together Against Violence Symposium, where hundreds of us will gather to talk about solutions to gender-based violence.

Speaker, for over 40 years, they have been doing this work in our community, but I stand here today to say that our community leaders cannot do this alone. The first step to solving a problem is naming it. I beg of this government to name intimate partner violence, name gender-based violence and name violence against women what it is, and that, Speaker, is an epidemic.

My question is to the Premier. This Conservative government has cut arts, culture and heritage since taking office in 2018. Its impacts continue today on the lives of artists like near-middle-aged Eli, a part-time shift and gig contract worker who is forced to live with family due to financial strains, struggling to make ends meet while working below a livable wage with no pension or benefits.

Artists are workers too, Speaker. They have physical and mental health needs they cannot afford to address. And I would love if the Minister of Culture would actually take our request for a meeting.

My question is back to the Premier: Will today’s budget 2023 sustain or increase with inflation the $65-million Ontario Arts Council budget, reinstate the Indigenous Culture Fund, bolster CMOG for our museums, bolster libraries and help ensure that all Ontario artists and cultural workers can actually stay in Ontario?

The arts and culture sector, artists and cultural workers have been disproportionately hit by COVID, and to be frank, it’s not COVID alone. This government has chronically cut and underfunded the arts well before the pandemic, despite the fact that we can count nearly 30 billion ways in which arts and culture contributes to our GDP, not to mention the near 300,000 jobs the sector creates for our province.

Make no mistake: Committing to sustainable funding at or above the rate of inflation is key to the survival of our creative sector, a sector where most creatives weren’t even able to get CERB during the pandemic, and most in live performance saw their careers go poof without notice.

Most government funds for smaller art organizations tend to be targeted towards individual short-term projects, which does not help the organization build capacity for long-term planning. That is why I’m demanding today that the OAC budget for the Ontario Arts Council remain at $65 million in the 2023 provincial budget. On behalf of every creative worker and community-based organization in St. Paul’s, we’re pleading with this government: Do not cut the already strapped Ontario Arts Council budget again, especially with the work that they do for priority groups like deaf artists, artists with disabilities, artists of colour, francophone artists, Indigenous artists and new-generation artists, to name a few.

Speaker, visit any gallery, any museum, any theatre, any library, any art studio. The arts are the way—

I would like to welcome all the participants of Women In House. I’m glad to see you here. We need more of you here.

I would also like to welcome Alexander Koutakos, a participant in the Ontario model Parliament from St. Paul’s.

And I’d also like to welcome Ontario Trial Lawyers and say a special shout-out to Gerry Antman and Jeffrey Shinehoft as well, from our community of St. Paul’s. Welcome to your House.

That is an excellent question. I do believe the province would benefit by having a round table. As we know, one of the first things the Conservative government did was slash a round table that was particularly created and co-chaired by two phenomenal human beings, Pamela Cross and Farrah Khan, literally created to help address the issue of violence against women. The government slashed that round table, along with slashing funding to rape crisis centres across this province.

I would also say as well, as the member from Toronto Centre has raised previously, where is the support around participatory work-integrated learning opportunities like co-op placements, internships? Are those employers, if they happen to be perpetrators, also included in this bill?

But what we could do right now is to pass the piece of legislation that the member from Toronto Centre had put forth calling for a consent awareness week, right here in the Legislature. The member from Toronto Centre put forth this call repeatedly so that we could have had this legislation passed before the end of the summer sitting, and this government said no. If you’re going to help survivors of sexual assault, there’s a tool for your tool box, a piece of legislation put forth by Toronto Centre. Pass that legislation. Let’s have that consent awareness week so the courageous conversations and the actions that have to happen on campus and in the school communities are taking place.