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.