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’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.

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 petition is entitled “Support Ontarians Living With Long COVID.” I just want to thank Lesley Stoyan, who is an amazing local community organizer in St. Paul’s and is also a certified therapist and movement wellness coach. She does many things, but a lot of it has been impacted by long COVID.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas the impacts of long COVID are extensive and devastating, which include migraines, dizziness, vertigo, brain fog, loss of smell or taste, and mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety;

“Whereas socio-economic analyses on long COVID project significant negative impacts on the economy through its effects on the labour market, gross domestic product, as well as added costs in health care and social supports;

“Whereas 1.4 million Canadians or approximately 500,000 Ontarians are suffering the devastating health impacts of long COVID;

“Whereas adequate treatment options for those suffering from long COVID are mostly limited to private clinics and can cost as much as $5,000 a month in order for them to continue in their day-to-day lives through gainful employment, parenting, and overall life enjoyment;

“Whereas the Ontario government has failed to properly address and support the escalating crisis of long COVID and how it is devastating the lives of an increasing number of Ontarians;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

“To immediately allocate funding to support fair, equitable, accessible, and appropriate treatment for the complicated symptoms of long COVID and implement a cohesive and comprehensive funded support system for those suffering from the disease.”

I couldn’t agree more. Again, thank you to Lesley Stoyan and all of those in St. Paul’s who have signed this. Thank you. I’m going to sign it and pass it over to Kian.

To the new member for Hamilton Centre: I’m very glad to see you here today. You spoke with such passion. Your commitment to the causes that you spoke to was overwhelming. It was literally one of, if not the best, inaugural speeches I’ve heard, going back to our first class in 2018.

You mentioned misogynoir; I know that a lot of people, if not everyone in this building, doesn’t know what you’re talking about. I’m wondering if you could explain what misogynoir is and also how that impacted you as you were running, how you feel it may impact you in this House, and what tools, what practices or what communities you will lean on to be supported. This House, as you said, was not built for you and I, but we are here, and we are doing as good as we can for the people of Ontario. I’m wondering how and what your support system looks like whenever you bump up against misogynoir or other systems of oppression.

It’s an honour to stand today on behalf of the folks in St. Paul’s.

I want to thank the John Howard Society for the outstanding work that they do for our community every single day.

I’m really hoping that the government will support our motion calling for this government to increase the base funding for each branch of the CMHA by 8% as an immediate emergency stabilization investment into our local community mental health supports.

Approximately one in five—and counting—children and youth in Ontario have a mental health challenge. I’ve heard 91% of Ontario schools report they need mental health supports. That’s over 90% of Ontario schools in desperate need of mental health supports from psychologists, social workers and other mental health specialists to help support the crisis in our schools that I have to say is also a crisis in our communities—a crisis that, frankly, was created under this government because of Bill 124, because of underfunding, and because of understaffing in these essential, crucial parts of our community.

Last month, the Ontario Principals’ Council conducted a survey among public school principals and VPs, and 1,868 of them responded, indicating their desperate need for supports due to chronic and worsening staff shortages, increased behavioural issues in classes, safety concerns, and the overall mental health of their students and caregiver adults.

We’re seeing an increase in eating disorders here in Ontario. Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate, second only to the opioid addiction crisis. I have to share that there are only 20 publicly funded beds in Ontario. If you can’t get one of those beds—and really, people can’t these days—you’re on a wait-list for at least a year, if not more.

All of these challenges that I’ve outlined above are disproportionately impacting our most vulnerable children, whether Black, Indigenous or rural students, students with disabilities, newcomer and immigrant students, and certainly those within the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.

The government has billions of dollars at its disposal—$6.4 billion, to be exact. We’re asking for $24 million to help our schools, to help our communities so they can survive and thrive.

Please, government, say yes.

It’s my honour to stand today and support and say yes to this piece of legislation that isn’t a perfect piece of legislation, but one that we have certainly found common ground on.

It’s especially a good opportunity because I know previously, this Conservative government had cancelled electric vehicle rebates, ripped EV charging stations out of the ground. At one point, we know that the government didn’t have much faith in GM Canada’s ability to be resilient in the face of the pandemic. Clearly, we care about auto workers. I don’t know that that was always the opinion on the side of the government, but I’m glad to see that today, we’re in a place where auto workers and the auto industry—which we know has been severely under-supported over the last couple of decades—are finally getting help today.

My question to the government is, since you’ve had this change of heart toward auto workers and the need for more manufacturing jobs, will we see additional change of heart, say, around the issue of injured workers receiving compensation—

I rise today to say thank you and to also add my support to the motion from the other member: intimate partner violence continuing education in Family Court. We absolutely need to continue education for everyone who is within an inch’s length of being associated with intimate partner violence, gender-based violence etc.

What I want to start by saying is, violence against women and children is about a power imbalance. It’s about someone wanting to use their power to diminish another. I think what we have to do is use legislation to build up women and children so they can feel safe, so they can feel empowered to get help, to be able to access help to get out of the situation. Now, it can’t just be on the women’s and children’s shoulders. It has to be on the system’s shoulders. We have to address this systemically.

I had a conversation with many members—a couple of dozen members, it felt like—from OAITH, staff members and board members, and it stuck out to me when one member of OAITH said that in their organization, there is one Family Court worker for 260 clients—one Family Court worker. Another person in this group of warriors who are doing Herculean work on a shoestring budget said they had lost funding for their child care respite worker, which creates a huge barrier for women, whether they’re trying to get to a job interview or if they have to get to court. The bottom line is, we have to fund the selfless people, the organizations, the community-based resources that are literally helping women and children out of intimate partner violence, out of gender-based violence.

And I will say this to the government: I understand that there have been years where there has been a bit of latitude that’s been given to shelters and organizations to use their budget as they see fit. I want to stand here and say that that worked and that allowed organizations to be able to use the money where it was necessary: an extra staff person, not having to pay for transportation if that’s not what they need. What they need is important and they are the experts of what they need in their sector, and of course the lived experience of survivors—they are the ultimate experts, as well.

So we need to ensure that there’s annualized funding to support organizations. We need to ensure that this government isn’t cutting any more from legal aid, as they have in the last recent years. But most importantly, we need to listen to survivors.

I want to share with you some excerpts from N.M. She gave me permission to read it, but I’m just going to keep her name confidential. N.M.’s story: “I have an 11-year-old boy now, and I spent about 10 years of his life in court. Just this week, I received yet another threat from his dad.

“I’m honestly not sure how many court orders I have at this point, but I can say for certain that none of them have been particularly useful, and all it does is cost me money. The courts only recognize overt physical abuse as abuse. Anything else is insignificant, which is hugely problematic.

“Time and time again I was told that my experience of abuse is ‘irrelevant’ and that I need to put that behind me and put my child’s interest first.

“Continuing on the above point, as a woman who left an abusive relationship, having authorities ... push that message continuously is very demeaning/diminishing ... I have put my child first by leaving the relationship, and from my perspective, exercising caution with an abusive man is another way of putting my child first....

“I have several court orders demanding him to release his financial disclosure, and not once did he release his financial disclosure....

“There is no way for me to enforce him paying child support, without paying additional legal fees, and even if I do go that route, there’s still no promise that he’ll have to pay....

“If I get upset in court (and what kind of emotionless monster wouldn’t feel emotion when talking about the fate of their child)”—when one is escaping violence—“I’m seen as irrational and weak, while the ... ‘cool as a cucumber’ dad can smirk at me from across the courtroom and win the judge’s favour.”

We need “gender sensitivity training for all Family Court staff, lawyers, and judges, domestic abuse training for all of the above, as well as children’s aid workers and police.

“I have ideas on what can be done to address this massive systematic and invisible problem, and they include ... more awareness of narcissistic abuse” and emotional abuse as abuse.

The last thing I want to say: These organizations need more staff. They need more angels to do this work, because, as one member said, they don’t want to have to call the police. That is a last resort. It’s about having the counsellors. It’s about having the mental health supports and the staff there who can take a trauma-informed approach. That is the way to go, but all of that requires funding. You all are in power. You all have the dollars. Spend them where it counts: on women and children’s lives.

I want to thank the minister for speaking. I saw that she became emotional, and I certainly know that has happened to many of us in this House, myself included. These are tough topics.

First of all, of course, I want to acknowledge OAITH, and I want to thank them for the 10th anniversary of Ontario’s Wrapped in Courage campaign.

I also want to make it clear that while tears, concern and heartfelt words certainly help, it can’t be all; it’s just not enough.

We need the Conservative government to ensure that every victim of violence who is working can have access to paid emergency leave.

We need to ensure that every victim of violence who is a recipient of ODSP and OW can actually afford to leave. We know that this government has refused to double ODSP and OW rates immediately. That could really help folks who are trying to escape violence.

We also know that paid sick days are equally important, because, folks, when home is not safe, you head into work when you’re not well; you’re unable to stay home and heal. It’s a recipe for disaster.

I also spoke with many staff members and board members from OAITH today who are incredibly proud of their work collaborating with folks across party lines—because this is a non-partisan issue. I want to say that for many of them, staff burnout is incredibly real. In some cases, the staff-to-client ratio is, frankly, untenable. In one case, I believe there were 18 or so clients with one person at the shelter. If some of those clients are moms of single kids and some of those clients are dealing with psychosis, you can only imagine what can transpire if there’s one staff member.

I want to also express the need for flexible funding. We heard from OAITH folks that it really worked when the government allowed them to have autonomy over their own budget and recognized that different shelters need different requirements. Not having that option means the difference between losing a staff member and not being able to replace that staff member, which means programming is hurt, which means the people being protected and served through that programming to help eliminate gender-based violence are also hurt by this.

One centre lost funding for their child care respite worker—and I wasn’t fully aware of this, but losing that child care respite worker created a huge barrier for women leaving violence, because if they couldn’t get to a job interview, if they couldn’t get to court, if the child can’t be left alone, if there’s no support for the child, they lose that opportunity.

I also heard that Family Court support is overwhelmed. In one particular place, there was one support worker for 260 clients, if I’m correct.

We heard about the needs in different parts of our province. I live in Toronto, but that’s not the only place—so we have to think about what’s needed for rural and northern communities that are already under-resourced in order to fight against gender-based violence.

We have to think about how escaping violence has to be inextricably linked to having housing—affordable housing; transitional housing; sustainable, supportive housing. What happens is, for folks who are unhoused, who end up on the street or are in fear of ending up on the street, survival, having food becomes one of the only things they can focus on—getting help, not requiring them to come back to a home where they’re being abused, where their children are being abused. We need to house women.

Bill 23, as you know, Speaker, is a bill that will directly impact victims of gender-based violence—because if they’re not housed, they cannot be safe.

Thank you to the member for her passionate and informative presentation, and thank you also for raising the fact that sexual assault survivors are often left without any support, frankly, under this Conservative government.

I’m wondering if the member can offer any insight on how the fall economic statement is helping survivors, who currently, in some cases, have to travel out of town for hours, or even go home in the clothing in which they’ve been assaulted, sleeping in that clothing, because there are no staff or there’s a shortage in staff at the hospitals to take care of them. How is this government taking care of survivors, if at all?