I have a very timely petition here on international Women’s History Month.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Bill 124, titled Protecting a Sustainable Public Sector for Future Generations Act, 2019, capped salary increases at 1%, at a time of historic rates of inflation and interest rates;

“Whereas the nursing crisis has compromised patient safety and the functioning of our public health care system;

“Whereas emergency rooms are closing and even ICUs are at risk of having to close because of health care staffing shortages”—and we just heard about one right now;

“Whereas an Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruling released on Tuesday, November 29, 2022, by Justice Markus Koehnen says that the law infringes on the rights to collective bargaining and freedom of association and declared the act to be ‘void and of no effect;’

“Whereas the courts have declared this legislation to be unconstitutional;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to immediately repeal Bill 124, Protecting a Sustainable Public Sector for Future Generations Act, 2019.”

Speaker, I fully support this petition, will affix my signature to it and give it to page Emelia to take to the Clerk.

Speaker, the joke’s actually on us. The people of this province and all of us have been turned into a joke. The fact that a member will get up and say, “It will be delivered on time and on budget,” when just this morning we talked about how it’s not on time and not on budget? I don’t even know how to say that in other languages or how else I could say this. It’s not on time. It’s not on budget.

People’s livelihoods were at stake when those businesses closed down on Eglinton. There were so many businesses that suffered. I talked to a lot of those owners. We made a joke of all of those scenarios and all of those people. So no, that’s nothing to laugh about. The fact that we’re still applauding ourselves—