My question is to the Minister of Labour, Speaker. Earlier this month, the Naujawan Support Network, a worker support network in Brampton, wrote to the minister to highlight how investigations and enforcement of wage theft complaints to the ministry are dramatically down under this government.

They have asked the minister to reply by June 1 to set up a meeting to discuss this important issue. Will the minister agree to meet with the network to learn of their concerns?

This information comes directly from the ministry, the result of a freedom of information request: In 2014, there were 18,000 employment standards investigations. In 2021, that number dropped to 8,000.

Speaker, I want to quote the letter, actually. The workers whose wages are being stolen “regard the ministry as weak and ineffective—an institution that cannot enforce the orders it issues, and that will not prosecute employers who ignore the orders. Some employers are so carefree towards the ministry that they mockingly encourage their workers to file employment standards claims, believing they will never face serious consequences even if those claims are successful.”

Speaker, does the minister think it’s acceptable that millions of dollars—actually, $9 million—owed to workers in Brampton and elsewhere in the last year has been pocketed by greedy employers?

Nope. You deduct that $300 and you match it again. It’s like we want them to stay in that system.

We have veterans who are on ODSP and Ontario Works. We have people who fought for our country, who deserve so much better, who are on OW. That’s not the province we want to build, Speaker. That is not what we’re here for. We need to do so much better. We had an opportunity here through these schedules. If you’re going to touch these sections, these acts, there are so many things you could have been doing.

Just yesterday evening, actually, I got a call from a constituent who I know very well. I’m like her personal secretary at this moment, where she calls me up every time there’s a new document that she has to fill out for her ODSP. I was filling it out, and because I was working on this bill, I actually paid attention and said, “You know what? Is it okay if I write down the exact amount that you’re getting?” Because normally I don’t share any of her information like that. Guess how much she gets? Last month, she got $821. That’s her total, $821. This is after all the disqualification and the clawback, and this is a senior citizen in my community who gets $821. And it includes things like food, transportation, all those things.

Actually, I just remembered. On Monday, when we had the group here, I met Bee Lee—and I know Bee would be okay with me sharing her name, because she’s an advocate for food security and those facing homelessness. Bee recently became homeless. She was actually in the Legislature. She was able to come in after a lot of struggle. She didn’t have ID with her. Because she became homeless, her case worker has all her ID.

One of the things that we were talking about—suddenly, her hand. She has been out in the cold during the storm. I don’t know if anyone had a chance, and, if you haven’t, I hope you’ll go out during the winter time and just talk to anyone who is on the street. In my riding near St. Clair and Warden, in previous years, you would never see anyone asking for money or help, but in the last two, three years, yes, someone always stands there. If you have a chance to talk to someone like that, talk to a fellow Ontarian, talk to them and take a look at their hand and their fingers. Do you know what happens? The frostbite? I can’t even explain it. Something has got to ring inside to see that, to see the pain. They’re at a point where that pain, you can’t even feel it anymore. They’ve gone to a different level of pain. It’s dark completely—their hands, the toenails. If they have something to wear, if they have shoes that are winter boots or anything—but it is painful. Because they don’t feel anymore. Their fingertips are burnt from the cold.

I really thought that with schedules 6 and 7, we would have had an opportunity to fix some of those things in our province. I really thought that we would be able to help people like Bee, like my constituent who receives that $821. I really thought that we would have been able to help migrant workers who face inhumane conditions in their workplaces and have worked hard but they do not get the wages that they deserve.

I must say, when I look at some of the things that the minister said, and I want to actually use the minister’s words—he specifically highlighted employers who he called “scumbags.” He talked about the fact that they’re being suppressed for their wages, people are not getting what they deserve, and I just want to ask this one question: Seeing the conditions that we have right now with our front-line workers, with our health care workers—we have legislation right now that is suppressing wages. We have legislation right now that is not giving workers—front-line workers, health care workers—what they deserve. Based on exactly what the minister has said, in that description of those employers, would the Conservative government of Ontario fit that role as an employer as well? Would the Conservative government of Ontario be on that list of those employers? I think so. I think a lot of you will agree as well, because a health care worker who is not getting what they deserve, who is not getting the wages they deserve, the fact that they have no hope to make a better living and they’re living in this province, I don’t know what kind of employer that is. Probably what the Minister of Labour calls some of the other employers as well.

I actually thought I would have a lot of time to go into some of the missing pieces. I did not realize that you can run out of time like this. I want to briefly talk about some of the missing pieces from this bill as well from these schedules in the Working for Workers Act. One of the main things that we tried to do over the past 24 hours, I would say, is talk to some of the stakeholders, talk to some of the advocates who fight for workers just to hear what they’re sharing, just to hear what they feel about this bill. Some of them hadn’t even had a chance to look at the legislation yet. When I look at this, I really hope that the minister will provide more than a 1-800 number, and that’s one of the things that migrant workers told us, that if workers are exploited, should there be more than that?

The other thing is that Bill 79, as I highlighted, continues this government’s scale of announcements. If you’re going to make meaningful change, if you’re going to have something that’s more than a sound bite, you really have to understand the problem, and I just highlighted one of them, which was Bill 124. You have to repeal Bill 124. The minister talked about wage suppression and the way we’re treating workers—you have to know how to protect front-line workers. You have to protect health care workers.

And one of those pieces—the Ontario NDP, I don’t even know at this moment how many times we’ve proposed the legislation—is paid sick days. You have to have paid sick days. And the fact that just the other day, in answering a question, the Minister of Labour actually said that it’s status quo, which means that it will not be extended—and workers are terrified right now. They want something better from this government. They want something better for their families, and they want to be able to be protected. We have proposed paid sick days time and time again, and I’m asking again. You have an opportunity. If you’re really working for workers, you have to have permanent, adequate paid sick days.

The other thing is we have to align with the stated federal changes for migrant workers. This is going back to schedule 1, which I talked about, having workers who come here to give their labour, who work hard but then they’re forced to leave the country. There’s an important piece that a lot of researchers and a lot of advocates talk about, which is when we talk about EI benefits or WSIB or the ESA, migrant workers actually pay their dues to WSIB, for example. So they contribute to a whole body, a whole system that they do not even benefit from, Speaker, and this bill completely overlooks that. Foreign workers who are required to pay EI premiums into the program, foreign workers who have closed work permits, for example—all of these workers, especially when you go back—you know, you’re not here to be able to even take into those benefits. The fact that the federal government right now has made a commitment—I would say the provincial government should work together to allow for those workers to become permanent residents so they can actually benefit from WSIB and from the EI benefits that they truly deserve and they pay into.

The other piece of that is we need to make sure that we respect them and include them in the Employment Standards Act. We don’t even include them. There’s a whole body of workers that work hard for this province and they’re not even included within the actual workers act. You can do sort of piecemeal solutions on the outside of it, on the peripherals of it, but if you’re not including them, then you’re missing a huge solution that you could have been providing for workers. So that system needs an overhaul.

The final piece that I will say, Speaker, is if you’re going to bring workers from—and I know that the minister also made another headline talking about bringing in more workers from abroad, but one thing that happens a lot is we bring in people who are skilled workers, but then we want them to drive taxis or we want them to work in a coffee shop. So, for example, let’s focus on what this province needs. If you need a farmer, bring in a farmer, protect them, allow them the opportunity. If you need an engineer, ask for an engineer, bring in an engineer, allow them to go through the process and become an engineer. If you need a doctor and someone is willing to come in and contribute their skills and labour, allow them to do that instead of having a system where you bring in the cream of the crop, the people who have these skills, and then you just abandon them. Let’s make sure that we’re able to support them the way that we should.

Speaker, I want to end with this one piece, which is that when I talk about workers, the reason why I get so passionate about it and ask if this bill is about making headlines or if it’s about taking real action is because for years we have seen the government make empty promises.

I have one special constituent of mine who, almost every single day, reminds me of how important it is to have workers protected, to make sure we are supporting workers, to make sure they have a pension and they’re unionized, and that’s my father. My dad is one of those constituents who, after coming to Canada, worked very hard. He loved his job; he loved working. He wanted to make sure he had a good income so he could put food on the table for us. But, soon after, he got into a really horrible car accident, and guess what happened? A 12-year-old me then had to figure out how to translate for my mother and be able to understand what was going on.

So at a very young age I learned a lot about labour laws, I learned a lot about insurance claims, and I learned a lot about what was going on when you have a job where you don’t have a pension, where you are not unionized. I understood what it means to go to a bank account and not have enough. I also understood what it means to be told by an employer how much you’re going to get or what you actually deserve.

It’s very tough, Speaker, and I don’t wish any 12-year-old—anybody, any children or anyone—to ever live through a situation where not only do you not speak English very well, but have a moment where you have to tell your family, “I don’t think we’re going to get this,” or “We don’t really have anyone fighting for us.”

So, if we’re actually going to help workers, if we really want to know what workers, whether it’s in Scarborough or across Ontario, would have really wished for in a “working for workers” bill, Speaker, they would have wished for protected workplaces. They would have wished for living wages, so that they could put food on the table. They would have wished for a WSIB that actually works for workers and not the employers. They would have made sure they’re a part of the ESA, and they’re protected—including migrant workers. They would have asked to end deeming, something that my colleague talks about all the time. These workers would have wished to get paid sick days. They would have wished that they could earn more than the minimum wage. This government made a promise and they’re still—they’re still—making these workers wait, especially after a horrible pandemic that we’re still living through.

You know what else these workers would have wished for, Speaker? They would have wished that women have real pay equity so that they actually can make an income that they truly deserve. They would have wished that it’s easier to unionize. They would have wished that they had a plan from this government that helps them retire, that they can plan their life, they can plan for their family. They would have wished that they could have affordable housing, so that whether they’re coming here from a different country, whether they’re living here or whether they’re growing up in this province, they have a place they can afford to live in. They would have wished that this government was providing affordable housing. They would have wished to have a happy and a beautiful province where workers are respected, and to do that you would have repealed Bill 124.

That’s the huge list—and I have more I can add. But those are the things that workers would have wished for, Speaker, if you really wanted to work for workers.