It’s an honour for me to rise today and to be the official opposition voice in support of the member from Scarborough Centre’s important legislation.

Here on the official opposition side of the House, we look forward to working together to help make sure that we are strengthening the trades. The trades are vital to the economic prosperity as well as the future of Ontario.

Right now, we’re facing such a dramatic shortage of tradespeople and that is something that is tremendously concerning. When we take a look at this, it’s not something that has suddenly appeared within Ontario. It’s something that we have been facing for quite some time. In fact, if we look at statistics, Speaker, the average age of an apprentice right now is 28, but further to that, nearly one in three tradespeople are 55 years of age or older. That means a great deal of talent, a great deal of knowledge and a great deal of expertise is soon going to be lost. We need to make sure that we’re getting young people into these trades to not only make up those positions that we are losing, but also to further buttress the system by adding yet more.

There’s a lot of work that we need to do within this chamber through legislation to make sure that we are achieving these goals. We support a skilled trades week, but we also want to make sure that this government is proactively looking towards the measures that would help to create and sustain these jobs and further employment within these sectors—one of which would be further investments in unionized training centres, because, as we know, these are the experts in the field. These are the people who know what to do and nobody trains people better than tradespeople themselves. Can we agree?

Interjection: Yes

But further, we need to take a look at the skills pipeline. We need to look towards our young people. How are we capturing the interest, the attention, and the career paths of young people? That is the question. We can’t expect people to come to this on their own. We have to make sure that we are giving them that as an option for a pathway.

I’ll never forget that—you know, I was lucky enough to grow up at a time, Speaker, when we still had a shop class in our elementary school. So in grade 7 and grade 8, we were able to work with our hands. We were able to build things. We were able to learn basic joinery. There were a great number of different machines that I got to work on, with supervision, and it was amazing. It was something that I wish that every student in Ontario still had to this day. It gave you wonderful skills that go on for a lifetime.

Now, there were two problems. When you first entered high school, you had to choose a path almost straight away, so people either went into the arts curriculum—so you either went into visual arts or music—or you went into a trades-based profession. There weren’t that many options, unfortunately, and that is a shame. That exposure was very good; I was very thankful for it. But it also became very limited.

Unfortunately, also in the 1990s, Speaker, it was a Conservative government that ripped all of those shop classes out of elementary schools. It was so incredibly wasteful and so incredibly detrimental to the future of so many students within Ontario. We hear so many times—a consequence of that, as well, was a Liberal government that chased hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs out of this province. We have that timeline and it’s unfortunate, so we need to fix that.

We need further investments in education, making sure students have those opportunities within elementary school as well as secondary school. But also, we need to think about how we can incorporate experiential learning activities for students to give them that opportunity to see what the trades are all about.

There are different engagements. Even from grade 1, within the curriculum there is the community helpers. I was proud, as a former educator, to involve many different folks, whether it was police, sanitation workers—they would bring a garbage truck—there would be an ambulance and tradespeople, and it was fascinating to see these kids just absolutely light up when they get to see what these professions are and what they could possibly do. We also need to make sure that guidance counsellors and educators are familiar with these trades and these paths to make sure that they can actually deliver the information to kids so that they know how to build their skills.

But also, trades are not simply good-paying jobs. Trades are a really viable career for possibly the rest of your life. I remember going to high school with a friend of mine by the name of Jon and I remember he, very early, or towards the end of his high school career, went into plumbing and he was able to take that at H. B. Beal Secondary School. I remember some ignorant friends of his who sort of made fun of him at the time. That guy bought the house first. That guy got to have his own business. That guy, who knows, maybe he’s retired by now. I don’t know, Speaker, but it was an excellent job which he was great at.

But also, we need to make sure we’re attracting more women into the trades. Recently—within the last couple of years—I remember running into a former student of mine by the name of Abby. I ran into her with her mother. They were in Victoria Park when I was visiting Sunfest and Abby came right up to me and said, “Do you remember me?” because I taught her when she was very little—great student, very quiet girl—and she was so thrilled to tell me that she completed cabinetry and woodworking at Fanshawe College. She lit right up, and I’ve got to say, Speaker, I was completely jealous because I would love to have those skills of woodworking and joinery and being able to make with your hands because those are fundamental skills that are absolutely amazing. But just seeing the light in her eyes, I thought, “This is phenomenal.”

During the most recent election, I was canvassing and ran into a former student. Now, I had mostly taught his sister Caroline and I never actually had too many direct teaching experiences with him because I was a teacher-librarian, but Kurtis was a little disengaged, unfortunately. He was a bright kid—a smart kid—but he never really found his passion within elementary school. I always wonder about former students: What are they doing now? Are they okay? Did they find something that sang to their heart? And I ran into him, and he had completed his electrician apprenticeship and he was so proud of himself. He was earning fantastic money; he’d found something that spoke to him, and it just made me so happy to know that he had found something that was a viable career for the rest of his life. So congratulations to Kurtis.

Here on the opposition side, we have many people among our ranks who are tradespeople. Our MPP from Sudbury, our labour critic, is an apprentice. His dad was a millwright, and his father-in-law is an electrician. Our MPP from Mushkegowuk–James Bay is a millwright, and his son is an electrician. My seatmate, the MPP from Waterloo—her son is an electrician as well.

So these are really important things.

Unfortunately, the trades have been given short shift for a number of years, by educational disinvestment, by not providing the correct information to young people about how viable this is as a well-paying career.

I also wanted to make sure that this government has on the record some recommendations that they could also help workers with within the trades.

We want to make sure, as well, that we have things like paid sick days—fixing the WSIB system that leaves so many workers on ODSP, especially those within the skilled trades.

We also have, within the WSIB system, a system that caps the wages of skilled trades workers and can sometimes force them back to work while they are still hurt. This is incredibly dangerous, because unfortunately many of them will self-medicate. They will look to ease and dull the pain any way that they can, because they know they’re being forced to work. We need further addiction support so that people aren’t falling into that trap.

Also, we could see legislation pass to stop the use of scab workers.

These are all measures that the government could employ, as well.

So here on the opposition side, we are very happy to support a skilled trades week. It’s something that I think will help to provide that information to young people. But let’s also see some backup material. Let’s see further investments in education. Let’s see those shop classes returning to elementary school. Let’s see education workers given the correct information about how to engage students on this as a career path, and we will see these numbers—the average age being 28, or so many people aging out of this—change.

I look forward to supporting this government in these aims, because I believe it is something that is incumbent upon all of us. We are providing people with a fantastic future, showing them that they can do wonderful things. They can own their own business and really enjoy a life of security, a life that is fulfilling and rewarding.