I want to thank the member for her question, and also for her advocacy for paid sick days over the years.

Certainly, we know that a low-wage worker—many women saw the gender wage gap that was highlighted in the FAO report. Women in low-wage professions, when they have a child who is sick, when they are sick, are faced with this impossible choice: Do they forgo a day of pay, stay home unpaid so that they can care for their sick child and recover from the illness that they themselves are suffering? Or do they go to work, send their child to school and risk spreading illness to others in the workplace or in the school? We know what happens when they make that choice, which is understandable. They risk spreading illness to others, who go to our hospital and add pressure to our overextended health care system.

I know the member is aware of Indwell, a 72-unit building that recently opened in our city. Those 72 units came at a big price tag, much more than the additional funding that the government has provided.

London is not the only community across this province that is facing the crisis of homelessness. We need a much more significant investment from this government to address the crisis.

There are many non-profit agencies—in my community, we have Anova, we have the London Abused Women’s Centre, we have Atlohsa—across this province that provide support for those experiencing gender-based violence. Staff at those agencies are burnt out. There has been no increase in base funding for years. Those staff are dealing with wages that are so low that it is challenging for them to find housing in our communities, with rents increasing so dramatically. An increase in base funding, the stabilization of support that non-profit agencies require to serve people who are experiencing violence or who are experiencing any kind of challenge, would make a huge difference. And let’s not forget, most of the workers who work in the non-profit sector are women, so that increase in base funding would make a huge difference for women in this province.

We know from the Financial Accountability Officer that this government has a track record of not allocating funding. There has been record numbers of unallocated pots of money. There has been a huge increase in contingency funds, and there is no transparency whatsoever as to where those funds will be allocated. Budget after budget, we have seen monies allocated on paper but not actually spent.

The people of this province deserve a lot more transparency in where public dollars are being invested.

My question is to the Premier. Speaker, we now know that this government’s flawed paid sick days program will end on March 31 with nothing to replace it. Instead of fixing the flaws in the program, instead of increasing the days from three to 10, instead of making them annual and permanent and employer-paid, instead of making them available for all illnesses, not just COVID, this government is abandoning sick workers.

Why does this government believe that workers without paid sick days should be forced to give up their pay if they have to stay home when they are sick?

Speaker, BC understands this; 15 US states with paid sick days understand this. Why doesn’t this government?

I very much appreciated the remarks from my colleague the member for Hamilton West–Ancaster–Dundas. She pointed to all of the missed opportunities in this bill to actually address the issues that workers in this province are facing. I wondered if she was as struck as I was by the absence of any mention of permanent paid sick days for Ontario workers, especially as we know that program is set to expire on March 31. Workers who are ill with COVID or any other disease or illness in this province will no longer have access to any support to enable them to stay home if they are sick. Would the member like to comment on that?

My question is to the minister.

The minister started his remarks by boasting about the temporary and inadequate paid sick days program that his government was forced to introduce, but he has told the media that the program has filled its purpose and it is expiring at the end of the month.

The legislation that we have here today would have been a perfect opportunity to amend the Employment Standards Act and finally bring in a permanent paid sick days program, like they have in BC, to cover all Ontario workers not just for COVID, but for any other illness or infectious disease that means that they have to stay home from work. Why did the minister not include that in this bill today?

My question is to the Premier. When this government’s temporary and inadequate program of paid sick days was introduced two years ago, the Minister of Labour famously said that as long as there is COVID, there will be paid sick days for Ontario workers. Well, that flawed program is expiring on March 31, and COVID is still very much with us, along with many other infectious diseases.

Will the minister commit today to providing 10 permanent paid sick days so that workers can stay home if they are sick with COVID or any other illness after March 31?

Almost 60% of Ontario workers do not have paid sick days from their employer, especially if they are racialized or low wage. Instead of supporting their corporate friends, will the government start working for those workers and legislate 10 permanent paid sick days now?

My question is to the Premier. Health care workers are urging MPPs to support my bill, the Stay Home If You Are Sick Act, to give Ontario workers 10 permanent paid sick days. This government’s temporary three COVID-related days to last over a pandemic that will soon be entering its third year are doing nothing to address the health care crisis that is overwhelming our pediatric hospitals. What would help are 10 permanent sick days to enable low-wage workers to stay home if their child is ill, perhaps with RSV, without losing their paycheques.

Will this government listen to advice from health care workers and vote to pass my bill today?

Ontario is now falling behind other jurisdictions that are implementing permanent paid sick days. British Columbia has legislated five paid sick days. Federally regulated workers will soon have access to 10 paid sick days. Governments are doing this because they know that permanent paid sick days are good for workers, good for the economy and good for public health.

This government could finally show that “working for workers” is more than just an empty slogan by passing my bill to legislate 10 paid sick days. Will this government do that?

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas there is overwhelming evidence to show that paid sick leave significantly reduces the spread of infectious disease, promotes preventive health care and reduces health care system costs; and

“Whereas 60% of Ontario workers do not have access to paid sick days, and therefore must sacrifice income to stay home if they are sick; and

“Whereas low-wage and precarious workers who can least afford to miss pay are the most likely to be denied paid sick days; and

“Whereas employers benefit when sick workers can afford to stay home, limiting the spread of illness to co-workers and customers, and allowing workers to recover faster; and

“Whereas during an infectious disease emergency, it is unreasonable and dangerous to public health to make workers choose between protecting their communities and providing for their families; and

“Whereas mandating employers to provide paid sick leave through the Employment Standards Act ensures that workers have seamless, uninterrupted access to their pay; ...

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to immediately provide workers with 10 annual employer-paid days of personal emergency leave and 14 days of paid leave in the case of an infectious disease emergency.”

I fully support this petition. I will affix my signature and send it to the table with page Mabel.

I want to thank my colleagues who participated in the debate, and in particular my NDP colleagues from Parkdale–High Park, Scarborough Southwest and Humber River–Black Creek.

A couple of points were made that I want to reinforce. Our health care system is in the midst of a crisis that we have never seen before. We have an affordability crisis in this province. Paid sick days will reduce strain on our health care system. It will help parents get through this crisis we’re seeing in our pediatric hospitals, and it will give families the financial stability they need to stay home if they are sick.

I also appreciate the comments highlighting that paid sick days is an equity issue: The workers most likely not to have paid sick days are racialized workers, are low-income workers, are immigrant workers, are women workers. We need paid sick days to support those workers.

To the government members who spoke to my bill: I want to remind them that their worker income protection benefit is a temporary program. It’s going to end in March 2023. It’s only for COVID-related illnesses. It won’t cover workers who need to take a day off because they have the flu, the stomach flu, strep throat or any number of other illnesses. They can’t access those three paid sick days, and it is completely inadequate. We are in the third year of a global pandemic. Workers who used those three paid sick days last year are completely out of luck. It was a one-time three-paid-days benefit.

We need permanent paid sick days legislated in the Employment Standards Act, so that all Ontario workers have access to the financial security they need and are not facing that impossible choice of having to potentially infect their co-workers at work or lose their paycheque if they stay home.

It is certainly my honour to rise once again to participate in the debate on the Stay Home If You Are Sick Act. This is a bill that is certainly more timely and more urgent than either of the two times that it was debated before in this Legislature, and I urge all of my colleagues in the House today to vote to pass this legislation, to finally give Ontario workers the support that they need to recover from illness, to care for a sick child, without having to worry about losing their income or potentially even their job.

This is the third time that this bill has been debated in this Legislature. I first brought it forward in December of 2020, as Ontario’s deadly second wave was just starting to peak and as workplaces surged to become the most common site of COVID-19 outbreaks. And at that time, they surpassed even long-term-care homes.

The importance of providing workers with paid sick days was reflected in the unprecedented support that my bill received at that time. We had big-city mayors. We had mayors across the province. We had boards of health. We had municipal councillors. We had medical officers of health. We had health care professionals, health policy experts, economists, unions and small businesses and employer networks.

Unfortunately, Speaker, the bill did not pass when it was debated in February 2021, but the government obviously felt the pressure from this near-unanimous call for the government to move forward with paid sick days, and they did move a tiny step forward when they announced the worker income protection benefit in April of that year. That program gives workers three paid sick days for any COVID-related leave that was taken between April 19 and September 25.

On this side of the House, when that bill was brought forward by the government to establish the worker income protection benefit, we did support it—even though it was temporary, even though it was completely inadequate when COVID self-isolation requirements were at 10 days, and even though the benefit that the government introduced only covered COVID and it excluded all other illnesses. Although the program was recently extended to March 2023, it has not been made permanent. It has not been expanded to cover other sicknesses, other illnesses. It remains temporary, and it remains at only three days, and it remains completely inadequate.

Speaker, many Ontarians have had COVID two, three, maybe even four times. I’m not sure about you, but I myself have had COVID twice already, and the first time, I self-isolated for 10 days. The second time, I self-isolated for five days. And fortunately, I was able to isolate at home over those 15 days without any impact on my salary. I was able to work from home because of the nature of the job that I do. But if I didn’t have that ability, Speaker, three of those 15 days that I had stayed home could have been paid under the worker income protection benefit program, but the remaining days would all have been unpaid. And if I had been sick with anything else—like the flu, like stomach flu, like strep throat, whatever—the time that I spent in bed to recover would have been entirely unpaid. There would have been no support from this government.

Speaker, for workers who are living paycheque to paycheque, that could mean not being able to pay the rent, not being able to buy the groceries; it could even mean losing their job if their employer insisted that they come in to work. That is a choice that no worker should have to make.

But within this province, that is the reality for the majority of workers in Ontario. Almost 60% of workers in this province do not have access to paid sick days from their employer, and that figure rises to 75% for workers who are racialized or immigrant or low-income; these are usually workers who are in front-line and essential jobs. They are the workers who clean our buildings, who bag our groceries, who prepare our food, who care for our children and our seniors, who keep our transit systems running and our factories and supply chains going. These are the workers who have been hit harder by COVID than anyone else in Ontario.

We saw in the Toronto Star an investigative report on the impact of COVID-19 on workers through WSIB claims that were filed, and we saw that at least 108 workers in this province died from work-related COVID infections between March 2020 and the end of 2021, and the majority of those fatalities were in manufacturing. They were recorded among workers who were making bubble gum, who were producing baby clothes, who were making plastic jerry cans. These, of course, are workers who could not work from home during pandemic lockdowns but were exposed to significant workplace risks that many of us would have flatly refused.

They cannot work from home if their child has a mild fever or a runny nose. They’ll have to take the risk of sending their child to child care or school and hoping they don’t get that call to come to pick them up, or they will have to take the risk that their financial security will be jeopardized if they take a cut in pay to stay home with their child. We are in the midst of the worst affordability crisis in decades, Speaker, which means that these workers are put in an impossible position.

And during a global pandemic, of course, it is also a recipe for public health disaster. Early in the pandemic, we saw a study from Peel Public Health that showed that of 8,000 workers who were surveyed, almost 2,000 of those workers—fully one quarter—reported to work sick, including 80 who actually had a positive COVID test result. They did not go in to work sick because they wanted to infect their co-workers or because they didn’t believe in public health advice to stay home. They went in to work because they had no choice. They knew that if they missed a day of work, they would miss a day of pay. And for workers, as I said, who are living paycheque to paycheque, that is simply not an option.

So, Speaker, I gave the government a second chance to re-think my bill when we brought it forward about a year ago last fall; still they voted it down. Today, this government can show that working for workers is more than just an empty slogan. They can show that they understand the consequences to worker health and to public health and to our economy when workers can’t stay home to recover or to care for a sick child. They can actually do something to address the crisis in our pediatric hospitals and our overwhelmed pediatric emergency rooms and ICU beds. We’ve heard the Minister of Health talk about the province’s plan, but clearly that plan is not working.

Yesterday, Children’s Hospital in London announced the cancellation of children’s surgeries because of the crisis in the ER and the ICU beds. The Minister of Health’s response is to follow layers of protection: to mask, to keep vaccines up to date and to stay home if you are sick. But this government has failed to show leadership on masking, they’ve failed to launch a comprehensive vaccine campaign, but today, they can actually do something to enable workers to stay home when they are sick.

We know, Speaker, that paid sick days save lives. We know this from research that was done in the US early in the pandemic from research that the science advisory table helpfully put out that included definitive evidence that paid sick days reduce transmission in workplaces and schools. If parents have access to paid sick days, they can take a sick child to the doctor early rather than to the emergency department and reduce the pressure that pediatric ICUs are experiencing.

Paid sick days, Speaker, are also good for the economy. They make it much more likely that workers will participate in preventive health care. They’ll book screening tests. They’ll take their children to the doctor to get vaccines. They reduce workplace injury. They allow workers to recover faster and return to work. They reduce the problem of presenteeism, when workers go in to work and potentially infect their co-workers, but they actually aren’t in any condition to be able to do the job. This cost employers and our economy billions in lost productivity.

I want to give a shout-out, Speaker, to the Decent Work and Health Network, to the health care professionals who have advocated so strongly and consistently in support of my bill.

I just want to read from an editorial in the Ottawa Citizen yesterday by two doctors from the Decent Work and Health Network. They say, “As we have done countless times before, we implore our politicians to finally heed the science and choose to protect Ontarians, by passing Bill 4 into law.

“If our government wants to put children first, their families and caregivers need paid sick days now. Paid sick days save lives, protect our medically vulnerable and marginalized community members, and are crucial to supporting the health of essential and front-line workers and their families.” Pass my bill today.

I have a petition in support of the Stay Home If You Are Sick Act. It reads:

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas there is overwhelming evidence to show that paid sick days significantly reduce the spread of infectious disease, promote preventive health care and reduce health care system costs; and

“Whereas 60% of Ontario workers do not have access to paid sick days, and cannot afford to lose their pay if they are sick; and

“Whereas low-wage and precarious workers are the most likely to be denied paid sick days; and

“Whereas enabling workers to stay home when they are sick without losing pay helps limit the spread of illness in the workplace and allows workers to recover faster; and

“Whereas during an infectious disease emergency, it is unreasonable and dangerous to public health to make workers choose between protecting their communities and providing for their families; and

“Whereas legislating paid sick days through the Employment Standards Act, with transitional financial support for struggling small businesses, will ensure that workers have seamless, uninterrupted access to their pay;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to immediately pass Bill 4, the Stay Home If You Are Sick Act, to provide Ontario workers with 10 annual employer-paid days of personal emergency leave and 14 days of paid leave in the case of an infectious disease emergency.”

I couldn’t agree more with this petition, will affix my signature and will send it to the table with page Camilla.

I have a petition in support of the Stay Home If You Are Sick Act. It reads:

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas there is overwhelming evidence to show that paid sick days significantly reduce the spread of infectious disease, promote preventative health care and reduce health care system costs; and

“Whereas 60% of Ontario workers do not have access to paid sick days, and cannot afford to lose their pay if they are sick; and

“Whereas low-wage and precarious workers are the most likely to be denied paid sick days; and

“Whereas enabling workers to stay home when they are sick without losing pay helps limit the spread of illness in the workplace and allows workers to recover faster; and

“Whereas during an infectious disease emergency, it is unreasonable and dangerous to public health to make workers choose between protecting their communities and providing for their families; and

“Whereas legislating paid sick days through the Employment Standards Act, with transitional financial support for struggling small businesses, will ensure that workers have seamless, uninterrupted access to their pay;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to immediately pass Bill 4, the Stay Home If You Are Sick Act, to provide Ontario workers with 10 annual employer-paid days of personal emergency leave and 14 days of paid leave in the case of an infectious disease emergency.”

I couldn’t agree more with this petition, will affix my signature and will send it to the table with page Oriana.

I have a petition about the Stay Home If You Are Sick Act, and it reads as follows:

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas there is overwhelming evidence to show that paid sick leave significantly reduces the spread of infectious disease, promotes preventive health care and reduces health care system costs; and

“Whereas 60% of Ontario workers do not have access to paid sick days, and therefore must sacrifice income to stay home if they are sick; and

“Whereas low-wage and precarious workers who can least afford to miss pay are the most likely to be denied paid sick days; and

“Whereas employers benefit when sick workers can afford to stay home, limiting the spread of illness to co-workers and customers, and allowing workers to recover faster; and

“Whereas during an infectious disease emergency, it is unreasonable and dangerous to public health to make workers choose between protecting their communities and providing for their families; and

“Whereas mandating employers to provide paid sick leave through the Employment Standards Act ensures that workers have seamless, uninterrupted access to their pay;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to immediately provide workers with 10 annual employer-paid days of personal emergency leave and 14 days of paid leave in the case of an infectious disease emergency....”

I fully support this petition. I will affix my name to it and send it to the table with page Quaid.

My question is to the Premier. Whether workers are returning to the workplace or have worked there all along, this government has made one thing clear: “Don’t count on us to help keep workers safe.” Not only did they scrap COVID isolation requirements, they also scrapped the independent science advisory table before its members could advise against this dangerous move. Ontario workers are now more vulnerable than ever, especially if they don’t have access to paid sick days.

Speaker, instead of spreading illness in the workplace, will this government help prevent illness? Will they bring in 10 permanent paid sick days for all Ontario workers?

I would like to thank my colleague for the question. And certainly I think that the most important thing, the thing that would have the most meaning for front-line health care workers, is to repeal Bill 124, because not only does it suppress wages, as the member said, but it also conveys a message to front-line health workers from this government as to what the government thinks of the contributions that these vital workers provide. That would make a powerful statement, if the government moved forward with that repeal.

They could bring in paid sick days for workers. We know lots of workers in our health care system—PSWs, nurses—don’t even have access to paid sick days, even in their collective agreements. We could bring in unlimited mental health supports for health care workers. When you think of what they have gone through in this pandemic, the violence in the workplace, that would make a big difference.

This is a government that is not working for workers, and the program that the minister is so proud of is a program that is set to expire. It does nothing to help workers who are getting reinfected by COVID, and we know with Omicron that reinfection rates are growing.

Workers need to be able to access paid sick days. If they have COVID, if they have any illness in the workplace, they should be able to stay home and recover without risking losing their paycheque.

My question is to the Premier.

This government’s plan to address the health care crisis makes absolutely no mention of paid sick days. With the inevitable fall surge looming, workers who test positive and have already used their meagre three COVID-related paid sick days during earlier waves will have to decide: “Should I self-isolate, without pay, at home and risk not being able to pay the rent, or should I go to work sick and risk spreading COVID in the workplace?”

Speaker, what does this Premier think that these workers should do?

If this government was serious about preventing the spread of COVID-19 and protecting the health of Ontarians, they would pass my private member’s bill the Stay Home If You Are Sick Act, which would give workers 10 permanent paid sick days, plus 14, which is what they need in a pandemic. Workers need to be able to stay home without any loss of pay if they have COVID or any other illness, if they have a sick child, or if they need to participate in preventive medical screening tests so they can avoid going to crowded ERs.

Speaker, will this government commit to passing my bill so it is in place before the fall surge?

I’m very proud, on behalf of the NDP, to bring forward, for the third time, the Stay Home If You Are Sick Act—legislation that provides all Ontario workers with the paid sick days they need and deserve, not just during the COVID-19 pandemic, but on a permanent, ongoing basis.

The bill requires employers to provide 10 days of paid personal emergency leave that can be used for illness, injury and urgent matters, including caring for family members, and also prohibits requirements for a doctor’s note. It gives Ontario workers access to 14 paid infectious disease emergency leave days, an increase from the paltry three that are currently available to cover workers affected by a pandemic now in its third year.

Finally, the bill includes a temporary program of financial assistance to help struggling small businesses in the transition to providing paid leave.

Mr. Blais moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill 5, An Act to amend various statutes with respect to workplace violence and harassment policies in codes of conduct for councillors and members of local boards / Projet de loi 5, Loi modifiant diverses lois en ce qui concerne les politiques en matière de violence et de harcèlement au travail prévues dans les codes de déontologie des conseillers et des membres des conseils locaux.