To the member for Kitchener South–Hespeler: This Working for Workers bill makes some changes to the digital workers protection act. I wanted to ask the member, doesn’t she think digital workers would be better protected if they were covered by the Employment Standards Act and were not forced to work at jobs where they earned $6.37 per hour instead of a proper minimum wage?

I listened to the comments from the member for Newmarket–Aurora, and one of the provisions of this bill that she didn’t mention is around the new requirement for employers to post information about compensation levels. I’d just like to ask the member whether she is aware that in 2018 this Legislature debated a bill called the Pay Transparency Act. We passed that bill. That bill went to committee. It came back much stronger, with great amendments. It was passed at third reading. It got royal assent. It is sitting somewhere in the back rooms of this Legislature waiting to be proclaimed to provide real pay transparency for women in this province to close the gender wage gap. Why is this government not proclaiming the Pay Transparency Act?

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.

Women in female-dominated professions, like midwifery, nursing and developmental services, have been fighting for pay equity for years, under both Liberal and Conservative governments.

In 2018, midwives won a historic ruling from the Human Rights Tribunal that was confirmed last year by the Ontario Court of Appeal, but this government has continued its systemic pay discrimination against midwives by ignoring the order that would see midwives paid fairly for the vital work they do.

Will this government implement the Human Rights Tribunal order, start respecting midwives, and finally pay them what they are worth?

When women workers like midwives, nurses, educational assistants and ECEs fight for wages that reflect the true value of their work, this government refuses to enact pay transparency, ignores remedy orders, suppresses their wages, fights them in court, or threatens to take away their rights. But women aren’t taking it.

I want to give a shout-out to the amazing education workers who forced this government to back down on their use of the “notwithstanding” clause.

Today, on Equal Pay Day, will this government commit to stop attacking women workers and start bringing forward legislation and policies that close the gender wage gap instead of widening it?

I am pleased to rise to continue the debate on Bill 79, Working for Workers 3 from this government. When I was last speaking to this bill, I was giving some examples of the pervasiveness of wage theft in the province of Ontario, which is something that this government could have taken action on, this bill would have been an opportunity to take action on, but they have not. I use the example of wage theft as a case study of how increasing fines for violations of labour laws will do nothing unless there are those strong, proactive inspections in place, unless there is strong, proactive enforcement in place and unless this government closes the loopholes that we see far too often in our labour legislation that have allowed employers to get away with wage theft for so many years.

One of the tools that this government could have used to deal with the issue of wage theft is, of course, around worker misclassification. That is how so many workers do not get the wages and benefits that are owed to them under the Employment Standards Act, because their employer illegally classifies them as an independent contractor rather than an employee who has full rights and entitlements under the Employment Standards Act. That is particularly the case for the farm workers, the migrant temporary foreign workers that the first schedule of this government’s bill is supposed to protect, because those temporary foreign workers are completely exempt from the Employment Standards Act. So it is one thing for this government to say they’re cracking down on scumbag employers, but it is quite another thing to actually protect the temporary foreign workers who are at greatest risk of being taken advantage of and being exploited by unethical employers.

We know that the number of inspections that the Ministry of Labour has conducted dropped significantly; there were 3,500 in 2017 and just over 200 in 2022. So while we welcome the increase in fines, we’re waiting to see other changes that the ministry has to make in order to actually help protect migrant workers.

It’s interesting that since we were last debating this legislation, the government introduced a new measure that is significantly going to harm migrant workers, and that is to remove OHIP coverage for uninsured people. Certainly, we know that migrant workers are among the largest group of uninsured people in this province who do not have access to OHIP, and we have heard the OMA, we have heard doctors in Ontario describe this government decision to remove that OHIP coverage as inhumane, as despicable, as barbaric—as all kinds of words that have been hurled at this government for the action that it is taking that is going to directly and significantly harm migrant workers.

The other thing that we saw since this bill was last debated in the Legislature was the introduction of the budget that put in black and white, in print form, the government’s decision to eliminate paid sick days. That is a benefit that would significantly help temporary foreign workers, migrant workers—workers in this province who need access to paid sick days so that they can stay home if they are sick, which is the number one lesson that we should have learned from this pandemic: how important it is to enable workers to stay home if they are sick so they don’t have to go to crowded workplaces while they are ill, compromise their own ability to recover from illness and also risk spreading infection to co-workers and customers.

This government was shamed into finally implementing an inadequate paid sick day scheme. It took some time to get them there. The scheme was flawed, but at least it was something to help workers be able to stay home if they are sick. Some 60% of workers in this province do not have access to paid sick days, and that number goes up to 75%, 80%, 90% in some sectors, for some of the most vulnerable workers in this province: racialized workers in this province; workers who are at greatest risk of contracting illness in the workplace, who work in crowded warehouses or other places where they are at risk of either bringing illness into the workplace and infecting others or getting infected.

We heard during the pandemic—no one will forget that study from Peel Public Health at the very beginning of the pandemic where one in four workers admitted that they went to work sick because they didn’t have a choice, not because, of course, they wanted to put their co-workers at risk, but because they didn’t want to put their family at risk by not being able to pay the rent at the end of the month, not being able to buy the groceries. So that is the kind of legislation that would show that this government really is working for workers.

The final piece that I want to highlight is around Bill 124. We have heard for months—actually, since that legislation was introduced back in 2019, we have heard calls, strong calls, from health care workers across the province to drop that bill because it is an unconstitutional infringement on the rights of workers to bargain collectively with the government.

At a time when inflation has been as high as 12%, capping wage increases at 1% is nothing but a wage cut, and a significant wage cut, when we need health care workers more than ever. Health care workers are leaving the province in droves because of Bill 124. We know that from the data that’s collected on our health human resources workforce. We know that from—in London, when I go to speak to the London Health Sciences Centre or St. Joseph’s hospital about the health care worker shortage that they’re having, Bill 124 has a direct impact on that.

Dropping the appeal of the court decision that Bill 124 was unconstitutional would go a long way to working for workers in this province. But this government decided not to do that; instead, they have brought forward a package of measures that will make a little bit of a difference, a symbolic difference. The increased fine on employers who withhold passports will make a difference. But if this government really wanted to work for workers, there’s a lot more they could be doing.

My question is to the Premier.

In the last year, 50,000 more people left Ontario than have arrived, which is out-migration at a level we have never seen before in this province. Most are young adults aged 25 to 35 who can’t afford to save for a home on the salaries they are making—and that includes demoralized, disrespected London West nurses Nicole Forster and Lindsay Smale.

Instead of standing by as nurses like Nicole and Lindsay leave Ontario for good, will the Premier stop fighting nurses in court over the unconstitutional Bill 124 wage cap and start actually fixing the housing affordability crisis?