Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

Report continued from volume A.

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Private Members’ Public Business

Employee ownership

Mr. Terence Kernaghan: I move that, in the opinion of this House, the government of Ontario should implement the Ontario NDP’s employee ownership strategy so that retiring owners can carry on their legacy by selling to their employees and more people can realize the dream of business ownership.

The Acting Speaker (M^me Lucille Collard): Pursuant to standing order 100, the member has 12 minutes for his presentation.

Mr. Terence Kernaghan: It’s always such an honour for me to rise and add the voices and the concerns and the perspectives of the great people of London North Centre. As I begin my remarks, I want to thank Graham Henderson, the CEO of the London Chamber of Commerce, for first bringing this concept to my attention. I’m reminded of the quote from William Butler Yeats, often used in terms of education. Yeats stated that education is not the filling of the bucket; it’s the lighting of the fire. When he first said these words about employee ownership, I was hooked. Thank you, Graham, for your leadership, for your advocacy, for your guidance and your strong support of my motion.

Since time immemorial, Speaker, people have had to work, they’ve had to eat, they’ve had to survive and certainly to thrive. As with so many other aspects of the social world, the world of work comprises structures of power. The task of the legislator should be to ensure as many people as possible have structures that are both fair and equitable.

Now, we know the world of work: You get up, you get showered, you go in for a day’s or a night’s shift, you go home, you sleep, and you start it all over again. Some are lucky enough to derive enjoyment, a sense of pride, a sense of value, a sense of recognition for their toil, while others simply might just get through it.

This motion today that we have with the NDP’s employee ownership strategy is about the distribution of capital and labour. What happens when the dynamic of boss and employee is reimagined in a new way? What we are talking about today is empowering employees through employee ownership.

I’d like also for you to think about the small businesses owner whose blood, whose sweat, whose tears created their business. The cost of business is not simply financial, though that risk is massive, given that some people leverage their homes, borrow money and more. There are also personal risks, like losing time with friends, losing time with family and possibly even losing your family through separation. It’s little wonder that when it comes time to sell, owners want the best bang for their buck, and they deserve it. Who wouldn’t? Let’s never forget: The owners know what that business took to create. But there are also those soft costs of business. These business owners built it, and they deserve the very best for it.

The risk we face today is really quite significant, Speaker. There are $2 trillion in assets. This is the largest transition of assets in Canada’s history. The CFIB, in their Succession Tsunami paper, indicated that 76% of small business owners will be selling; 9% of those have a plan; and 53% of them want to sell to their employees, but they just want to know how to do it. The Ontario Chamber of Commerce in their paper Taking Care of Business with the Northern Policy Institute, indicated in March 2024 that so many businesses really need to start investigating that succession plan.

For business owners, they may not want to pass on to their children. They may want to sell it, but unfortunately there’s such a huge risk involved in selling to employees. The federal government in 2021 started investigating the employee ownership trust model and, through a great deal of pressure from a number of stakeholders, they were able to, in budget 2023, create the employee ownership trust structure. I’d like to briefly explain that for the House: Under this model, employees own all or part of the company via a trust that holds a share in the company and repays the previous owner for them out of company profits. The trust is guided by the employees. Therefore, the employees don’t take on the risk themselves. They end up having a structure to support them and to support those owners who are selling into that model.

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When a business owner goes to sell, we need to think about the deep pockets of hedge funds, of multinationals, and we have to think about the risks to those small businesses. Those small businesses are community-oriented. They’re neighbourhood-oriented. They reflect the community quality and character, and when those small businesses are sold to these faceless corporations, they risk losing that quality. They also risk losing jobs. What it represents with that $2 trillion of wealth is that wealth going overseas. So how can we, as legislators, protect, maintain and develop that wealth that is already here in Ontario? The answer is in front of us.

Now, the federal government’s legislation exempted the first $10 million of capital gains tax for businesses that are selling into the employee ownership trust model. While that is good, and that does realize a $2.6-million benefit for those businesses, there are other businesses which are a great deal smaller. However, in jurisdictions that don’t have a capital gains tax whatsoever, like in the UK, only 10% of sales are going into this model. So, then, the question is: How can the province of Ontario incentivize and promote and make sure that we are buttressing these federal changes?

It’s really quite easy. I want to quote the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, who talked about employee ownership trusts. They said, “With the right supporting legislation, EOTs can incentivize succession planning by business owners.” They recognize the importance and the value that is placed within this model.

EllisDon sold before the employee ownership trust model was created, and it’s amazing what they did. I have to think about the millions of dollars that they were actually not able to realize because they made sure that they looked after their employees, but the business owners should not have to take the financial risk.

I really have to commend EllisDon. It was founded in 1951 by Don Smith and David Ellis Smith with nothing, and it has grown into a company that is worth billions of dollars. They created hundreds of buildings in Canada: CIBC Square in Toronto, the YVR Core program in Vancouver and the Atrio centre in Bogotá, Colombia. It’s fantastic, what they did.

In other areas—employee ownership models are found in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy; co-operatives make up a third of their GDP, and many other areas.

Now, the federal government, while they have this capital gains tax exemption, has not done enough. So, with this motion and with our strategy, what it will provide is to:

(1) develop and implement a provincial employee ownership strategy to promote, communicate, advertise and incentivize worker ownership and community wealth building;

(2) create and fund regional employee ownership centres, based on identified regional needs, operating on a public-private partnership model and drawing on existing resources from chambers of commerce, economic development corporations and small business enterprise centres;

(3) introduce a time-limited reduction in the general corporate income tax for new employee-owned businesses, contingent on meeting benchmarks such as employee training and retention, with a sunset clause to evaluate its impact;

(4) provide access to feasibility studies through employee ownership centres for those wishing to explore selling their business to their employees;

(5) establish an employee ownership home in government within the Ministry of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade, with an associate-minister-level appointment supported by a deputy minister; and lastly, because I know this government has itchy pens and they always want to write letters to their friends in the federal government,

(6) call upon the federal government to remove the arbitrary deadline of December 31, 2026, and make the $10-million capital gains exemption for employers selling their business in an employer ownership trust or workers’ co-operative arrangement in perpetuity.

This is something that I think this government should be able to support. This question really is about the democratization of wealth and the democratization of labour. This government will often have legislation that is titled Working for Workers; this is an opportunity for this government to really show that they do indeed work for workers by allowing workers to benefit, allowing workers to enjoy the capital that they are responsible for creating.

I’d also like to point out some of the benefits of the employee ownership model. When a company is more than 50% employee-owned, they begin to make different decisions. These companies lay off far fewer people in recessions than other companies and are much stronger coming out of recessions than other companies because they’re sacrificing short-term profits for the benefit of their workers and for their communities long-term. That is the shift we need.

Employee ownership trusts also have enormous potential. According to the Canadian Employee Ownership Coalition, whose work has been fundamental in this space, Canada could unlock 500 to 750 private companies converting to being employee-owned, 50,000 to 115,000 Canadian workers becoming employee owners, and up to $9.6 billion in wealth shared by employee owners. About 200 Canadian companies selling to their employees would happen every year, creating over 20,000 new employee owners annually. These are phenomenal statistics. This is an amazing initiative.

I also just want to thank a number of people who have been really responsible and instrumental in this journey. Of course, I would thank again Graham Henderson, the CEO of the London Chamber of Commerce. I also want to thank:

—Kristen Duever, the chief operating officer at the London Chamber of Commerce;

—Daniel Tisch Echevarría, who’s the president and CEO of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, who have endorsed this plan;

—Andrea Carmona, the senior manager of public affairs at the Ontario Chamber of Commerce;

—Jon Shell and Dan Skilleter from Social Capital Partners and Employee Ownership Canada;

—Tiara Letourneau, who’s from Rewrite Capital.

I also want to thank all of the wonderful people from the Canadian Employee Ownership Coalition.

Speaker, we have before us an opportunity for this government. We have an opportunity for them to stand with workers. We have an opportunity for them to help protect the economy. We have an opportunity for them to look forward. This is a moment where the government can put actions behind their words, where they can support workers, where they can protect Ontarian businesses, where they can protect Ontario’s economy for years to come. This is a fundamental shift in the way in which we look at the world of work.

I urge members across to please vote in favour of this motion. Ensure that your actions match your words. Stand up for workers. Stand up for the economy. Protect Ontario now and into the future.

The Acting Speaker (M^me Lucille Collard): Further debate?

Mr. Stéphane Sarrazin: I’d like to take the opportunity to talk about the work that our government is doing to support small businesses in my community of Glengarry–Prescott–Russell and right across the province. I’ll be sharing my time today with the member for Mississauga–Malton, my fellow PA to the Associate Minister of Small Business.

Our government is absolutely committed to supporting small businesses, from start-up to scale-up. Over the past several years, we’ve listened to the innovators and job creators who fuelled our province’s economy and have taken meaningful and decisive action to address their concerns.

In the 2024 budget, we have invested an additional $6.8 million over the next two years to enhance grant funding to support our entrepreneurs. This includes:

—investing an additional $1.5 million to have 125 additional student grants annually through the Summer Company program;

—also adding $4.8 million to support small businesses and foster economic growth in Ontario through Starter Company Plus; and

—also increasing funding for la Fédération des gens d’affaires francophones de l’Ontario by $500,000 to ensure Franco-Ontarians have the support they need to succeed.

Every day, we are helping Ontarians start and grow their businesses by reducing regulatory burdens and making it easier to be an entrepreneur. We have enabled an overall estimated $8 billion in cost savings and support for Ontario employers this year, and we’re working on the small business success strategy that will become a framework to help Ontario businesses continue to thrive, grow and succeed in our economy.

To inform the strategy, we have been hosting provincial round tables across Ontario on various key topics and sectors of our economy, including manufacturing, construction and trades, retail and personal services, business and economic industry associations, agriculture, incubators and technology, and tourism and hospitality, to name just a few. These efforts are part of our province-wide, multi-sector approach to ensure key perspectives are heard. Our strategy will look towards succession planning, regulatory proposals, lowering costs, supporting the adoption of new technologies, talent development and more, to ensure local small businesses are better-supported to scale up and grow.

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Speaker, with small businesses and job creators feeling the pinch like never before, axing the disastrous carbon tax should be everybody’s top priority. Unfortunately, the opposition have failed to advocate for small businesses by supporting the federal carbon tax and have failed to ask their federal counterparts to eliminate this harmful job-killing tax. We were elected to keep more money in peoples’ pockets, and that includes small business owners, who are the backbone of our economy and employ over 2.5 million people in our province.

A carbon tax only punishes entrepreneurs and families through higher operating costs on everyday essentials like energy. Any added provincial carbon tax would push many over the edge, as they are already struggling with inflation. That is why it is something our government will never implement. For small businesses, this chips away at their competitiveness, and we’ve got to realize that every dollar lost to carbon tax is a dollar that they cannot reinvest in their businesses. As such, if the NDP really want to support business owners, they should start by taking a stand against the harmful carbon tax.

Many business owners I have spoken to in my own riding of Glengarry–Prescott–Russell simply can’t absorb carbon taxes on top of other cost pressures. Ontario small business owners demonstrate day in and day out what it means to be dedicated, to dream big and to create opportunities.

We understand that succession planning is a key component in continuing to create those opportunities. That’s why guiding retiring small business owners across the province to plan and support the next generation of businesses and leaders will be a key component to our small business success strategy that is currently being crafted. We are helping entrepreneurs to better connect with talent pipelines and next-chapter opportunities so their businesses can continue their life cycle post-retirement, helping to ensure these all-important businesses stay in Ontario’s economy. With a common-sense, efficient approach, we can get it done for small businesses on several topics, including succession planning.

I will now pass it over to the member of Mississauga–Malton.

The Acting Speaker (M^me Lucille Collard): It’s a rotation, so I’ll move over to further debate.

Ms. Catherine Fife: I’m going to explain to you why this motion is important. In May 2024, StatsCan data revealed that Ontario was below the national average on all major job metrics. Ontario lost 91,300 jobs in the past 10 months. Unemployment hit 6.7%. Currently, the national unemployment rate is 6.8%, but Ontario’s unemployment rate is even worse at 7.6%, as of November 2024.

These numbers are in contrast to the expensive and publicly-paid-for political advertising claiming Ontario is a place where more people are going to work than ever, especially giving our out-migration numbers.

As Tom Parkin writes: “‘Open for business’ was an invite for backroom dealing, not job creation.” That is why this motion put forth by the member of London North Centre is so important. It keeps people employed.

To quote Graham Henderson from the London Chamber of Commerce this morning: “It is good for workers. It is good for business.” According to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, CFIB, 75% of small business owners plan to exit their businesses in the next 10 years, with the baby boomer generation retiring. That means, as the member has described, that $2 trillion in assets is at stake. Why wouldn’t you do something to actually mitigate this loss of jobs and the economy? We need to keep these jobs, and this motion helps ensure that we do.

StatsCan also said that “Canadians continue moving out of Ontario and into Alberta and Atlantic cities. Ontario has been losing residents and businesses to other provinces on a net basis for 16 consecutive quarters.” People cannot find housing here; no health care; education is in crisis. Basically, you have created an emergency province, and people are leaving this province.

“This data shows that Ontario’s major urban centres do not appear to be competitive vis-à-vis their Canadian counterparts when it comes to attracting and retaining individuals and households.… Toronto’s gravitational pull has faded.” So this motion, Madam Speaker, would help retain those jobs. The above quotes are why we need to ensure Ontario jobs stay in Ontario.

I just want to finally end with the Waterloo region chamber of commerce’s Ian McLean. He has also said that “Ontario businesses are built to last. By moving forward with this strategy we can strengthen our economy, and our communities, for years to come.” Essentially—and you should know this—when businesses thrive, workers thrive, Ontario thrives.

This motion is worth your consideration at the very least. It should not be partisan at all. It is a good idea. It will save our economy. Why won’t you give some serious consideration to this motion?

The Acting Speaker (M^me Lucille Collard): Further debate?

Mr. Deepak Anand: Madam Speaker, I want to start by sharing a secret. It’s an absolute secret. And the secret is, I love small businesses.

Before becoming an MPP, I was a small business owner. I love it so much that when I found out the member is actually going to be talking about a small business—look at my tie. I wear this tie when I’m happy. I’m very happy today, so that’s why I’m wearing this tie. So I want to say thank you to the member for bringing forward a PMB on small business, but I want to be crystal clear: I’m not going to be supporting this. I don’t want to increase the expectation.

The member from Waterloo talked about, “Oh, it’s non-partisan.” Okay, so that’s why if you really look at the motion, it says the “government of Ontario should implement the Ontario NDP’s employee ownership strategy,” not “ownership strategy.” Leave that aside.

Let’s start with what is a small business. Madam Speaker, do you know what’s a small business? A young couple, just got married, come to Fitoor, a local restaurant in Mississauga–Malton. When Utkarsh Patel is serving them, they’re building memories. They’re building a bond to start their family. So what’s a small business? Small business helps support the community.

Another example: Shaukat Panchbhaya from Mississauga–Malton has a company called PL Metal. When they bring in the community—they manufacture in Ontario to support the housing sector and they’re giving jobs to many of the residents in Mississauga–Malton. That’s a small business.

A small business owner is a dreamer. He’s a risk-taker. He’s a job creator. And I’ll give you an example of dreaming: SOTI. Carl Rodrigues started from his humble beginning in a basement. Today, he has 1,200 employees and $5 billion in that company. And he started as a small business.

Madam Speaker, I agree with the member on one thing, that we are going through a time when there is a succession plan happening. And to tell you the truth, most of the time the owners actually go to the employees first. Why? Because they have nurtured this business as their babies. They don’t want to give it away to somebody else. They believe that the people who have supported and worked with them are the people who should be carrying it on. But at the same time, it’s a natural process. We don’t need to force that.

I’ll give you an example. George at Bothwell-Accurate bought this company when he was working in 2007. It had $140 million back then in revenue; now it has increased by four times. The number of employees increased to 2,000.

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I agree with you; if possible, there’s nothing wrong in having the succession planning, wherein the employees buy the business. But not every business owner has that ability—that there are employees who can buy it.

Remember this: These small business owners don’t have a pension. Of course, I know you’re going to say that even MPPs don’t have a pension. But these business owners are working towards that there’s going to be a day, after many, many decades of their hard work, when they’re going to pass the baton and then, with that money, they will relax—as their retirement income, forcing them at the time to get into a direction that may or may not give the best value for the business. As a small business owner, as a dreamer, as a risk-taker, I think it’s not fair to them—and that’s exactly what this motion is asking us to do.

Talking about the succession planning, my colleague already talked about that we are actually going through the consultation process, wherein we are talking about succession planning as one of the key components of that conversation. So I want to say to the member, when we will talk to them, we will definitely go through some of these things that you talked about.

I absolutely agree; there is no monopoly on good thoughts. For example, my private member’s bill was gas and dash—so that nobody has to give up their life. And today Husky, Esso, Petro-Canada are using that model. It’s the same way, when you talked about providing access to feasibility studies through the employee ownership centres—I think it’s a great idea. I’m going to take it back to the board of trade. I’m going to talk to the economic development centres in the city of Mississauga, Peel region. It’s a great idea—that they can probably help.

I truly liked when members said, “Call upon the federal government. Help us to call on the federal government.” A colleague talked about carbon tax, which is killing small business.

Thank you for supporting and bringing this PMB. I truly feel thankful to you that you’re thinking about the small businesses. It’s like a dartboard—not necessarily that you’re going to send the thing to the dartboard and it’s going to go straight in the middle. If you keep bringing these PMBs and other ideas for the small businesses, I’m sure small business will love it, and I’m sure there will be in the future some of the things which you’re going to say will help the small businesses.

I want to stop by saying this because I only have four seconds: Member, thank you for bringing this PMB. The budget is coming up, and I know you support small businesses, so I’m hoping you’re going to support this budget.

The Acting Speaker (M^me Lucille Collard): Further debate?

MPP Jamie West: I’m very proud to support this bill by the member from London North Centre.

Speaker, an employee-owned trust, or EOT for short, keeps ownership within the organization, awards the employees who helped to build that organization, and maintains the organization’s values and the owner’s legacy. The alternative very often ends up selling off to a private equity firm, and who knows what happens afterwards? They might and often will overlook the people and values that made the organization what it was.

This isn’t new. This is already happening in the UK and the US. They provide significant tax incentives for owners who sell a business to the workers. The Canadian federal government is following suit.

The member is asking the provincial government to provide incentives so that option is available—not that people have to do it, but to make it available, to have that succession model in place. This is something the provincial government could be doing, if they were promoting and communicating and advertising it, to incentivize worker ownership and community wealth-building.

My colleague the member from London North Centre’s private member’s bill provides a credible blueprint on how the province of Ontario can play a crucial role in providing resources and incentives for local businesses to establish their own EOTs.

This isn’t new, as I said earlier. EOTs are the most common form of employee ownership in the UK, and they have a long track record of being good for succession, for employees, for companies, and for the communities. In the UK, employee-owned trusts employ more than 180,000 people, and there are hundreds of new EOTs forming each year, thanks to a government initiative encouraging their creation.

For example, as of October of this year, Rega Research, a specialist hi-fi brand—they do turntables, and cartridges, amplifiers, that kind of stuff—became an employee-owned business through the establishment of an EOT with 100% ownership of the company as the employees. They currently employ over 140 people in the southeast of England and their product range exports globally to 46 different countries. The founder, Roy Gandy, had this to say: “Becoming an EOT has many advantages, however, the main reason is to protect our culture and decades of hard work. Becoming an EOT prevents the company from being sold and potential buyouts (by the dreaded investors) whilst providing all staff with job security going forward.”

I think that says it all. It’s one of the reasons I support this PMB, because it’s a win-win. It’s a win for the business owners and the workers who are the backbone of Ontario’s economy, who deserve our support for the fight to keep ownership within their organizations.

The Acting Speaker (M^me Lucille Collard): Further debate?

MPP Kristyn Wong-Tam: It’s an honour to rise to speak to motion number 152 tabled by the great member of London North Centre. This motion is actually a pretty important motion by way of creating a pathway for retirement for hard-working business owners.

I want to note, as someone who has actually owned several businesses—mind you, they were not large businesses. I would call myself a serial entrepreneur, but I have owned about five businesses in my life: restaurants, as well as a general contracting company, a coffee house franchise, as well as two contemporary art galleries. Finding a way to retire those businesses when my time was done with them was always the challenge. But mind you, Speaker, they were not large businesses; they were small. But I can tell you that it was not an easy time to find a way of retiring those businesses.

That’s exactly what this particular motion will do. It will actually allow business owners a pathway to, number one, retain more capital and to avoid large surges in capital gains. We know that small business and medium-sized business owners don’t always have a pathway for retirement. They don’t necessarily have pensions when it’s time for them to wrap up. Being able to develop a strategy that allows for more employee ownership and the wealth that stays in the area, the neighbourhood, the communities, I think is a very good thing.

We know, in Ontario, that small businesses and medium-sized businesses are struggling—and it’s not the carbon tax. It’s many other things that are creating additional challenges for those businesses. We also know that CFIB has informed us that the next 10 years, 75% of businesses will be looking for a pathway out. That means that they’re going to either sell their business, if they can do so successfully, or they are going to retire the businesses altogether without a pathway out. It is very difficult—I can tell you this first-hand, what it looks like to wind down a business that you weren’t able to successfully sell. I don’t know if there are many people in the chamber who’ve had that experience, but I can tell you that I’ve had that experience. Knowing that governments can create programs that allow for the expansion of opportunities for a business owner to have a graceful off-ramp where they can get to retain the equity that they built in the business, where they get to retain as much as possible with respect to capital gains—I would imagine that would be something that this government, which talks about being for business, would be salivating for. I can’t imagine why they would vote against this motion, to be quite honest.

This motion, let us think about what it actually calls for. If you think about employee ownership, there are many different models. You can participate in shares. In this case, the member is putting forth an opportunity for the development of trusts, and also there are co-operatives. But by way of account and public policy, there must be at least seven or eight different vehicles that we could be exploring on how to design a system that allows multiple options for these hard-working entrepreneurs in our province. I would say that this motion actually probably is not going to be able to reach the small, small business owners—the ones with two or three employees in their shops. This motion is designed to specifically try to retain the activity, the productivity and the benefits of businesses that are larger than those small, small shops. Those are the businesses that actually hire significant numbers of people. Those are the people that are employed in the local economy, and that’s where we want to see them.

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Speaker, I just want to say that it would be entirely off-brand for this government to not support such a pro-business motion, and I seriously ask them to consider. Thank you.

The Acting Speaker (M^me Lucille Collard): Further debate?

M^me France Gélinas: Je suis très fière aujourd’hui de pouvoir appuyer la motion de mon député de London-Centre-Nord, qui va créer un programme d’actionnariat des employés avec la formation de « trusts ». Ça va aider les propriétaires d’entreprises qui veulent perpétuer leur héritage, veulent s’assurer que leur commerce et leur entreprise continuent, en vendant leur entreprise à un « trust » qui est la propriété des employés. Ainsi, ça donne l’opportunité à un plus grand nombre de personnes de devenir propriétaires d’une entreprise.

Ça a également plusieurs avantages. On a vu, à travers les recherches, que les entreprises qui sont appartenues par les employés font moins de mise à pied, sont plus préparées pour les récessions et prennent des décisions à plus long terme. On a vu également qu’en Ontario, on parle de près de 500 à 700 propriétaires d’entreprise avec une valeur totale de 9,6 milliards de dollars qui sont intéressés à vendre à leurs employés. Tout ça nous aide à protéger l’économie, à appuyer les travailleurs. Ce sont des modèles qui existent aux États-Unis, en Angleterre, et qui aident à ce qu’on appelle la démocratisation des fortunes.

Tout le monde connaît l’importance des petites entreprises; 53 % veulent vendre à leurs employés. On propose un nouveau plan de succession. Il y a sept modèles qui existent déjà. C’est un nouveau modèle à travers du « trust » qui fonctionne bien. J’espère qu’on va voter pour.

The Acting Speaker (M^me Lucille Collard): Merci. I’m going back to the member for London North Centre for a two-minute reply.

Mr. Terence Kernaghan: I’d like to thank my wonderful colleagues from Waterloo, Sudbury, Toronto Centre and Nickel Belt for truly standing up for small businesses in words as well as in actions. I will say that I’ll thank the members from Glengarry–Prescott–Russell and Mississauga–Malton for their comments, albeit how disappointing they were, but they’re not entirely surprising because we see a government that, unfortunately, does not support small businesses.

I first want to refer to the Save Main Street program that the Ontario NDP introduced during the pandemic, which was endorsed by the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, to support Ontario’s economic backbone. Unfortunately, that was not passed by this government.

I want to point out that the London Chamber of Commerce, the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, and business and industry leaders are calling for these changes. This gives you a chance as well, government, to improve upon federal legislation and lets you claim the win.

I wanted to share a couple quotes: “Employee-owned firms are equally or more productive than conventional investor-owned firms. For workers in employee-owned firms, the business is truly their own, so a strong motivation to work productively and improve processes is no surprise.”

This is an issue that crosses the political spectrum from left to right. It is, at its most basic, the democratic, fundamental principle that people are owning the proceeds of their labour. It puts people back in the economic driver’s seat.

To the government: I call upon you to pass motion 152 today, maintain what is ours in Ontario, support Ontario’s workers, build Ontario’s economy, keep neighbourhoods strong and future-proof our economy. We can do that together. We can do that across this House. I urge you to support workers, and I urge you to support small businesses by voting in favour of this motion.

The Acting Speaker (M^me Lucille Collard): The time provided for private members’ public business has expired.

MPP Kernaghan has moved private member’s notice of motion number 152. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

All those in favour of the motion will please say “aye.”

All those opposed will please say “nay.”

In my opinion, the nays have it.

A recorded vote being required, it will be deferred until the instance of deferred votes.

Vote deferred.

The Acting Speaker (M^me Lucille Collard): All matters relating to private members’ public business having been completed, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 9 a.m.

The House adjourned at 1815.