Mr. Speaker, it is assumed that if people live in Toronto, they have it made, that they are on easy street. Indeed, we have made a national pastime out of trash-talking Toronto.
However, a recent report by the United Way shows that almost half of all workers in Toronto do not have stable full-time jobs. Many live in Davenport. They are cab drivers, bartenders, office cleaners, web designers, carpenters, consultants, musicians and professors. They are also workers who thought they had been hired full time, only to find that the company had classified them as self-employed or part time. These urban workers have no benefits, no pension, no job security and are of no interest to the government.
The reality of work is rapidly changing, but the Conservatives ignore half the workers in the biggest city in the country. We need measures that will make a real difference in the lives of urban workers, not more Conservative Toronto MPs sitting on their hands, stuck in the past, while this city and this country races by them toward the future of work in the 21st century.