It is now time for oral questions. I recognize the leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Tomorrow, this is to the Premier, tomorrow, parents, teachers, and students from every single corner of our province will be standing up for our children's future. The Premier continues to stick his head in the sand and pretend that parents are on his side, while every day they tell him to reverse his cuts to education. Why is he ignoring parents, Speaker? Questions addressed to the Premier? Through you, Mr. Speaker, I just want to remind the leader of the NDP that what she's calling cuts, we're actually increasing by $1.2 billion. That's $1.2 billion. They have a tough time with math. We believe that parents want us to increase investment into the schools and into our children that go there. What they do not, and I've heard it right across this province, believe in increasing compensation. They'd rather have that money, which we're doing back into the classroom. We don't put it in some vault in the back of Queen's Park. We're putting it back into the children. We're putting it back into the classrooms. These strikes, Mr. Speaker, are impacting families. When you impact a family, just imagine how many people have to find child care or take a day from work. That's unacceptable, Mr. Speaker. A supplementary question. It's ironic that the Premier can't cite any parents who are in favor of his agenda of cuts because we're sure that he's hearing from parents who oppose it just as we are. Selby Public School is in the writing of Hastings Lennox and Addington. And their parent council wrote to the Premier an open letter stating, and I quote, Educators are some of the most important people in our children's lives. Members of our parent council as well as our community at large stand behind our educators. We will continue now and into the future. Why does the Premier think he knows better than those parents, Speaker? Well, Mr. Speaker, I never know more than the parents. The only difference between myself and the leader of the NDP, I travel right across the province. There's probably no one in the chamber that travels to more towns, more areas than I do. I speak to the parents, but guess what, Mr. Speaker? I speak to our great teachers. I support our frontline teachers that work hard day in and day out. They're just as frustrated. They get back in the classroom and do the job that they do best. That's teaching our kids. We want our kids back in the classroom, Mr. Speaker. The final supplementary. Well, Speaker, I invite the Premier to come and speak to 25 or 30,000 of them around Queen's Park tomorrow. And the Conservatives say that their plan to fire thousands of teachers is reasonable. But parents are telling us that the reasonable thing to do is absolutely the opposite of what this Premier is suggesting. Justin from Oshawa told us that he supports teachers. Why?  That's what Justin from Oshawa has to say. So why does the Premier think he knows better than parents like Justin? Premier. Through you, Mr. Speaker. I find it so ironic listening to the leader of the opposition that voted Mr. Speaker to close with their liberal body 600 schools. They didn't burn them down. They just closed them, kicked the kids out. That's the difference. We're building new schools. We're building new schools right across the province. That's our priority. Mr. Speaker, we will continue to invest in more priorities that parents want. Parents want us to focus on math, on STEM, and on mental health. And that's exactly where the money is going to the classrooms, to the students. That's what they want. Again, Mr. Speaker, I've talked to numerous teachers and I can assure you not all the teachers want to be out there. They want to be in the classroom teaching the kids. And they understand. They understand the parameters because we were left with a $15 billion deficit at $346 billion debt. They appreciate just going back in the classroom and teaching the kids. Next question is also for the Premier, but I would submit then that the Premier needs to take the cuts off the table so those teachers can get back into the classrooms across our province. Mr. Speaker, parents are very, very frustrated and they're feeling ignored by this government. Hillary wrote to us and to tell us about her child's experience with e-learning. And in her words, that experience has been a disaster. She says students with learning disabilities, or difficulties like her child, need FaceTime with their teachers. And they still struggle through these courses with that FaceTime. Except now, thanks to the conservative cuts, students like Hillary's child have even fewer teachers in their schools and will only fall further and further behind. Parents like Hillary need teachers to teach their child. Why is the Premier forcing their children into e-learning programs that just don't work for them? Minister of Education. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This government wants a deal that keeps kids in class. That is our commitment to 2 million young people in the province. Speaker, parents are working harder. They give of themselves for their children. They pay significant amounts of their income to government and they expect a better return on that investment. When 50% of students are not meeting the provincial math standard, how is it that this government and this legislature is not united to expect better for the next generation of our province? Speaker, we're building and modernizing our education system with a focus on ensuring every student is technologically fluent. His financial literate is emotionally intelligent and is ready for the jobs of tomorrow. That's our positive vision for the next generation to start, Speaker, with keeping kids in class. Supplementary question. Well, Speaker, everyone knows this minister thinks he can talk well, but he sure doesn't listen to his own words. How is the math standard going to increase when you have fewer teachers in the classroom teaching arts whatsoever and parents know it, Speaker, and they're calling this government on exactly that. The Premier is pretending that his cuts are going to have no impact. I'd like him to hear from Jessica, a mom from Petrolia in the riding of Sarnia. Jessica's daughter has special needs and needs extra attention in the classroom. She writes, and I quote, even before these cuts, our school was so understaffed. Meeting after meeting after meeting, I attended begging for the help that she needed. We are barely hanging on. Why is the Premier ignoring the pleas from parents like Jessica? Let me answer the question of how we're going to improve math standards in this province is by going back to basics and eliminating the discovery math approach under the former Liberal government. We have a four-year, this government has a four-year math strategy. I am proud to report to this House that we will have financial literacy for the first time codified in elementary schools in this province. I am proud, Mr. Speaker, that we have a new curriculum that will be unveiled in September 2020. We have numeracy and now foundational competencies. We are expecting new educators in the province to be able to meet a grade night math standard, raising the bar of our teachers, raising the bar of our students. We expect our students to be better in numeracy in financial literacy in math, and that's why we're making investments in STEM education, Speaker. The final supplementary. Well, Speaker, the official opposition new Democrats would agree that the Conservatives are dragging us backwards when it comes to their changes to education. We agree with that. But you know what, the Premier can't get away from stories like the ones I've been sharing this morning. Conservative classroom cuts are making life worse for families all across our province. Jessica is blunt when she writes about her daughter and I quote, I am sick to my stomach about what will happen if Doug Ford wins this fight with teachers. I've had nightmares about it, end quote. Parents, teachers and students all want a government that works with educators to improve our kids' education. Why is the Premier so determined to move in the opposite direction of where everyone else wants this province to go? Mr. Speaker, if the aim of the Leader of the Opposition is to improve education, then I expect her to be the first member of the new Democratic Party to suggest that she stands with the government to oppose Regulation 274 that provides absolute seniority-based hiring when merit is not even in consideration. When qualification doesn't guide the hiring of new educators, certainly the Leader of the Opposition would accept that we could do better for teachers in this province. So we could hire candidates of merit, of qualification and of diversity in our schools. Mr. Speaker, in this negotiation, yes, we want to deal that keeps them in class. We want to deal that is good for our students. A deal that sees more investment in our schools not in heightened compensation, that is the priority of parents and we're going to stand up for that principle every day. The next question, the member for Essex. Thank you very much, Speaker. My question is to the Premier and Speaker. If the Premier thought the invisible license plates were bad, we're going to have to peel them off the ceiling after he hears this one, Speaker, because as the Premier knows, the Minister of Labor investigates cases where employers fail to pay their workers. One of those cases is from Oshawa in the 2018 election. The Ministry found that the Treasury Board President's own PC constituency association failed to pay an employee properly. The PCs only paid some of the wages of an employee that the Treasury Board had employed during the election campaign. They were so delinquent, in fact, Speaker, that the Ministry had to call in a collections agency to get this woman her wages, which, as of yesterday, she had still not been paid. Speaker, can the Premier tell us why his party officials are not paying PC staffers as is the law in Ontario? Allowing the question, it's the enforcement of the Ministry of Labor. Government House Leader. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Of course, this party will ensure that all the Ministry of Labor standards are met, Mr. Speaker. That's something that we've continued to focus on after 15 years of neglect through the coalition of the NDP and Liberal Party. But I think what is a sad spectacle today, Mr. Speaker, is to have, after the leadoff question, something like this, Mr. Speaker, when this province and this country is faced with economic struggles, when we have two million students who are going to be out of the classroom tomorrow, Mr. Speaker, the NDP chooses to focus slinging mud. I think it is a sad spectacle, the NDP. It is a sad illusion of the party that they used to be, Mr. Speaker. They used to be called the conscience of parliament. All they do right now, Mr. Speaker, is sling mud and that is why they have never been given the privilege of sitting on this side of the house after the one time that they did and the people will never go back. The official opposition asked a serious question. I would have assumed that they would have wanted to hear the answer. Supplementary question. Thank you very much, Speaker. The minister establishes a pattern. Not only do they not want to pay their teachers of the province, they don't want to pay their own staffers in their own party. I take no pleasure in this and I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there's actually more. Two weeks ago, the CTV News reported the same minister broke the rules when his staff tried to get the same constituency association to pay for likes on Facebook. This is as if following the rules is difficult for this minister. On the minister's constituency association financial statement, no mention of this woman's salary can be found. Today I've written to Elections Ontario to ask for a full investigation into the Pickering-Uxbridge PC Association's financial returns as to why there appears to be such a glaring error in them. Speaker, what will it take for this minister to simply follow the rules and will he let Elections Ontario pay why his financial statements are filed incomplete? President of the Treasury Board to apply. Mr. Speaker, thank you through you to the member opposite. I have seen this correspondence that you're referring to and I will make sure that the CFO of the Riding Association complies fully with anything that the Electoral Office may do. So I thank you for bringing it to our attention. The next question the member to Willow did. Thank you very much Mr. Speaker. My question this morning is for the Minister of Transportation. It's long been known that political gridlock between levels of government has prevented big projects from getting built. We understood this when we promised Ontarians that we would invest in key transit infrastructure. We knew it was possible. Last week the province took another step with the City of Toronto towards building our four priority subway lines. Speaker, could the minister tell us that's been made between the province and the City of Toronto? Mr. Transportation. Thank you Mr. Speaker and I'd like to thank the member from Willowdale for the question and I'm happy to bring everyone in this House up to speed on the progress that we've made to date with the City of Toronto. Our partnership with the City of Toronto is a key milestone in our plan to build public transit in the GTA. It is truly historic Mr. Speaker. In terms of discussion we finally have one single unified plan for subway expansion in Toronto. Our four priority projects constitute one of the largest undertakings in North America and last week the province and the City signed a preliminary agreement to deliver our unified transit plan. Today I'm pleased to announce that the province of Ontario in Hydro One Toronto Hydro and Enbridge have signed a memoranda of understanding to improve coordination of our four priority transit projects. Mr. Speaker, partnership and collaboration is the only way we continue to move forward for the progress that we have achieved to date. That's supplementary question. Thank you Mr. Speaker and thank you to the minister for that answer. Creating one single unified plan that all three levels of government can agree on is no easy feat but our government has managed to accomplish this. Our shared goal of addressing congestion and building better transit infrastructure has brought us to where we are today. We agree that building the Ontario Line the three stop subway extension the young north extension and the Eglinton west extension will provide the most relief for the most commuters. Can the minister tell us why our partnership and collaboration with the City of Toronto is so important to getting these projects built? Minister. Thank you again to the member for the question and I would like to acknowledge the Premier and Mayor Tory for their commitment to making this happen. Mr. Speaker, Toronto City Council did not just endorse our subway plan with an overwhelming majority but they also directed the city manager to work with us to and I quote identify all opportunities to accelerate the delivery of the expansion projects. There's urgency here Mr. Speaker drivers and commuters are in bottlenecks and we cannot wait anymore for a transportation system that's improved. We have the intention to work in collaboration with the City of Toronto within the biggest expansion of subway in the history of Canada. I would like also take this occasion to remind our federal partners that we are still waiting their commitment to finance 40% of our plan. Opportunity to remind our federal partners that we are still waiting for the administration of their 40% commitment to our plan. Thank you. Thank you Speaker and my question is to the Premier Speaker, Ontarians still want to know what the plan is to deal with this absurd license plate fiasco. Yesterday the Minister of Government and Consumer Services decided to dodge and ditch the media rather than answer questions about faulty license plates. While the cameras were waiting for the minister of government to remove the license plates, this government is botching their exciting new Tory blue license plates just like they are botching education, the Ontario autism program and everything else quite frankly that they touch. Safety should always be a priority even in the face of exciting new vanity plates. Ontarians deserve to know how this happened, what's being done about it and when it will be fixed. Thank you very much. I have to say in response to what we heard to the opposition member over there, we are focused on getting the job done and that's our number one priority and I'm telling you that I can confirm with you Speaker that Premier Ford has spoke to the President of 3M Canada on three separate occasions and we are seeking an immediate solutions to the issues that have been identified with their product. We are working together and quite frankly disappointed with 3M that we're all at this point but we are working we are working together to remedy the issue. The license plates were designed and tested with key stakeholders and mind speaker. We are not happy with the results and we are continuing to work hand in hand with 3M. Speaker we have heard concerns, we are listening right, we are taking concerns very seriously, we're frustrated and we're disappointed. Thank you. Thank you Speaker and again to the Premier, this faulty license plate is a glowing example of this government not taking accountability for its mistakes. The only thing that we've heard from the government is about their partnership with 3M and their technology. Technology which only a few days ago it is dizzying to watch this government flip through damage control strategies. What is the actual plan going to be? Plan B could have been to use the reportedly 16,000 new white license plates that were still in stock, however those plates got sent back and scrapped and they had been bought and paid for by taxpayers and this government decided to destroy them to get their blue vanity plates out fast, seemingly faster and could be exhaustively tested. This is a question that needs an answer. This kind of absurdity does not reflect well on this government or on its leadership. So what is the plan to fix these plates and keep people safe? Thank you very much Mr. Speaker and I'd like to share with the member opposite that we are continuing to work with 3M Canada. We're going to absolutely continue to listen to concerns, we're going to be continuously working diligently to remedy this situation. We're as frustrated and disappointed as anyone but we are going to work together on a path forward to make sure that we uphold the plates that have been designed and tested with key stakeholders in mind but we're also going to be taking into consideration the concerns that we have heard and again we're moving quickly with 3M to fix this situation. Thank you very much. Next question the member for Ottawa South. Thank you very much Mr. Speaker and my question is for the Premier and if I can take a moment I want to wish the Premier a speedy recovery by my count I think this is the fourth time you've hit the roof in the last year. And Speaker it's looking like he might get repetitive strain. So Speaker the license plate fiasco is emblematic of the Premier's record in government. Misplaced priority bad decision hastily implemented bad result autism same thing climate change same thing public health same thing education is harder in that direction so my question for the Premier is will he listen to Ontario families and keep class sizes small. Thank you Speaker Minister of Education I am behalf of the government. Thank you Speaker. Mr. Speaker in the last election the people of this province in their wisdom rendered a decision that they will not proceed with the Catholic Win Liberal government that had double the debt increased taxation the highest childcare spaces in the nation we saw more schools closed under one party than any government in the history of Ontario since Confederation and in their wisdom they chose a government that's focused on investing the people of this province more money in health care more money in education more money in the social services that are consequential to the lives of working people. Speaker under our plan we envision a positive commitment to education to see students succeeding getting jobs and being more productive in the economy that is our plan and it starts with keeping kids in class that's what we're fighting for at the negotiating table Speaker the supplementary question Speaker the license plate is a 12 by 6 piece of metal they can't even get the word Ontario big enough for cameras to read it so I get a little concerned when they start messing with things like education they can't get a license plate right so Speaker through you to the premier minister again parents are telling you we don't want larger class sizes they're saying we want to make sure that every child in the classroom gets the support that they need so they can all learn that child and my child as well too thank you for the NDP for a heckle too I know she's supportive of education thank you very much to the leader of the opposition thank you for your support parents don't want order I apologize to the member who heads the floor order the government side will come to order the official opposition will come to order the clock will start member ferrata wassup the official opposition is heckling a party that's got six members I haven't figured that out yet and not in government but they can explain to me they have to question period so parents don't want sorry I'm having too much fun here and parents don't want a half day plan for online learning thank you very much so my question to the premier is this will you listen to parents and just keep classrooms safe strong places for kids to learn thank you well thank you so much for the question I just want to remind the NDP the reason you have six people in the house because he destroyed this province you have to increase taxes you didn't increase taxes more than any government in the history of Ontario and the pie grow bills more than any government can ask the premier can ask the premier to recognize that I'm standing up and ask him to take his seat up the clock and I will ask the premier to address his comments through the chair start the clock and ask the premier to conclude his thanks through you Mr. Speaker they put us in debt and put every person up in this chamber and everyone in Ontario more debt than any other jurisdiction in the world $346 billion a debt of $15 billion deficit and they sit back and wonder why they have six members they're lucky to have six members government side will come to order restart the clock the next question the member for sarnia lampton my question is to the minister of infrastructure for years I had asked the win liberal government to listen to the concerns of our local municipalities and leaders to address the critical infrastructure needs to municipalities in sarnia lampton but instead the concerns had fallen on deaf ears with infrastructure of my riding being left crumbling to a state of disrepair Mr. Speaker minister I know we have committed to investing a historic $144 billion to things like transit roads and hospitals right across this great province over the next 10 years and I can say that this investment will have strong positive impact on the economic development of sarnia lampton improving our ability to attract investment can the minister please tell this house what infrastructure investments the Ontario government is making in my riding and across this province thank you minister of infrastructure thank you Mr. Speaker I'd like to thank the member from sarnia lampton for his important question and I am very proud to stand in this place today and tell this house that under Premier Ford's leadership and with this government we have nominated more than 350 projects to the federal government under the investing in Canada infrastructure program for final funding approval this includes 144 road bridge air and marine infrastructure projects and over 200 public transit projects for a total provincial investment of more than $480 million through the public transit and rural and northern streams of the infrastructure Canada program Mr. Speaker unlike the previous liberal government that we just heard about we are listening to the concerns of our municipal partners and are making significant investments in infrastructure while working to maximize the federal funds dollars that are available we're building and improving infrastructure programs projects that are important to all of us in Ontario so thank you Mr. Speaker and thank you minister for that response it's reassuring to be able to tell my colleagues that our government hears their calls for help loud and clear and we are actively delivering on long awaited infrastructure investments in Sarnia Lampton I was thrilled to announce recently that our government nominated 13 projects for final federal approval under the ISIP program two of these projects were under the rural and northern stream with over $2 million worth of provincial investments the other 11 projects were nominated under the public transit stream agreement Mr. Speaker I know these projects will attract investment and get people moving again minister Sarnia Lampton is getting tired of waiting when will the long awaited federal approval finally arrive so that the city of Sarnia and Lampton county can finally get their shovels in the ground minister thank you Mr. Speaker and thank the member again for his question and I understand the frustration of waiting that the member has and his constituents have as to why that less than a third of the more than 350 projects that have been nominated to the federal government for approval have not been completed but Mr. Speaker I remain optimistic that when the federal minister looks at these projects that we hope she already has that the approval Mr. Speaker has to be in the mail so I'm hoping the mail comes soon Mr. Speaker and the minute that I receive the formal written approval I will personally ensure that the member and his constituents for the 7.7 million dollars that they have been awarded from the provincial government anyway that they can move forward and they can put shovels in the ground they can build those projects because Mr. Speaker as you know infrastructure is a marquee part of our mandate on this side of the house and we understand how important it is thank you very much the next question the member for Brampton North thank you Mr. Speaker my question is to the premier I recently heard from the York Region School Board who is concerned that mandatory e-learning is going to be particularly hard on students who already face systemic and institutionary barriers to learning including indigenous black and racialized youth Mr. Speaker we are already suffering thanks to conservative cuts to education now this reckless plan to force even more kids out of the classroom is going to make things even worse why does this government continue to believe that they know better than the teachers the students the parents who are all calling for the same that this government stop this ridiculous plan the minister of education thank you obviously through the negotiation the aim of the government including on subject matter like online learning is to get a deal right now we are negotiating with two of our partners the aim is to get predictability and stability in the sector our kids should be in school when it comes to the vision and when it comes to the mission of our negotiating mandate it is to continue to see more investments under this progressive conservative government we expect better we expect greater levels of accountability for the tax dollars in the system right now over 60 cents we have seen over 80 cents the dollars spent on compensation we want to see a strong return we want to see more than 50% of grade 6 kids passing their math standards when it comes to online learning we believe one of the critical skill sets our young people need in the job market is greater influence on technological fluency so we are providing online learning for students in this province a supplementary question thank you Mr. Speaker again to the Premier it's not just students and parents in York and Peel region who don't want mandatory e-learning parents right across the province are saying that this isn't just a bad idea it's downright absurd two thirds of parents think mandatory e-learning will be bad for their kids and will have a negative effect on racialized students parents of black and racialized students need to be confident that their children will get the education that they rightfully deserve if the minister is truly listening to parents and students who are concerned about systemic racism in our schools he would not impose mandatory e-learning courses will the minister admit that his misguided e-learning program is a bad idea and stop trying to make life worse for Ontario families thank you to the member opposite for the question if we want to champion the interests of equity and diversity in this province then we will stand together in opposition to a regulation that gives no consideration for equity considerations of new teachers in this province we should speak with one voice demanding that in this negotiation 274 c some reform right now the system gives preference to union seniority and if we speak with a commitment to advance equity in the classroom to see educators reflecting the diverse needs of their communities then we will stand together, oppose this regulation and put students first in this negotiation the next question the member for Scarborough Gildwood thank you speaker my question is to the premier on the eve of international women's day the previous government made strides in supporting women and others who have traditionally been disadvantaged in the workplace we raise the minimum wage we enhance employment protections and we pass the pay transparency act to promote women's full and equal participation in the workforce unfortunately this government has rolled back these improvements to the labour force and to the advancement of gender equality in Ontario the wage increase was cancelled paid sick days have been slashed and the pay transparency act which has received royal assent has been suspended indefinitely and without explanation speaker can the premier explain why he decided not to enact the pay transparency act and will he commit to setting the date for the act to come into force by international women's day 8th this year the associate minister of children and women's issues thank you Mr. Speaker and thank you to the member for your question our government is committed to empowering all women and girls across Ontario while we live in a province that values inclusion and equal opportunity we know that women and girls in Ontario still face many barriers women remain underrepresented in political and corporate leadership and in some key sectors of our economy we also know that racialized women Indigenous women immigrant women and women living with disabilities tend to experience even greater barriers across our province we also know that women experience a disproportionate risk of violence as well and one in three women will experience sexual violence in their lifetime and Indigenous women being especially at risk we also know that gender stereotypes and gender biases develop early and affect the choices of girls and women and these biases follow women into the workplace addressing these kinds of systemic barriers and gender biases is imperative for achieving full gender equality in Ontario carry on Speaker I appreciate the members response and the awareness of the problem my question is what are you doing about it women still earn 74 cents to every a dollar a man earns in this province Speaker suspending this legislation fits in with a larger pattern that we have seen with this government they have cancelled planned increases to rape crisis centres cut funding to the Ontario college of midwives and slash billions of dollars of funding from social services and children's services in fact the word beer was mentioned three times more in the last budget than the word women in Ontario Speaker can the premier name a single action that his government has taken to promote gender equality in our province and will he and his minister of finance commit to putting the budget through a gender based lens Minister sorry minister of labour thank you very much Mr. Speaker let me remind the member opposite she was part of the government that was in power for 15 years Mr. Speaker and on the eve of the last election in 2018 they decided to raise this issue Mr. Speaker but for 15 years do you know what this party did Mr. Speaker 300,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in the province of Ontario Mr. Speaker from southwestern Ontario were hundreds of thousands of jobs were lost Mr. Speaker many women's jobs were impacted Mr. Speaker our plan for everyone in Ontario is working 300,000 jobs have been created in 18 months Mr. Speaker for the first time in over 10 years wages are going up in the province of Ontario for women and men and Mr. Speaker for the first time in 30 years we have the lowest unemployment rate in the province of Ontario thank you very much Mr. Speaker my question is to the associate minister of transportation transit is one of the biggest concerns of my constituents in the riding of Oakville people have been clear to me that they want adequate access to public transit so that they can get home and to work quickly and spend less time in traffic idling in their cars while they could be spending more time with their families I'm happy to hear that our government is making a commitment to build transit-focused communities which would add more homes and more jobs around transit stations can the minister please tell the house why it is so important to build transit-oriented communities in the GTA associate minister of transportation GTA thanks very much to the member for the question through you Mr. Speaker the greatest opportunities before the people in the GTA is building fast reliable public transit and more housing for people wanted the most near public transit on Tuesday we took a big step forward the minister of transportation tabled new legislation to build subway infrastructure faster as we make preparations to get shovels in the ground and build subways it's equally as important that we seize this opportunity to build stations the right way on January 30th Toronto City Council endorsed our memorandum of understanding for transit-oriented communities together in collaboration with the minister ministry of municipal affairs and housing we will be providing more transit and more homes the supplementary question thank you speaker and thank you to the minister I'm glad the minister and the government is committed to delivering transit-oriented communities and getting them built the right way building new transit stations with appropriate density and amenities for those who already live in the community isn't just good policy it's common sense especially for large municipalities like Toronto it's good to see some leadership on this file which will deliver more transit and more housing to things that all of us in the house we agree we need more of there are many reasons as to why this approach should be taken can the minister please inform the house of the great benefits that come when building transit-oriented communities around transit stations minister through you Mr. Speaker traditionally in the GTA stations have been built in isolation a lost opportunity through our transit-oriented communities program we will not only be bringing fast reliable transit to new communities but we will also be building communities around future subway stations the right way one thoughtful integrated approach transit-oriented communities will increase ridership reduce congestion create jobs a mix of housing and build complete communities based on good planning principles by living near transit Mr. Speaker you're not forced to buy a car for the auto insurance rates Mr. Speaker we are connecting people to places and making life easier and more affordable for the taxpayer thank you very much the next question the member for St. Catharines thank you speaker my question is to the Premier today we are joined by Kenneth who came all the way from St. Catharines Kenneth is a 72 year old senior who lives by himself in a one bedroom apartment in downtown St. Catharines he has lived in the apartment for over a decade but Kenneth's landlord is trying to evict him to undergo renavictions this is the second time Kenneth is faced with having to defend his home after the same company dropped the first claim throughout all of this Kenneth has been dealing with terminal cancer he just wants to spend the time he has left in his own home Premier why does this government think creating anxiety and doing nothing to protect vulnerable seniors like Kenneth from losing their homes to renavictions is okay members please take those seats the Attorney General thank you Mr. Speaker and I want to thank the member opposite for raising the concerns of constituents we've heard concerns of their other constituents and others that they've brought up in the House we know that a house is more than a house a house is a home we know that's important to people there is a process in place there are rules in place there are rules to be followed and decisions to be made so without knowing the very specifics of that situation Mr. Speaker I can tell you this that when somebody is renovating there are rules around order let the property be upgraded and there are robust rules and they've been in place for some time so I'm happy to chat with the member about the specific concern and see if there's anything we can do of course if it's an active file we can't intervene in that thank you Mr. Speaker the supplementary question thank you Mr. Speaker and I'm glad the minister will chat with me but I'd like him to give answers to Kenneth he will not be able to afford another 500 square foot bachelor apartment in his current building since new listings are doubled the price he is paying now since taking office this government has sided with developers time and time again they have done nothing nothing to make life better for tenants like Kenneth this government has scrapped rent control on new units by allowed rents to skyrocket and they have created an environment that encourages landlords to pursue aggressive and illegal renovations like the one that is happening to Kenneth and thousands of other people across this province Premier what are you going to do to help people like Kenneth and the people all across this province who are suffering from illegal renovations bullying politics members please take their seats the Attorney General part of this dynamic in Ontario is that we don't have enough rental housing this is part of the challenge and we are moving to fix that we need more spaces for people to rent we need to have places that people rent be up to standard it's critical that we have properties up to standard and sometimes you have to have a property renovated we are moving it up to standard and again I don't know the specifics of this situation but we do know across Ontario we are hearing from builders that they want to build rental housing stock but there's so many things in the way that's why the housing supply action plan is so critical 17,000 new units it is incredible what the minister of municipal affairs and our team has done so I look forward to creating more opportunity for people to rent across Ontario the next question the member for Hastings thank you Mr. Speaker my question today is for the solicitor general this Saturday February 22nd is human trafficking awareness day in Ontario this offers an opportunity for all of us in this house all sides to learn more and raise awareness about human trafficking let's be clear human trafficking is a crime the predominately affects young women and girls communities across this province and around the world indeed about two thirds of all reported cases of human trafficking in Canada are right here in Ontario Mr. Speaker we all have a role to play in combatting this issue and it's a cause that I was proud to champion while serving as the member of parliament in Ottawa and here in the legislature with all of my colleagues who are so engaged with this issue can the solicitor general share how our government is working with community leaders and partners to bring awareness to this disgusting crime the question the solicitor general thank you and thank you to the member from Hastings I know that you understand and appreciate how important this is but it is also critical that we share that information with all citizens in Ontario earlier today my friend and colleague the minister the associate minister of children, youth I attended a pop-up and it was hosted by Covenant House and Covenant House is raising awareness about human trafficking this is not just going to be led and solved through government intervention this is going to take multiple partners and when organizations like Covenant House today are stepping up and raising awareness about human trafficking it helps all of us because people need to understand how critically vile this crime is when the average age is 13 years old that's how old people are when they start to engage in and bring our young people into human trafficking so shout out and congratulations to Covenant House there are many other partners our premier and our government has made a commitment to tackle this heinous crime head on and I am very much looking forward to working with all of our colleagues hopefully on both sides of the house to bring awareness to it and ultimately shut down this crime supplementary question I certainly would like to thank the minister for her attention to this file and I'm sure that all members in this house will agree that raising public awareness of human trafficking is an integral part of protecting public awareness from exploitation however that awareness isn't just enough action is necessary that comes with the need to tackle the roots of the problem intervening early supporting survivors and holding offenders accountable Mr. Speaker that's no easy undertaking it's a momentous task and it requires very strong leadership that's why I was pleased that the Solicitor General and the Associate Minister for Women and Children were named co-leads in the development of a provincial plan to help combat human trafficking can the Solicitor General update this house on her progress to date Thank you our first priority we committed $20 million each and every year to services to support victims and hold offenders accountable this funding is a suite of investments that we are making to combat human trafficking and child sexual exploitation and end violence against women support victims of violence and exploitation and end gun and gang activity along with Premier Ford Attorney General Doug Downey and Minister Dunlop we recently convened a round table with key sectorial partners including law enforcement and victim services to share ideas best practices on how we can develop this plan I look forward to sharing more of those in the weeks and months ahead Thank you to member for Thunder Bay Attic Hoken Thank you Speaker My question is for the Premier Students and parents in my writing are very concerned about this government's cuts to education Pia Erichela is one of the many parents that have contacted my office she wrote to me and said the Ontario education system cannot continue to be cut and cut and cut as the years go on we are not going to develop a future society and workforce and we are not insured that the quality education is forefront in the provinces decisions and actions when will the Premier stop the cuts invest in education and invest in our children's future The question we responded to by the Minister of Education Thank you Speaker and thank you to the member opposite for the question Mr Speaker how we achieve an improved education system with better outcomes for the investments the taxpayers that this province are making is by ensuring it is modern by ensuring we are transforming it and aligning it with the labour market needs of our economy how we do that is ensuring that when we select educators in this province we choose the best teacher for the job we ensure that qualification tries over union seniority this negotiation how we maintain a good education system is by protecting in writing full day kindergarten in this province by ensuring the more money flows we provide in schools and curriculum in our kids not in heightened compensation for the second highest rate educator in the nation Speaker how we improve education is ensuring accountability for the student delivering more investment for our schools and our kids and that's what we are trying to do but first and foremost speaker requires a good deal that we are fighting for that keeps kids at class Supplementary question Thank you Speaker Back to the Premier Yeah like many parents across the north don't want to hear more talking points from this government what they want is a government to get back to the bargaining table stop the cuts and start investing in our children's future Pia went on to say the recent announcement about class sizes and online learning course requirements for high school students is the worst possible thing to happen for students in 18s do not have the necessary skills or discipline required to be successful on online courses they require face to face encouragement and connections to succeed in learning and I couldn't agree with Pia Moore Will the Premier commit to helping students succeed and reverse this government cuts Minister We are going to ensure our students succeed speaker by continuing to progress more than ever before in public education we are going to do that by announcing a four year math strategy to lift math scores after a decade of stagnation to the former Liberal government we are going to build new schools after the larger schools for closure policy in the history of Ontario we are going to demand better for the taxpayer, for the parent for the students of this province we are going to fight hard for merit to be the guiding principle with our kids do better that they have access to high wage good paying jobs, that's our vision that's our mission and the goal is to keep kids in class The next question My question is to the Minister of Infrastructure as you know there are more than 420 small rural and northern communities across Ontario almost all of these communities face challenges in building, maintaining and repairing critical local infrastructure such as roads, bridges water and wastewater systems investing in community based infrastructure projects helps these rural municipalities to tend to attract support and sustain economic growth and job creation Ontario's economy has thrived leading the country in jobs and economic growth every person in Sarenya Lampson and every region in this province can share in this prosperity with all of this house how our government is supporting small rural and northern communities across Ontario through investments to build, maintain and repair local roads, bridges, water and wastewater systems Thank you Thank you Mr. Speaker and I would like to thank the member from Sarenya Lampson for his question As Minister of Infrastructure I often hear from municipalities that they need sustainable funding and reliable transit in their communities and that is why in November our government advised eligible municipalities about their total formula funding for 2020 through the Ontario Community Infrastructure Fund This almost $200 million in funding will allow communities to move forward with critical infrastructure projects while providing flexibility to address their unique needs On January 17th the Premier Ford and I joined the TPP from Parisell, Muskoka to announce up in Muskoka the OSIF 2020 allocations for all 424 eligible communities With this funding we are working directly with our municipal partners who can choose where to invest their 2020 Community Infrastructure Funding Program Thank you Mr. Speaker Well thank you Speaker and thank you Minister for that information Minister I was thrilled to learn that over $6.1 million of OSIF funding formula funding was allocated to eight municipalities in my writing Among those communities in Sarenya Lampson receiving funding the City of Sarenya will receive nearly $3 million The Township of St. Clair will receive more than $1.1 million and the County of Lampson almost $1.1 million as well In addition the Village of Oil Springs the Village of Pointe-Everd the Township of Venice-Killum will receive almost $1 million in provincial infrastructure funding combined Can the Minister please explain how this important funding can improve the current condition of the aging infrastructure in the communities of Sarenya Lampson Thank you Thank you again Mr. Speaker This is an important question to ask for the member from Sarenya Lampson and you know what predictability and stability in community infrastructure funding is a long way for our small rural and northern communities We've all heard this from the Association of Municipalities Convention, from the Rural Ontario Municipal Association Delegations at our local agriculture fairs and whenever we have an opportunity to meet with our municipal partners Mr. Speaker the Ontario Community Infrastructure Fund was carefully designed to directly address the local priorities of our small rural and northern communities who face unique challenges in getting infrastructure built The Ontario Community Infrastructure Fund is an excellent example of how formula-based funding helps all 424 eligible communities build maintain their local roads and bridges, critical water wastewater systems and providing the municipalities with their allocations in a timely manner Thank you very much The member from London West Thank you Speaker My question is to the Minister of Education Speaker, parents and students in my community are overwhelmingly opposed to mandatory online learning Lindsay, a London West parent said, our young people are suffering from greater anxiety, depression and suicide rates than ever before Why would we want them out of classes for the support of teachers and classmates? Brad, another London West parent told me my children have the right to be taught by a human being not a screen George, a grade 10 student in my writing wrote to me that teachers are required for our learning I can't count the number of times I've looked to a teacher for help Speaker, will the government listen to parents and students to plan to fire teachers and force e-learning Minister of Education We want to ensure that our young people have access to the competencies required in the job market We know, having spoken to for-profit and non-profit leaders in the economy that they say to us that technological fluency is a critical competency required to get access to the jobs of the future We agree Mr Speaker That's why we're offering a diversity of courses to students that in London perhaps would otherwise have access to those courses in that region We're offering a gold standard of courses We're also ensuring that there's exceptions built-in so that not all kids have to take those courses Mr Speaker, we're ensuring high-speed internet is at every high school in the province at the start of this program in September of 2020 and Mr Speaker the courses we're developing will not require internet in order to use them This is a program for every student It's a program to incent participation in the economy and to do to get our young people job ready for the economy of tomorrow Mr Speaker, one of the many things that this minister fails to recognize about its ill-advised mandatory e-learning plan is that it is fundamentally unfair to students whose families cannot afford high-speed internet at home This is from an email from Luke Blank a 29-year-old London West resident He said, quote, growing up poor meant that I didn't have internet access and didn't even have a home computer until I got a job to pay for it myself If I were faced with mandatory e-learning, it's almost guaranteed I would have flunked Mr Speaker, why is this government plowing ahead with a plan that will marginalize and further disadvantage low-income students Mr Speaker, we are driving forward with a plan that ensures that the best educators in the front of class that is a common-sense principle which we believe parents want us to champion at the negotiating table The best way to unleash the potential of students in London in every region of this province is to ensure that Merritt guides the hiring of our educators in this province in 2020 That is an expectation that parents have and it's one that we're prepared to meet This negotiation, we want to make sure that Merritt drives the decision-making and that ultimately the best educator is the one chosen to be at the front of their class That concludes our question period for today I hope it's a point of order Point of order Mr Speaker, I'd like to congratulate my sister Dr. Marta Brown and my brother-in-law Jesse Brown on the birth of the first child My nephew David Zev Brown and the first of the next generation of Babers and Bronze was born on February 13th 7 pounds, 7 ounces and at his brist and baby naming ceremony early this morning Mom and baby are doing great and I couldn't be happier Thank you Mr. Speaker That is in recess until 1pm


What's up, everyone? It's your girl Kenzie here from Leighton Sports Cards, and I'm ripping a personal here for Tyler F We've got a 2022 Panini select UFC hotty box. Alrighty Tyler best of luck. Here we go. Oh No, she's born into a Steelers family, so she's gonna be a Steeler fan Gotta be Where are families from? Here we go. Good luck. I must have missed the question Bradley. What was it? Neal rookie got auto Tony Ferguson on the octagon action signatures First auto up there for you Tyler and tri-color of sonan Yeah, mainly Steelers Steelers family here because Enes and we got Shevchenko on the silver. Oh and Patriots Could be base Reggae's tri-color rookie of Sean Strickland middleweight division Jones out of 199. We've got silver patch auto of Michael Chandler from the lightweight Division his patch auto there and we've got bronze rookie of Cori and McKenna That is 23 of 175 on the straw-weight women's division a Little icons on collab, and we've got scope of Muhammad And silver could be on the premiere level nice one there for you Tyler Got a patty patty rookie base premiere level and tri-color of Twi Vasa Last weekend I thought it was gone Maybe we've got a book car and I'm a gamut off. Is it gone a or gone for G the fighter G and We've got green Usman and new Green rookie. Oh gosh. Is this a Chris Dawkins. I thought it was patty for a second. I thought I saw his hair two out of five. There you go, Tyler Two of five green on the premiere level Chris Dawkins The heavyweight very nice rookie Heck yeah, we'll mag this one for you because patty stance is kind of like that too on this card I'm pretty sure and Yeah, the hair is the same color at the very top.  Pax left karma Gregor We've got a Holly Holm on the silver patch here and silver Michael this being PC O'Neill silver comms at Chameleon nice one there and last I was wander back this week. So gone Usman We've got Tom Aspinall on the octagon side and ending it with a red Phil Hawes rookie premiere level 57 of 125 Alright Tyler that will do it for your UFC box again. Congrats on the green rookie. Thanks for hopping in and we'll get this right out to you


My name is Manu Sjeknacht. I'm 28 years old. I'm doing calisthenics and functional fitness now for over 10 years. I'm one of the founders from Bardogs and now the CEO of Bardogs Syrch and provide here classes or students and personal trainings and as you see an open trim for everyone. So my training looks like in a split. I train legs and upper body splitted. I train once for the calisthenics skills, but otherwise also for one rep max. So for power. So in the beginning the inspirations are getting from other athletes to see what they reached and now I think the inspiration is the Bardogs family just to keep that vibe up, push it more and more and get bigger. Back then with 18 years when I started I wasn't that fit. I was really skinny. Yeah, it wasn't that healthy lifestyle that I have today. For learning calisthenics skill or the front lever, I think the best fate is to actually come to Bardogs and learn it from the coaches here or from the people because here you get the input you personally need on yourself. This video will give you five tips on how to shoot a professional interview with your phone. For this video I reached out to Manu who's a good friend of mine to interview him. He's the founder of Bardogs Syrch where he teaches others how to master calisthenics and is pretty awesome what he has achieved so far. I used to film a lot of his content for him. And I remembered when he just started out. So it's nice to see the transformation. Now the video you just saw at the beginning was all shot on the iPhone using a couple of accessories. And I believe that anyone with a smartphone can do the same. Smartphones nowadays can capture high quality videos if done right without the need to hire a video production team. Now with these five simple tips that I'm about to show you, you will be able to instantly make better interview videos for yourself with your smartphone. Now keep in mind that this is a condensed version. If you want to dive in deeper and learn more on how to professionally film and edit an interview, you will find the two-hour long extended version inside smartphonefilmmaking.com which is my awesome online course where I give you a behind the scenes and explain to you all the details on how to set up shoot and edit an interview. So if you like what you're seeing make sure to check it out. With that said, let's get into those five tips. Now tip number one is to use a professional video app. I can't stress this enough being able to have full control over your camera allows you to get the shots you need. The Filmic Pro is a great video app that I personally use that gives you full control over your exposure, focus, shutter speed, picture profile, wide balance and much more. Also if you plan on doing a documentary for Netflix and want to include some of your iPhone footage, Netflix even recommends using Filmic Pro. You can only do so much with the native camera app and I do use it from time to time but for professional shoots it's best to stick with Filmic Pro. At first glance it might seem overwhelming with all of its features but with the basic understanding and simple process you can get some really great results. I also cover this in my course showing you everything there is to know about Filmic Pro. Now tip number two is to shoot in 24 or 25 frames per second. Now since I'm in Europe I stick with the PAL format which is 25 frames per second. A lot of people have the tendency to shoot everything in 60 frames per second which gives you the flexibility to slow down the video in post whenever you like to but when it comes to shooting interviews you want to record the talking head part in 24 or 25 frames per second to avoid audio sync issues. This applies if you're recording audio separately. You'll realize that the audio won't match up properly with the person talking and that is a pain to fix in post. So with that said if you plan on slowing down your footage shoot at a higher frame rate if you film more narrative type of videos where you have a person talking to the camera stick with 24 or 25 frames per second. Tip number three is to shoot with more than one camera if possible. Now you don't need multiple cameras to shoot a great interview but if you have an additional camera use it. I use the iPhone 13 Pro Max as my A cam and the iPhone 12 Pro Max as my B cam to capture manual from different angles. This not only makes the video more dynamic when cutting between the different cameras but also simplifies the edit and makes the talent look more comfortable on camera. And also if one camera fails you still have the backup camera that recorded all of the interview. Now tip number four is to capture B roll. To help tell the story better and keep the audience engaged you want to capture enough B roll. You want to pay attention to what the interviewee is saying so that you can capture the content you need to support the story. Having enough B roll will also make the edit easier. For example if the talent scratches his face while answering the question or does something weird with his hands you can overlap that part with a B roll but of course you want to avoid that in the first place and let the talent know about it. Now tip number five is to capture clean audio. Audio has half the viewing experience but unfortunately gets often forgotten. Now if you can avoid using the built-in mic on your smartphone. It does produce decent audio quality and can be used in certain scenarios but if you want the best audio quality possible I recommend investing in a good microphone. For this interview I use the Rode Wireless Go which is a wireless mic that allows me to place the microphone close to the talent's mouth. This way I can capture clean crisp audio while having the talent further away from the camera but you can of course use something cheaper such as a wired mic like the Rode Lavalier Plus with an extension cable to get clean audio. Important to keep in mind is that with bad audio you will quickly lose the attention of your audience. As a bonus tip make sure to always bring a power bank with you. You don't want the limitations of your battery to cut an interview short. It's sometimes hard to predict how long an interview might take and if you additionally want to capture b-rolls this will take an entire day to do and using an app like Filmic Pro can drain a lot of battery. Many people ask me why I use the DJI OM4 instead of the DJI OM5. Well the OM4 allows me to charge my phone either while shooting or not and for me it's convenient to have everything in one. Now I personally enjoy shooting interviews on a phone as there are many advantages to it. Some of them being that people feel much less intimidated by a smartphone since most people carry one in their pockets and are therefore familiar with it. I can also get a more natural reaction from the talent and helps make the video look more authentic. Now with that said guys if you want to learn more head over to smartphonefilmmaking.com the epic online course where you will learn everything there is to shooting cinematic and professional looking videos on your smartphone. Now if you're new to making mobile videos make sure to also download my free smartphone filmmaking guide that will help you get started making quality videos with your phone. Also make sure to hit that subscribe button as this will help me make more valuable content for you guys. If you have any further questions let me know in the comments.  I appreciate you keep it mobile and I will see you in the next video. So I want to thank Manu for helping out in this video. Thank you so much man you can also follow him on Instagram at Manu statics if you guys want to. Thanks Bennett. Hey anytime. See you at our training soon. Oh man I like eating McDonald's.


I am delighted to be here. Thank you to the organizers, and please take note of the little footnote at the bottom of the first slide. So I'm going to talk about some of the work that my colleagues and I have been doing for a number of years now, maybe like a decade or so, and they have crystallized recently into two books. One came out earlier this year called Taming the Tide of Capital Flows, and it's published by MIT Press, for those of you who are interested. And the other is coming out in January of next year called Confronting Inequality, and I think you can pre-order it on Amazon already. It's going to be published by Columbia University Press. So I'm going to go on by mutual agreement for slightly more than 15 minutes, but we'll end on time. And the work that I'm going to be talking about is technical in nature. It's been published in peer-reviewed economics journals, but my talk is going to be policy-oriented. So I'm going to give you the main messages of the work. I'm not going to torture you with detail. So I did my PhD 30, 35 years ago at the University of Chicago, and the sort of first line on this slide was really something that was drilled home to me, that basically economists should worry about growth rather than about its distribution. And what lies behind that is the idea that growth will trickle down and also that redistribution is fundamentally antithetical to growth. When Tom Sargent won his Nobel Prize, he gave a talk, and I don't think I do too much of an injustice to say he talked about some basic economic truths, and one of them is pretty close to the idea that you are undercut incentives with redistribution at your peril. Now, there's a lot of uncertainty about what delivers growth, but at sort of 30,000 feet, I think there is some degree of confidence on the part of economists' quay policy advisors about what some important ingredients are for growth, and they include sort of unleashing the supply side of the economy through structural reforms like liberalization and deregulation, making yourself open to global forces, be it in goods markets or factor markets, capital, labor, and so forth, and also having macroeconomic stability, having policies that are not going to let public debt get out of hand that are not going to lead to high or runaway inflation. And the origins of these kinds of views, I think, go back a long way. I've put some quotes up here that are nearly 100 years old, and some of them will be familiar to you, but the last one may be slightly less familiar, and it's something that I did hear Bob Lucas say once in a class, and it's basically, let me read it, of the tendencies that are harmful to sound economics, the most seductive, and in my opinion the most poisonous, is to focus on questions of distribution. So let me just advertise that what I plan to do is politely disagree with that last quote. So just some basic facts. I think policymakers around the world have digested the main message about how you set the stage for strong and healthy growth through deregulation, and a circumscribed role for the state. What I'm going to argue for instead is that economists and policymakers essentially have to walk and chew gum at the same time. They're going to have to focus on two things. So far from it being the case that it's a poisonous thing to do, to look at questions, or take seriously questions of distribution, I think it's going to be essential going forward to consider how we lay the foundations for healthy growth and a healthy distribution of income. And I think one of the things that I think my colleagues will talk about more as we go forward is the fact that we're increasingly recognizing that virtually every economic policy on which we are called upon to provide advice poses some degree of an equity efficiency tradeoff. So we see this in policies that are really designed to spur growth, whose main primary target is to expand the size of the pie, but even for those policies, we need to think more about sort of the distributional consequences of those kinds of policies. If for no other reason than, as I'm going to argue in just one second, questions of distribution have a direct impact on the sustainability and level of growth. So you ignore distributional questions at your peril, because the key to sustained growth, a key to sustained growth is that you not get let inequalities at the national level get out of hand. There's another stream in this work, which relates to globalization, opening yourself up to global forces. And I think we all recognize now that globalization is something that hasn't worked for everybody, for all individuals or households in countries. But most of the discussion has been about trade. And the point of a block of this talk later is really going to argue that financial globalization needs to be part of the discussion about how globalization is inclusive or not. It's not enough just to talk about trade. It's important to talk about the globalization of finance, the growth in cross-border capital flows. I'm not going to talk much about the last bullet on this slide, but suffice to say, one of the themes of some work that I've been engaged in, including an economic journal paper that came out a couple of years ago, is that there is too much obsession about driving public debt levels to very low levels, especially in countries that have what I call adequate fiscal space, i.e. countries where there's very little real prospect of a sovereign default, not even a remote prospect. Even in such countries, we see governments driving public debt to ever lower levels by running overall budgetary surpluses. And if you do a cost-benefit analysis of those kinds of policies, the welfare effects would be enhanced, rather, if countries learn to live with their level of public debt, even if it is high and let debt ratios decline organically through economic growth rather than trying to engineer declines by running overall budgetary surpluses. So recognizing that I'm not going to get through everything, let me tell you the main results of these different work streams. One is that fragile economic growth and inequality are two sides of the same coin. So if you have in mind to get growth going and hope that distributional problems will kind of look after themselves, that is a dangerous gamble. So think of really what policymakers are trying to engineer in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. They're trying to bring back a situation where the market can function well, where the financial sector can do its job, and so forth. And they recognize that before the financial crisis, globalization and market forces had not delivered inclusive growth, so they have a footnote to this strategy, which is that we will do better in trying to deliver a broadly shared prosperity going forward. And what my point is that you actually have to engender policies that are going to bring about the distributional goals that you have. It's not enough to say, let's just get market forces functioning well again in the way they were in the Great Moderation and think that merely in so doing, we will solve the distributional problems that were a factor in the run up to the crisis. A second thing, as I said, is that many policies engender growth equity trade-offs, and I won't repeat myself. I've said most of what is already in this slide. Now, when we began working on questions about inequality and what the causes of rising national inequalities were, frankly, what we expected to find, which is something that we had been told over and over again, is that the main culprits related to technology and to trade. And one of the things that we learned in the process of doing this work is that this is a much hairier and multifaceted problem that has many more causes than just technology and trade. And some of them are listed here, and some of them I'm going to talk about, including finance, including economic reforms. But just to say that many things are in play in the rise of national inequalities, not only trade and technology. And if you were of the view that rising national inequalities is an issue that is confined to specific measures of inequality or only a handful of countries across the globe, what our work shows is actually it's a phenomenon that can be seen across a range of measures of national inequalities and across a range of countries developing, developed, emerging. And why, you know, if you are a policymaker who believes that the kind of economic model that we had before the global financial crisis is exactly the kind of economic model that we want to engender ongoing prosperity going forward, I think there is something that you need to worry about if you are such a policymaker, which is that the fact that that economic model did not engender shared prosperity might give rise to the kinds of political and policy pressures that we are seeing in a number of countries recently, the rise of protectionism, the rise of inward looking policies, the rise of nativism. So if you believe that those kind of tendencies threaten the economic model that was in place before the global financial crisis, then even if you don't care about distributional questions per se, you should care about the, you're forced to care about the issues of rising inequality because it will come to threaten the model that you hold dear. Okay. Now, there's some obvious connections to ongoing debates. Many people, not everyone, but many people worry about the moral and social costs of rising inequality. And one of the things that our work shows is that there is a direct economic cost to rising inequality in the form of slower and less sustainable economic growth. As I mentioned, there's plenty of talk about retreats from globalization. It focuses mainly on trade and to some extent migration. Let us bring finance into the discussion. It is important. And in fact, there is a there is another aspect to this, which is that the mobility of capital across borders may make it harder for governments to remedy some of the distributional consequences, the adverse distributional consequences from globalization. So if a policymaker says with a straight face, let us embrace globalization, but we will do better on inclusion going forward. We have to ask, well, how exactly is that going to be occurring? Because the globalization of finance and the fact that it may lead to a race to the bottom on taxation and to a smaller role for the state in the economy, that may make it harder for governments to actually remedy the distributional consequences of rising integration. Okay, I'm going to zoom through. You have a map now of what I plan to say. This is this is this next block is draws on the lead article in the current issue of the Journal of Economic Growth. So if you're interested, you can you can turn to it there. It goes through sort of many different exercises that we're trying to look at empirical connections amongst the level of inequality, the level or sustainability of growth episodes, and the extent of redistributive fiscal policies that governments choose. And basically what it finds is that high or rising inequality leads to both lower and less sustainable growth, that the direct effect of redistributive policies unless they are extreme are benign. So the leak in Arthur Oaken's bucket in his famous book many decades ago called Equality and Efficiency, that leak, what gets lost when you transfer resources from the rich to the poor is actually pretty small in practice unless you're doing a lot of redistribution to begin with. And that the indirect effect of redistributive policies through the greater equality that those policies engender are highly protective of growth, both the level of growth and the sustainability of growth. So I'm not that's that's the it in a nutshell. Second block relates to structural forms. And I merely want to plant the idea in your head that virtually any policy, whether it is a product market reform, a labor market reform, a trade reform, a financial sector reform, a cross border capital reform, all of these policies are not only going to affect the size of the pie, but are going to affect the way that what each person gets in that aggregate pie. And if I'm right, that how the pie gets divided has a bearing on the sustainability and level of economic growth, then it behooves policymakers to design even policies that are that are geared to the aggregate size of the pie that have nothing prima facie to do with distribution, it behooves them to design those policies with distributional consequences in mind, perhaps designing reform packages, where the winners and losers across different reforms are not the same individuals or households. And when you look at this question empirically, you do find strong evidence of the existence of these equity efficiency tradeoffs across a range of reforms. Okay, let me say a few words about gender. Some of you will have heard a recent speech by Narayana Coach Lakota, in which he talked about the need for macroeconomics to pay more attention to gender issues. And we on this panel are very sympathetic to that idea. It struck us, you know, when we were thinking through how does bringing more women into the labor force enhance the growth potential of economies, we were struck that many of the exercises that were trying to figure out a quantified answer to that question really treated women as if they are perfectly homogeneous with men. So really it was almost a headcount story. And what we wondered was whether, you know, if as my boss, Christine Lagarde says that women bring different skills and talents and traits to the table when they enter the labor force, be it on corporate boards or anywhere else, then the notion that women and men are perfect substitutes, as sort of a standard aggregate production function assumes you sum the headcounts of women and men and you put labor in there and see, you know, when you add more women, labor goes up, good for growth. But if they are imperfect substitutes, then, you know, an initially scarce factor like women would have a greater positive effect on economic growth than adding an additional man, the plentiful factor. And so we wanted to ask, well, what do the data say about the degree of substitutability between women and men? And what we find using macro economic data, sectoral data and firm level data, is that the data speak fairly loudly on this issue, and women and men are not perfect substitutes in production. And so the gains from adding women to the labor force from removing barriers to female labor force participation are actually larger than you would think if you were doing these simple headcount type of exercises as many previous papers have done. And to boot, if you think of a multi-sector model where there is home production, which you need to assess welfare benefits, and different sectors of the economy, say services and non-services that differ in the intensity with which they use female in the production process, then what you're going to find is that the welfare costs of barriers to female labor force participation are larger than you would have thought using a simple headcount type of exercise. And so this is basically what this new line of work is showing. It will be released at our annual meetings in Bali the month after next. But basically we show theoretically how the degree of substitutability affects the welfare and GDP types of gains that you get from raising female labor force participation rates. We believe that the empirical evidence that we deduce is consistent with a lot of microeconomic literature on the substitutability between women and men. We present empirical evidence using these three different data sets showing that the elasticity of substitution is rather low. And we quantify the gains GDP and welfare from reducing barriers to female labor force participation rates. Let me also add that the interpretation of history based on our estimates is rather different. Think of the solo residual and think of comparing a model where you're summing men and women as if they were perfect substitutes. You're going to attribute the gains apart from those due to the augmentation of factors of production to technology. But if women and men are in fact imperfect substitutes, what you attribute to technology is actually going to be partly due to reductions in barriers to female labor force participation that have occurred through history. So that's a sort of interesting interpretation of the historical evidence. You know, the estimated barriers to female labor force participation have costs that differ across regions and countries, and we were able to estimate those. This is the sort of takeaways from this, but I've already talked about it. Let me spend a minute on financial globalization since I did a lot of advertising for it at the beginning. Let me just say that again, here we are trying to get at a causal interpretation of how financial globalization affects the size of the pie and its distribution. Causal interpretation, we're going to be doing that with macroeconomic data where imparting a causal interpretation is quite challenging. But we're also going to be looking at sectoral data to buttress the causal interpretation. And we're going to have several identification strategies. One is going to relate, I think the most important one is going to relate to the changing bargaining power of labor when you open up to foreign capital. And I mentioned this at the beginning of my talk. When firms can threaten to relocate abroad, the bargaining power of labor is much reduced. And we can try and assess this channel by looking at how firms in different sectors of the economy respond to idiosyncratic shocks, respond in the form of laying off workers. And so firms that tend to lay off a lot of workers when there's an adverse idiosyncratic shock that hits them, workers that work in such firms and sectors have very little bargaining power. And when you open up to capital, you can see how these natural layoff rates evolve. And you can get some idea of how financial globalization is actually playing out through this bargaining channel in the data. There are other ways to identify. There's technology. Obviously, the elasticity of substitution between labor and capital has an important bearing if it is greater than one on interpreting these declining labor shares that we have seen. So the larger is the elasticity of substitution, the larger is the expected decline in the labor share when you open up to foreign capital and the price of capital drops as a result. There is even a third identification strategy which relates to the external financial dependence of firms operating in different sectors of the economy. The greater the external financial dependence, the larger are going to be both the aggregate and distributional consequences of financial globalization. And in a nutshell what we find and we torture the data 50,000 ways is the aggregate effects consistent with much of the empirical literature. There's a whole chapter in the Taming the Tide Book on this very question. The aggregate effects seem to be a drop in the bucket when you ask the data is financial globalization a supply enhancing policy? It's very difficult at that level of generality for the data to speak loudly. But the distributional consequences are indeed palpable, likely reflecting one or more of the three channels that I mentioned before. And this is related, this is a paper in the AER papers and proceedings from a couple years ago where we argued that financial crises that occur in the aftermath of financial opening ups, financial opening episodes are quite costly in terms of economic growth and it stands to reason that economic crises are rarely particularly good for the poor. I mentioned the fact that financially open countries may find it much more challenging to engage in the kinds of redistributive policies that are essential in a globalized world. Not going to spend more than one second on this part but merely to say when you have a lot of fiscal space, when you're what Moody's the rating agency calls when you are in a green zone, they have used the methodology that is in our EJ paper to classify countries whether they are green zone, yellow zone or red zone in terms of their prospect of facing a default or fiscal crisis going forward. When you are in a green zone the cost benefit calculus of paying down the public debt and this is in a model that Joe Stiglitz when he discussed this paper said was actually stacked to yield the opposite result. In such a model the cost benefit analysis actually suggests that you're better off from a welfare standpoint to live with high levels of public debt than to engineer fiscal surpluses to pay it down. The welfare costs of the transition to getting to lower public debt are actually higher than the welfare gains in perpetuity from that lower level of public debt that you have once you get there until eternity. Okay last slide. High inequality and low and fragile growth are two sides of the same coin. It's a dangerous gamble therefore to go for growth and assume equity will take care of itself. Fear of using fiscal redistribution is overblown. In fact on average in the data redistribution is a pro-growth policy through the greater equality it engenders. The leak in Arthur Oaken's bucket has not been that large in practice. The evidence on financial globalization, the costs in terms of increased volatility are high, the output benefits seem elusive and are shared unevenly and the other effects might include a race to the bottom on taxes and the reduced ability of the state to carry out essential functions. Be cognizant of growth equity trade-offs across a range of reforms and on macro policies the case for paying down public debt when fiscal space is ample is weak. Better simply to increase the rate of loss and to increase the rate of loss and increase the rate of loss of the state to the bottom on tax and tax ratios to decline organically through economic growth. Thank you very much.


The stakes on climate change just simply couldn't be any higher than they are right now. It is existential. We use that word too easily, and we throw it away.  And President Biden is deeply committed, totally seized by this issue, as you can tell by this executive order, and by the other initiative of getting back into Paris immediately. That's why he rejoined the Paris Agreement so quickly, because he knows it is urgent. He also knows that Paris alone is not enough. Not when almost 90 percent of all of the planet's emissions, global emissions, come from outside of U.S. borders. We could go to zero tomorrow, and the problem isn't solved. So that's why today, one week into the job, President Biden will sign this additional executive set of orders to help move us down the road, ensuring that ambitious climate action is global in scope and scale, as well as national, here at home. Today in the order that he will sign, that Gina has described to you, he makes climate action central to foreign policy planning, to diplomacy, and to national security preparedness. It creates new platforms to coordinate climate action across the federal agencies and departments sorely needed. And most importantly, it commissions a national intelligence estimate on the security implications of climate change to give all of us an even deeper understanding of the challenges. This is the first time a President has ever done that.