Friday, December 5, 2025

Ms. Heather Watson

Thank you, Chair. Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. My name is Heather Watson, and I’m a small business owner. My company works directly with other small businesses across the province. Every day, I see challenges and opportunities facing entrepreneurs who make up the backbone of our economy. Small businesses represent 98% of all businesses in this province, yet we are often under-represented in provincial economic policy. I wanted to speak today with you about competitiveness, modernization and the real conditions that small businesses are operating under and how this upcoming budget can help us not only survive but grow. First, I want to talk about tariff supports. Current provincial relief programs focus heavily on industries directly impacted by tariff changes and global trade disruptions. Those sectors absolutely need attention, but the ripple effect extends far beyond them. When large manufacturers and suppliers face cost pressures, they pass those costs downstream. Small B2B and service-based companies absorb those costs with far fewer resources and significantly more risk. Small businesses deserve access to proportional tariff support so we can adapt without compromising jobs or long-term viability. Secondly, I’d like to talk about technology adoption and AI. Technology and AI represent a major opportunity for small businesses to improve productivity and competitiveness, but most lack the capital, knowledge or time to implement these tools properly. They know they need to modernize, but they’re stretched too thin to take on transition alone. Ontario needs targeted grants or tax credits for small businesses adopting AI, digital tools and productivity systems, not only for purchasing that technology but for training and implementation. Without this support, the gap between digitally ready businesses and everyone else continues to widen. The provincial government has often highlighted Toronto as the major centre for technology growth, and the data backs that up. Toronto has become one of North America’s fastest-growing tech centres, with tech employment rising by more than 40% in recent years. We have world-class AI talent and innovation happening right here in Ontario, but most small businesses don’t have access to the resources to participate in that transformation, again, without targeted support for digital adoption. Creating programs and funding to incentivize collaboration between this world-class talent and small business owners will help us as a province innovate faster by creating proof of concept while supporting these small businesses. Third, I want to talk about productivity and operational efficiency. I was going to talk a little bit about red tape, but I know we’ve got two PAs on the red tape reduction ministry, so I think you’ve heard enough about that, I’m sure, in your travels. When it comes to productivity, the province talks a lot about it at the macro level, but it really happens at the micro level within small businesses that are trying to modernize systems, streamline workflows and operate more efficiently. Access to support for process improvement, digital adoption and business modernization is still difficult to navigate. Small improvements in efficiency across thousands of companies add up to major gains for the provincial economy. In both these cases, when we’re talking about technology, productivity and AI, I want to encourage the province to consider rolling out a newly enhanced version of the Digital Main Street program, which some of you may recall has been going on since 2016, I believe, or earlier, partnering subject matter experts with those brick-and-mortar businesses to help them increase their digital literacy and solve real-world business problems. I was fortunate enough that my company was one of the delivery agents for an aspect of this program in 10 different municipalities, and we saw first-hand the impact. That street-level, one-on-one support helped those small businesses grow their collective knowledge and adopt those digital technologies. Fourth, I just want to touch on access to capital. Traditional bank financing is increasingly a challenge for small and particularly rural operators. Many of us need modest, strategic injections of capital: micro-grants, low-interest modernization loans or hiring bridge loans to help bring on staff ahead of revenue growth. These tools help small businesses scale sustainably, which ultimately grows the provincial economy. So consider loans and incentives for small businesses to purchase Ontario-made products, which would amplify the visibility of the Ontario Made program and create a flywheel effect: The more Ontario businesses that are buying from each other, the stronger and more resilient our provincial economy becomes. I’d be remiss if I didn’t touch on the human element of entrepreneurship. Behind every small business is a person, someone who is carrying substantial financial risk, operational pressure and responsibility for their team and for their community. Many small businesses don’t have health and wellness benefit programs for their staff, much less themselves. Mental health support for entrepreneurs is extremely limited, yet the expectations placed on them continue to rise. Subsidized counselling, peer support programs or a mental health tax credit for small business owners would strengthen the ecosystem that keeps our communities strong. Finally, just to touch on the rural reality, since we are in what our MPP calls “God’s country,” up in Peterborough–Kawartha: Rural businesses face unique barriers like inconsistent broadband, smaller labour pools, higher operating costs and limited access to support programs or capital. We want to modernize and innovate just as much as urban businesses do, but we know most of the programs that the government puts out are typically for those larger communities. We need equitable access to tools and resources, so rural Ontario must be included intentionally in decisions about modernization and support. In closing: When small businesses thrive, our communities thrive. We create local jobs, invest in our people, support our communities and strengthen both rural and urban economies. The 2026 provincial budget is an opportunity to invest in the areas that deliver the strongest return: innovation, competitiveness, modernization and the entrepreneurs who drive economic growth every single day. On behalf of the many business owners who do not have the capacity to be here today, thank you for your time and consideration. I urge you to ensure that small businesses are not only acknowledged but prioritized in this budget.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Thank you very much for the presentation. That concludes the presentations. We’ll now start the first round of questions with the official opposition. MPP French.

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Ms. Jennifer K. French

Thank you both for your presentations. We’ve had quite a variety today, so it’s quite interesting for us as members. We appreciate the background and the diving right into details. I’m going to start with you, Heather. As you were talking about the rural reality in modernizing and innovating for small businesses and wanting to be a part of shaping the strategies or working with government to figure out what’s going to match or fit with small business, I was just thinking about what we had been talking about in the Legislature. Just recently, we have been talking about energy. We heard stories about Hydro One and different businesses, different communities, different residences, challenges for folks who are maybe outside of the Toronto grid and a little bit further removed and how different it is for them. When it comes to either a grid you can count on or whether it is something like broadband, what can the government take away today? What would you like to say in terms of what that needs to look like and how we get there? As someone who has served as the infrastructure critic for a long time, I watch big numbers in the budget year over year for broadband, but we’re not getting the dollars out the door. We’re not getting people connected as quickly as we would like. If you know of something that might be in the way or a helpful suggestion, I am sure we are all ears.

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Ms. Heather Watson

Thank you, MPP. Through the Chair: Broadband is one of those tricky ones. I’m a bit of tech nerd myself, and people in my community tend to call me up and say, “Hey, who should I go with? What provider should I go with? I live here. I live there.” It seems to be a bit of a hunting and pecking game of trying to figure out what provider can offer what service. If you talk to the providers on the phone or their chats, they’ll tell you that “Oh, yes, we absolutely service your area,” until you actually get the service installed and realize that it’s shoddy at best, depending on the carrier or provider. Being able to have a centralized map where small businesses—and residents, for that matter—can actually identify what providers are providing what services in those specific areas—I know earlier, a couple of years ago, MPP Smith made an announcement with some expansion of broadband in our community and the questions arose: “Well, where is that expansion?” And I understand there’s competitive intelligence there that maybe those providers aren’t able to share. But businesses and residents want to know so that they can make the right decisions to hook into the proper providers. You talked, MPP, about the grid and energy. I only need to look back to March 31 to April of this year where we had the ice storm that came through this region significantly. The Premier came to visit in the days following. The aftermath is, there were homes and businesses without electricity for a week, and that just won’t do. We have businesses that lose stock, their refrigeration stock that they may have, restaurants that would operate. They all still have the ability to rise and support one another, but it’s really difficult to do so under those terms. Those businesses, thinking ahead, have to put in backup power, generators and have all these contingency plans in place that our urban partners wouldn’t normally have to do.

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Ms. Jennifer K. French

Thank you. I appreciate that. It would seem, then, that some of the local members already have direct access to your expertise. That’s good. They know where to find you. I will switch. Bart, thank you very much for your presentation. I had the opportunity to be a grade 7 and 8 teacher, on purpose, for many years—a transferable skill set to the Legislature, I will add.

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Mr. Dave Smith

As Speaker, yes.

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Ms. Jennifer K. French

Yes. But I appreciate that there’s too much to fit into this opportunity. Let me assure you that public education continues to be an important conversation at the Legislature, and we do hear from so many on education issues, so this isn’t your only chance to share with us.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

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Ms. Jennifer K. French

Oh, my goodness. I also have a second round of questions, so I’ll start with you on the next round. I think it’s important that we’re all actually talking about what is happening. Many parents might hear about their kids come home and talk about the learning walk that they went on and that they go on a lot of learning walks in a week. And maybe the parents don’t know that a learning walk is the nice way of saying that they were evacuated several times a week, that they leave the classroom and they go on a learning walk. And while it might be valuable time, it is not in-the-classroom time because they’ve had to be removed. We aren’t talking about the reality. You gave some examples—obviously voices from your members—kicking, spitting. Who should we be talking to on a regular basis to really have our finger on the pulse?

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Mr. Bart Scollard

Not just the teachers but the support staff, because the teachers are often the ones that are involved.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

We will have to do that on the next round. The time is up. MPP Cerjanec.

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Mr. Rob Cerjanec

Through you, Chair, why don’t we just pick up on that, actually? Because I think there’s a lot we could talk about there.

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Mr. Bart Scollard

It’s really the front-line support staff—our EAs, our CYWs. In PVNC we have what we’ve called our CASA program. That’s for our autism spectrum students. Those are those classes where often the violence occurs. I get reports daily from those staff that are injured daily. The question is, what can we do to best support our students that are in need? Those needs change. Every student is unique, right? Sometimes it takes individual programs that would support those students. The question I often bring, when we have our labour relations meeting regularly with human resources at the board, is, students in regular classrooms don’t fit everyone. What can we do to support those students that just don’t fit the mould? We need to find a way to support those students, especially the ones that have violent tendencies, unfortunately, and that’s the only way that they can communicate. How do we best support them? Because what we’re doing right now is not a service to them. Those students go home every day, their families are living it 24/7 too and they’re asking for help as well.

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Mr. Rob Cerjanec

In one way, it’s very much a public education system. I completely agree with you that we need more individualized classes in some situations, in some cases. Not everyone learns in the same way or in the same environment. I think that will help quite a bit. What are the impacts that your members are facing because of the increase in violence in the classrooms, the lack of dedicated support in some classrooms as well, and people?

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Mr. Bart Scollard

Unfortunately, they’re calling me or my colleague who works with me full-time. Sometimes they suffer in silence. Sometimes they have to take time off work—PTSD, often. The sad thing is that even this week, I had two members who resigned. One was a brand new teacher right out of the faculty. When I discussed with this person, I said, “Please, before you make this decision, take some time. Don’t decide immediately because I’d hate for you in a year to regret your decision.” Ultimately they took a week, two weeks and they decided to leave the profession. That’s the sad thing. What can we do to make sure that the environment that everyone is working in to support students—how do we make it better? When I started teaching in 1998—obviously, as we all know in this room, I believe that the world has changed significantly, and we need to do a better job to support the students and to support the people that are that are working in front of them every day.

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Mr. Rob Cerjanec

What’s the cap at your board on split grades? Is there a cap?

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Mr. Bart Scollard

There are no caps per se, but if you go through, for example, kindergarten, if you’re aware of that—our maximum is 33 students. So once you have more than 16 students, you have an ECE. Then there’s the primary cap average, 20 to 1, and then up to 23 in 10% of the classes. The grades 4 to 8 average is 24.5. But it varies. That’s a board average. That’s not a classroom average. Some other boards because of their contracts actually have class caps, and our board, just the way it has always been, we don’t have that. And in secondary, obviously, it’s 23 to 1.

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Mr. Rob Cerjanec

Do you think that we really need to—because I know from collective agreement to collective agreement, from board to board, it’s different. I’ve heard of some boards where you’ve got one teacher teaching five grades.

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Mr. Bart Scollard

Yes. Depending upon the size of the area, like the remote areas—for example, the secondary school I’m released from, St. Stephen in Bowmanville, has 1,400 students. There’s a lot more capacity to have classes, but in order to have classes like, for example, grade 12 physics in Lindsay at St. Thomas Aquinas, then those class sizes might only have 10 students.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

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Mr. Bart Scollard

Then at St. Stephen, they might have 30. So I did have a class a number of years ago in chemistry—I’m a chemistry, science and math teacher—that had 37 students in it.

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Mr. Rob Cerjanec

Is it even possible to effectively teach 37 students and give them the best ability to succeed?

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Mr. Bart Scollard

They were a good group. With labs it made it very interesting because I had to do it in two groups. I said that day one is this group and day two is this group, and I said if it didn’t work, unfortunately, I’d have to demonstrate all the labs. And they were a good group.

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Mr. Rob Cerjanec

Okay, well, that’s good to hear. This board that I was talking about that has the five grades in one—the class is 30. Between grade to grade it’s different. Grades 2 and 3 or even 2, 3, 4, fine, but 5—I was shocked when I heard that.

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Mr. Bart Scollard

And it depends on the learning abilities of the students. There was a movement when I was in teacher’s college to do stream classes. In my personal opinion, I don’t think that works for students.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Thank you. Time is up for that question. MPP Brady.

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Ms. Bobbi Ann Brady

Heather, I was wondering how you feel about the calls for lowering the small business tax rate. CFIB was before us yesterday at committee, and they talked about the need to lower the small business tax rate and also raise the eligibility threshold. I’m wondering if you have an opinion on whether or not that would help you as a small business owner and if you believe in any other tax cuts or if you have any ideas for tax cuts for R&D, things like that that might help you as well.

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Ms. Heather Watson

Thank you, Chair. Through you: Honestly, I wish I could give you something on that, but, at the end of the day, I’m just speaking as a small business owner who talks to a lot of small business owners. I had the opportunity to take a look at today’s agenda and see the breadth of speakers today, most of which were either union-based or NGOs, and I’m not any of those. If the CFIB was talking about lowering the small business tax rate, great. I don’t feel knowledgeable enough to be able to speak to whether or not that specifically would help my business or other businesses because I’m not too sure what they were proposing.

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Ms. Bobbi Ann Brady

Can you share with the committee, then, what you are hearing from the small businesses? I visit a lot of small businesses in my riding on the weekends, and morale is really down. Sales are down in the retail outlets. I’m just wondering if you can tell us what you are hearing when you speak to small businesses.

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Ms. Heather Watson

Certainly, small businesses are struggling, as you said. Whether it’s the first three quarters of this year—quite truthfully, a lot of companies have been a little slow to move forward. Up until Thanksgiving, it seemed a lot of companies’ customers were sitting on POs, not sure what was going on in the broader scope, whether they’re in the manufacturing sector or not. At Thanksgiving, things got a little bit busy, but then it’s like, “Holy moly, we’ve got a whole year’s worth of business to do in the last quarter.” So people are stressed out and thinned to the max, and the labour force is swinging from having zero applications sitting on a desk, to now having tons of applications sitting on a desk, and no time or resources to go through those to find the best people.

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Ms. Bobbi Ann Brady

Right. Bart, I’ll move over to you. Principals tell me that they spend the majority of their day trying to find coverage for staff, and that that is more than a full-time job for them. Can you comment on whether or not we should be re-examining the sick day schedule? This may not be the right time, but I understand that the sick days are a bit of a problem. Not only does it affect classrooms, but it also affects budgets.

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Mr. Bart Scollard

I’ll tell you something about sick days. It’s interesting, because I’ve been tracking it. This is my fourth year on leave in my position, so I get notifications all the time, monthly, and—

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Thank you very much. That concludes the time with that question. Maybe it will come around in the second round. I will go to the government side. MPP Saunderson.

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Mr. Brian Saunderson

Thank you to both our presenters. We’ve saved the best for last, so thanks for being patient. Heather, I understand you’re the mayor of Douro-Dummer. Welcome, Your Worship. As a former mayor, I’m also the PA to Minister Fideli, so I’m very interested in your angle on this. I appreciate you’re here, really, as a small business owner yourself, and I’m wondering if you can tell me a little bit about the business and the clientele you serve.

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Ms. Heather Watson

Certainly. Yes, the small businesses that I work with are—let’s define small business for a second, so we’re all on the same page. They have less than 100 employees; it doesn’t mean that they have less than millions of dollars in sales. We work primarily with manufacturing and the agriculture sector, interestingly enough. But we do work with NGOs and we do work with smaller B2B companies. They’re experiencing challenges right now. As I had mentioned in the previous comment, they’re optimistic. They believe in the province, they believe in what the future could hold, but in the grand scheme of things, they’re still struggling and trying to do more with less. That’s where in my previous remarks, in talking about adoption of technologies to help them with process improvements, and help them adopt technologies such as AI—they’re hearing all kinds of great things about it. I know federally, NGen is looking for some good cases that they can demonstrate some technology with, particularly in the manufacturing sector. There’s lots of innovation happening in the agriculture sector, and we do work across Canada in the agriculture sector. There’s lots going on there, but small businesses on the macro are still struggling to figure out how we employ this technology—where do I find the time between taking care of all of the other hats that any business owner would typically wear?—as I’m sure you would understand.

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Mr. Brian Saunderson

No, I appreciate that. As MPP Brady mentioned, we had CFIB in—I guess it might have been just yesterday; it seems like longer than that, but I think it was yesterday. Her comments were, I think, that for the last 22 months, demand has been down. So that’s affecting consumer confidence, and I think that affects then the businesses’ ability to plan forward. That was one of the big issues she identified. So it’s not necessarily the direct impacts of the tariffs, although they are very significant; it’s also just the whole uncertainty that stems from that and flows from that. And so I’m wondering. We’ve taken a number of measures as a government, not just to protect Ontario businesses and to help to find some of the larger, directly impacted manufacturing sectors—also border communities—but also business generally: things like opening up trade across Canada, eliminating trade barriers that are affecting us there and doing certain things—direct-to-consumer sales, labour mobility in terms of interprovincial agreements. I know these are new changes, but have your clients seen any impacts of those on the ground? I know it would probably be sector dependent as well.

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Ms. Heather Watson

Yes, it is extremely sector dependent. Some of the interprovincial trade, as it relates to CFQ for tradespeople working in the skilled trades—that doesn’t seem to have made any change. Trying to find the millwrights, the CNC, that high-skilled labour force in the manufacturing sector, is still a challenge. They’re not pulling them from Alberta to come work in Ontario; it seems more that they’re going that way than they are coming this way. But it’s a highly competitive space to be. I’ve spoken with MPP Smith about this in the past. What often happens is these smaller businesses bring in apprentices and train them up and then larger corporations—OPG, for example, in this area—scoop them up because they don’t want to take on those apprentices. It’s doing that on the backs of small businesses that are trying to get people trained. Then as soon as they get their ticket they have a door open to go into one of these larger companies, and they’re gone. So those barriers weren’t there necessarily in terms of the labour force.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

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Ms. Heather Watson

My clients are typically selling across Canada anyway. We have clients who are governed by other—FAA—regulations that had never been able to sell into the US because of that since the 1950s, because of regulations there. They’re good efforts; don’t get me wrong. I think it’s making a move, but I’m not seeing it with our clients specifically.

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Mr. Brian Saunderson

Are any of your clients taking advantage of the new manufacturing tax?

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Ms. Heather Watson

I believe so, yes, and I think that they’ll be able to leverage that, but I can’t get into the specifics of it. In the work that we do, we often act as an extension of our businesses, but we don’t get into the details of the grants and programs and tax incentives because we’re not on the finance side of their operations.

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Mr. Brian Saunderson

How much time do I have left?

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Nine seconds.

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Mr. Brian Saunderson

Well then, I’m just going to thank you both very much for your time, and thank you for your dedication to your community, both of you.

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Ms. Heather Watson

Thank you.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

And they’re all gone. Now MPP French.

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Ms. Jennifer K. French

As threatened, or promised, Bart, I’ll return. We were talking about who to ask to know what’s going on, and you had been saying that it is teachers but also the support staff who are the front lines. I will just say that when I was a teacher, I taught long enough ago that I had educational assistants who were able to assist educationally. I watched the transition as they were no longer able to be in the classrooms and were in the halls with radios and were in a very different job. I think Minister Calandra will recognize that there is an opportunity to re-support the support staff to support students in learning and EQAO scores. What I was going to say is that one of the things that I really hear about that is so upsetting—I’m saying this on the day before December 6, and I’m going from here to an event where I’ll be speaking about gender-based violence. The students in the classroom—elementary students who see predominantly female adults that they care about who are assaulted or who are subject to violence on a regular basis—are forced to override their instincts to protect or be upset. Administration comes in and tries to calm and to quiet and override their instincts to be upset. I worry about what that looks like in our society down the road, when a whole generation of kids is told that that’s okay, quietly. I wanted to ask what impact is felt by your members now, and how do you see this going and growing as people do leave the profession and are overburdened by the paperwork, but there’s no change to the situation?

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Mr. Bart Scollard

It is the ongoing struggle all the time. I hear from teachers at almost every school that they beg for additional support. EAs are often carved up into individual times with specific students, and there’s only so many ways you can cut up a piece of pie, and there’s only so many ways in terms of time. In each school I go to—and it’s not just them—they’re always speaking about those poor students that are in the class that could use that support. But most of the EA support is dedicated towards students who have violent tendencies, right? And they’re not the ones that are being supported. The ones that sit there quietly in the back of the room are not getting the support. That’s what I hear, mostly. Most of my members are pretty tough. They battle each day, in and out. I think that, maybe down the road, after year after year of this, we might see more people wanting a change or leaving the profession. But I’ll be honest; a lot of my members are pretty strong, and they fight hard with their principals and senior administration that come to their schools to get more support. And it is challenging. I know the question from MPP Brady was about sick leave. It does have an impact on that because there’s only so much that someone can take, even as an adult in front of students that you want to be strong in front of. There’s only so much a human being can take, and at some point, they need a break. It’s something that we need to recognize and not feel that they should have to suffer silently, because it’s a mental health—

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Ms. Jennifer K. French

And also, this is a workplace, and we’re talking about elementary school classrooms where people shouldn’t have to be strong; they should have to be capable and qualified and caring, we would hope. Fundamentally, to go to work knowing that you are in danger but you’re just going to have to grin and bear it because you care about the students—I think there are real opportunities for the government to understand better and invest better and do better.

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Mr. Bart Scollard

The other piece, if I can add—and thanks for bringing this up, because what we’re seeing more—and it doesn’t really fit well, but it’s a reality—

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

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Mr. Bart Scollard

—is work refusals. We’re seeing more and more of them. I’ll be honest; it’s mostly our CUPE colleagues that are strong enough to actually do that. A lot of my members are fearful of reprisals from their employer for making those decisions. But we’re seeing more and more work refusals now, and the Ministry of Labour, I don’t think, totally knows how to really handle that, where a student actually is a hazard.

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Ms. Jennifer K. French

And we are talking about a predominantly female workforce, with exceptions, of course, and this is one more opportunity that we see where we could do better instead of saying, “Be quiet and take it.” I appreciate your time and all of you that have come and spoken to us today. We are very grateful for the insight and the expertise. Thank you.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

MPP Cerjanec.

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Mr. Rob Cerjanec

Through you, Chair: Thanks for your presentation, Heather—a lot of ideas, a lot of suggestions, which is great. Yesterday, we saw CFIB, and they were talking about, overall, just providing direct tax relief for small businesses; to cut the rate to 2% from the 3.2% that it’s at now. You mentioned a couple of things, and I’m very interested in them. Productivity: What do you think the province should be doing to drive productivity?

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Ms. Heather Watson

Chair, thank you. Through you: What could the province do to improve productivity, MPP? Again, the business owners know what they need to do within their own businesses. They just don’t have the resources to be able to do it themselves. I saw this first-hand, as I mentioned, through the Digital Main Street program years ago. We brought in youth—summer employees—who came in and would sit down with them and say, “Okay, you’re writing out all of your price tags by hand”—legitimately—“or your chits, your sales slips. Are there other ways?” “Well, yes. We’ve always wanted to do this, but we don’t know what software is best. How do we find those workflows?” So giving people somebody that they can trust to get information from—because there’s a lot of reticence around that with software providers and not knowing, and they don’t speak the language and they’re afraid that they’re going to get duped, right? They just need a trusted resource, so a program such as that would certainly help small businesses find those opportunities for productivity within their own businesses.

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Mr. Rob Cerjanec

Do you think the province can play a big role in in helping to make those kinds of connections and build that knowledge?

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Ms. Heather Watson

Absolutely. Again, we saw it first-hand through the Digital Main Street program, to be able to leverage it, create youth employment and then create those opportunities for small businesses to learn and grow from.

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Mr. Rob Cerjanec

What would grants or tax credits look like for AI adoptability for small businesses? What does that look like in your mind?

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Ms. Heather Watson

It could look like micro-loans for hiring the consultants or whomever and the time saved, if you will, can go back towards paying back, because there’s a dollar value associated with the time lost. Or it could be tax credits for being able to deploy particular software within their business—again, using the example of somebody who’s handwriting their sales slips going to an online bookkeeping software system and helping them deploy that in the first year.

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Mr. Rob Cerjanec

So where with AI—in some ways, it’s existed for quite some time, and in other ways not very long at all. I think it’s something that we’re all still learning about. I think members of the Legislature are learning about it; I think government is trying to figure it out, as well. Do we need a strategy around that so that we can increase people’s knowledge and then what the opportunities are?

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Ms. Heather Watson

Certainly, increasing the knowledge base, the knowledge capital within the province would be worthwhile, MPP. Again, there’s reticence because people are curious about the technology, but they’re also nervous about the technology. There’s a lot of fakes and scams and things that are going on, obviously, that people don’t want to lose their shirt trying to adopt that technology. If there is a centralized repository where business owners could go and access information about becoming more self-aware and even the questions to ask when they’re going down this path—not necessarily endorsing particular software or applications—would be a tremendous help.

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Mr. Rob Cerjanec

I introduced a bill in the Legislature; it didn’t pass, but it was for the province to create an AI strategy, a plan, essentially, bringing in industry, manufacturing stakeholders, everybody: How do we create new jobs and opportunities out of it? How does the role that our post-secondary institutions play within it—because there’s so much more that I think that we can be doing, and I’m really glad that you raised some of that today. Hearing directly from someone who’s working with small businesses and a small business owner yourself, you do a lot of work around agriculture. What are some of the challenges that you’re seeing customers facing in there?

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Ms. Heather Watson

Like, my agricultural customers?

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Mr. Rob Cerjanec

Yes.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

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Ms. Heather Watson

It’s succession planning within their property. Where do they go: the cattle farmer who is trying to get out; the next generation doesn’t want to come in; or it’s cost-prohibitive for the next generation to come in. Just like a small business owner—we have an indebtedness to our community and our teams; those farmers and agricultural operators do as well and are concerned about what’s going to happen to the land and the operation in the future.

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Mr. Rob Cerjanec

Awesome. Thank you.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

MPP Brady.

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Ms. Bobbi Ann Brady

Mr. Scollard, did you finish everything you wanted to on the sick days?

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Mr. Bart Scollard

Yes, I can add a bit more to that. I’ve been tracking it, as I said, the last four years. I get different sets of data: one that the board provides annually and it’s kind of all employees of the board, but then I track the—it’s the 11 days, right? In our contract, we’re notified if someone has been absent more than 11 days, because I reach out to them to see how they’re doing and check in on them. I’ve seen a dramatic reduction in the last few years. I think part of it is to do with attendance management that’s been introduced across the province. It is a bit problematic, because I think a lot of boards are not recognizing disabilities that people have, and there are reasons why they might be away from work more than others. But it’s a very complex issue. I have these discussions with people in HR all the time at the board: If you want to get to the root of any issues, find out why. Why is someone taking a sick day? It could be many different reasons. A lot of issues surrounding sick days, when they come in and produce medical notes for the board, are mental health. Those are predominantly those issues. We also get data when, unfortunately, people have to take long-term disability because of cancer and those different things, but mental health is right up there; I’d say 50% of them.

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Ms. Bobbi Ann Brady

Yes, I hear that as well. I get phone calls from parents. All in one week, I got these phone calls: a dad whose grade 1 student had been hurt for the second time in a month from the same student; a teacher who is off indefinitely due to a brain injury caused by a student; teachers carrying walkie-talkies in case they need each other’s help; a kid packing heat; and a high school student telling her mom she does not go to the bathroom at school because a boy is now allowed to use the girl’s bathroom. This is all in rural schools. These are not issues that we have seen in rural schools before. In the previous presentations, we talked about reimagining. I think that our education system has to be reimagined as well. I talk about consolidating support, EAs, speech pathologists. The supports are limited, and I think it’s time we consolidate those supports and move the children who need those supports into specialized classrooms so that they can thrive and that the other kids can also thrive in the classroom.

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Mr. Bart Scollard

I think that all the stakeholders need to get together and figure this out. I’m by no means an expert—I’m a math, chemistry, science person—but there are a lot of complexities that are involved in the classrooms of today. The 21st-century classroom is different from the 20th-century classroom when I started in 1998.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Thank you very much. That concludes that question. MPP Smith.

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Mr. Dave Smith

Bart, I’m going to throw something slightly different at you. I recently read J.L. Granatstein’s book, Who Killed Canadian History?, and there’s a section in that—an entire chapter dedicated to it—about education around history. What he says in it is that we’ve gotten to a stage where we’re afraid to offend, so we cleanse what’s being said. His reference to it was—he used to be the curator of the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa—with respect to the Holocaust and Second World War history. What he described in it was that there may be students who are of German heritage, and the education system has changed, then, how it describes the Holocaust so that they don’t offend someone who could be of German heritage. As we’re hearing things about mental health issues and some of the lack of resilience, I’ll refer to it as, are we getting to a stage where the desire not to offend is actually impeding teachers’ abilities to do the job that they want to do?

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Mr. Bart Scollard

Sorry. Just to be sure of your question: Is it about resiliency? Or the desire to do what they want to do or do what they want to say?

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Mr. Dave Smith

It’s a combination of both. The reason I say that is because, in order to be resilient, sometimes you have to be exposed to things that make you a little bit uncomfortable, so you develop the strategies, then, to deal with that uncomfortableness. Are we getting to a stage where we’re trying to cleanse so much that we’re actually doing a disservice?

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Mr. Bart Scollard

No. There are two different things. I’ll try to tackle both sides. The resiliency piece: Yes, I’m very concerned that we as a society need to look at ways that we can support students better in ways of mental health and well-being, because, obviously, we’re seeing a definite decline with our students, whether it’s attendance or other areas that we can measure. In terms of the difficult conversations, a lot of education has been put forward to—either it’s universal design for learning or whether it is involving having those difficult conversations in terms of—I’m trying to think of the appropriate word to use, but with another lens. It’s a trauma-informed lens because we have students from all different areas and backgrounds. We deal with all sorts of different things in our classrooms. But we have to be cognizant of making sure that, in my role—if I was in the classroom, I’m not making political statements too. I’m very careful about those types of things as a teacher. In terms of changing the narrative, I think that there are a lot of narratives that have been placed out there that might not be totally what everyone else has experienced, so it’s recognizing that everyone has a different narrative. How do we navigate that? I think it’s important to have those difficult conversations, though, too. I’m not sure. Does that answer it?

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Mr. Dave Smith

Yes.

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Mr. Bart Scollard

I believe that we need to have those conversations. Those conversations—whether we agree or not, I think they still are important, but it depends how you do it too.

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Mr. Dave Smith

Chair, how much time do I have left?

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

You’ve got one minute three.

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Mr. Dave Smith

Heather, I’m going to switch over to you. I know that you had some experience with Digital Main Street. I know that you’ve said that we should be taking that model as we move forward with AI. If you could design a program, then, for small business to take advantage of AI, would it be based around training for those individuals, or would it be based around describing or suggesting which software they should be using?

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Ms. Heather Watson

Chair, through you: I’d say a little bit of both, quite truthfully. They need to understand what tools are available to them and also—

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

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Ms. Heather Watson

—understand the capabilities of those tools to be able to deploy them effectively. So again, that one-on-one knowledge is really important because it has the applicability to that specific business as opposed to a larger knowledge hub.

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Mr. Dave Smith

I think a lot of people right now are looking at some of the AI tools that are out there, that are freely available for us, and they’re doing things like, “Do a roast of me,” or, “Make a picture of this politician using these types of criteria.” They think it’s fun, but they haven’t been able to figure out how to make it work in their business. In 20 seconds or less, since that’s all we have, how do we promote that for them so they can understand how it could be used in their business?

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Ms. Heather Watson

Giving them more literacy around the tools that are available to them: It’s not just about ChatGPT prompts; it’s about understanding what the potential of AI is.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Thanks very much. That does conclude the question. It also concludes the time for this panel. We want to thank you very much for the time you took to present and the able way you presented it, and, hopefully, as we prepare the report, it will be a great benefit to us in coming to conclusions on it. With that, this concludes the business for today. Thank you all for participating. This committee now stands adjourned until 10 a.m. on Tuesday, January 13, 2026, when we will resume public hearings in Brockville, Ontario.

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The committee adjourned at 1622.

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STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND ECONOMIC AFFAIRS

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Chair / Président

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Hon. Ernie Hardeman (Oxford PC)

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First Vice-Chair / Première Vice-Présidente

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Ms. Doly Begum (Scarborough Southwest / Scarborough-Sud-Ouest ND)

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Second Vice-Chair / Deuxième Vice-Président

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Mr. Rob Cerjanec (Ajax L)

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Ms. Doly Begum (Scarborough Southwest / Scarborough-Sud-Ouest ND)

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Ms. Bobbi Ann Brady (Haldimand–Norfolk IND)

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Mr. Rob Cerjanec (Ajax L)

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