The Ontario legislature is back in session Monday, and hiking the minimum wage and dealing with legalized marijuana will be two of the government’s major priorities.

The government is going to push through a bill that would boost the minimum wage to $15 an hour in 2019.

The government also intends to legislate its plan to sell marijuana to adults, which involves opening up to 150 standalone stores run by the province’s liquor control board.

But the opposition parties will try to keep a spotlight on two trials involving senior Ontario Liberals.

And that includes Timmins-James Bay MPP Gilles Bisson (NDP), who will spend the coming week in Sudbury.

However, Bisson says he’s not being called as a witness in the Elections Act trial concerning the 2015 Sudbury byelection. Bisson filed the original complaint with Elections Ontario in regards to this.

Premier Kathleen Wynne will be put on the hot seat Wednesday in the Nickel City. PC Leader Patrick Brown says it’s a sad day when Ontarians must see their Premier called into court as a witness.

The other court case deals with allegations of breach of trust against two aides to former premier Dalton McGuinty.

The case against David Livingston and Laura Miller in regards to the destruction of emails about the Liberals’ decision to cancel two gas plants just before the 2011 election. This decision cost taxpayers about $1.1-billion dollars.

When it comes to the Legislative session, Bisson says the Liberals will do everything in their power to deflect attention away from the aforementioned court cases.

And that includes Friday’s announcement in regards to how Ontario would handle the legalization of marijuana.

Of note, the province says they’ll approach it using the same model as the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO), have the LCBO oversee legal retail through stand-alone stores and an online service and propose the minimum age to use, purchase and possess to 19 years old.

Bisson says there’s still a whole bunch of questions to be answered on that.

He asks how will the province make sure it’s sold securely and making sure people are abiding by the law against driving while high. Another is where the outlets will be located.

It was proposed there will be approximately 150 stand-alone stores opening by 2020—including 40 by this coming July and service all regions in the province.

Meantime, one of the other pieces of legislation expected this fall will have a major impact in Northern Ontario.

That would be the riding boundary legislation. Bisson was not a fan of how the ridings—including his own—were divided.

“It’ll be interesting to see if the government is prepared to allow this bill to go to committee in order to give the First Nations a chance to have their say,” Bisson says, “Because clearly, they’ve been left holding the short end of the stick when it comes to redistribution.”

The proposal would see Timmins-James Bay turn into two ridings, one being the City of Timmins and the other—named the “Mushkegowuk” riding—encompasses the remainder of the existing riding.

Kenora-Rainy River would be split in two as well.

That’s not all. A big one on the business community will come up, regarding the potential rise of minimum wage.

“There’s going to be some other parts to that bill,” Bisson says, “We’ve put forward a number of amendments in order to try to make that bill more palatable for people overall and we’ll see just to what degree the government’s prepared to make the changes.”

The government announced back in May they will raise minimum wage to $14 an hour by January 2018.

CLICK HERE to read more on the minimum wage announcement.

(With files from The Canadian Press)

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