My question is to the Premier.

I was contacted this week by a resident of York region through a friend. The resident, an 80-year-old man, was just recently told that his prostate condition could no longer be controlled by drugs and that he needed surgery. He was offered two choices: He could wait for a year and a half to get surgery with his OHIP card through Mackenzie Health, or he could pay $6,000 with his credit card and get his care within three weeks at a private clinic.

Can the Premier tell me how he can defend his health care policies when people have to pay to get OHIP-covered surgery done in any reasonable time frame?

When the Premier’s decisions mean that people have to wait ages to get surgery to relieve suffering or to prevent death, then he has failed.

When will the Premier provide the funding for health care and health care workers so people are not suffering or forced to max out their credit cards to get treatment?

Done and done. We have a historic investment in terms of recruiting and training health care professionals in the province of Ontario. We have invested in capital builds, over 50 in the province of Ontario, to expand surgical operating rooms and make sure that we have that. Through Bill 60, we will continue to expand what already exists in the province of Ontario—surgical units to ensure that people get access in their communities in a timely manner. This work is ongoing.

It is the member opposite and the party they represent who continue to want the status quo.

The example the member gave—there needs to be some context to it. And of course, that surgery, if it happens in the province of Ontario, is covered by your OHIP card.

This is the same member from the city of Ottawa who is opposing the innovation that is happening at the Ottawa Hospital today. Through our surgical backlog fund, the hospital has been able to utilize an innovative model that ensures an OR room within the hospital is being used on the weekend, when it was sitting vacant before. What does that do? It means that those critical surgeries that must happen and will continue to happen have the ability to happen sooner because we are utilizing those operating rooms over the weekend.