I’m glad the member opposite’s best friend and his family members had excellent service. It is a story, frankly, that I hear regularly when people have to access health care services in the province of Ontario.

Ontario Health has been—we have been in discussions with them and I have been assured that the Haliburton Highlands Health Services board has approached this decision in the best interests of community. This is a decision made by the hospital with the support of the hospital board. It is independent of any decisions we make at the ministry level.

But I want to remind the member opposite that these are decisions made by a volunteer community member board that lives in the community and is looking out for the best interests of those communities. For the member opposite to suggest that he knows better than the volunteer-based board, than the CEO, than the individuals who work in that facility, is patently false.

I want to remind the member that the actual member from Haliburton–Kawartha Lakes–Brock has been in close contact with the board and the CEO through this entire process, and I remind the member that this is a local decision they have made in the best interests to serve their community in the long term.

One of the really important measures that is embedded in Bill 60 and the Your Health document, which I hope the member will seriously consider supporting, because it is an as-of-right program that ensures individual clinicians who are practising in any other Canadian jurisdiction can come to Ontario and immediately start working here in Ontario, in communities. That is one very specific example where we have been able to work with the College of Nurses of Ontario to make sure that people who have trained in other jurisdictions are able to quickly get their qualifications assessed and approved if appropriate.

Another important initiative: The Minister of Colleges and Universities has really been a true leader in the learn-and-stay program, where we are able to provide tuition and cover books for students who want to practise as nurses and other critical care health care providers. We’ve had a historic number of students apply for those programs, because they want to participate.

We are making the investments, whether it is in education, whether it is in capital builds, whether it is ensuring that we have as many people as possible who wish to practise in the province of Ontario with have right and ability to do so.

I was so pleased earlier this year, through the investments of the Ministry of Finance, to be able to announce the Blind River Huron Shores Family Health Team in the northeast—of an additional $1.1 million. This will ensure that they have the ability to hire two new full-time nurse practitioners, two service workers, two new registered nurses, one RPN, one full-time physiotherapist, a system navigator—all that will support over 5,000 orphaned, unattached patients along the North Shore corridor.

These are the investments that our government is making to ensure that communities across Ontario have access to health care close to home.