My question is to the Premier. My best friend lives in Minden, Ontario. In February, he was in a head-on collision and the worst injuries were suffered by his wife. She had many broken bones and whiplash. My friend, his wife and his mother were all rushed to Minden emergency room in separate ambulances. They said the first responders and the hospital staff were fantastic, but last week they found out that this government is closing Minden’s emergency room on June 1. Haliburton, the next nearest hospital, would have been 45 minutes away.

Will this government stop the closure of the Minden ER so that the people of Minden have access to life-saving emergency services?

Again to the Premier: Haliburton Highlands Health Services said that the Minden ER closure was due to a shortage of nursing and medical staff. For the past five years, this government has been fuelling the staffing shortage and creating a crisis in Ontario’s public health system in order to privatize it. They could address the staffing shortage by repealing Bill 124. They could stop promoting private, for-profit clinics that are draining health care staff from public hospitals, and they could support public, not-for-profit hospitals like the one in Minden.

Will this government admit that the Minden emergency room and the people of Minden are victims of its quest to create a crisis and privatize public health care in Ontario?

Interjections.

The title of the bill is “strengthening safety.” I can tell you that for the people I represent, whether it is in French River, Markstay-Warren, St. Charles, Killarney, Britt-Byng Inlet, as well as the First Nations of Dokis and Henvey Inlet, they all depend on the OPP detachment in Noëlville. The OPP detachment in Noëlville is in great danger of being closed under your government any day now. It makes the people of all of those communities very nervous.

How can you reassure them that when you bring forward bills that talk about strengthening safety—they all feel that having a detachment where the OPP officers who work there know them, have patrolled the area, brings higher safety. You talk about strengthening safety. How do you link that up with closing a detachment in a rural northern area?