What I can tell you is this: I would support you repealing Bill 124 and not attacking health care workers in the publicly funded, publicly delivered, not-for-profit health care system, sir. I will never, never support a health care system that is driven solely on shareholders making a profit at the expense of the people who simply need medical care. We’ve seen what has happened in long-term care with a profit-driven system.

Are you proud of the record of 5,400 people dying in long-term care because profit was put above care? That’s my question to you.

The government actually voted against every single amendment that would have made this bill better and made it safer for people in the province to get care, to make it faster for people in this province to get care.

I want to quote Dr. Bernard Ho, who came to present. He’s a family and emergency physician in downtown Toronto. He said, “I’m also concerned that these new facilities will pose a safety risk to our patients. These proposed facilities will operate independently of any hospital or oversight committee. There’s currently a lack of detail and transparency for what safety standards these clinics will need to meet and how these will be regulated or monitored.”

I will add, again, this director who will be appointed can hold shares and ownership in these for-profit, shareholder-driven clinics that they’re supposed to be able to issue licences to. If the government can’t see how that is a conflict of interest, then they have their heads in the sand.

What you are talking about in this bill is largely opening up these private, for-profit clinics with no oversight—and I just quoted a family physician who also works in the emergency department in a hospital. There is no oversight and no transparency.

Again, I will go back to the appointment of the director, where you will allow the director who issues licences to these private, for-profit, shareholder-driven clinics to own shares in those clinics. You are talking about lives and deaths, and yet you are allowing a system where the director can hold shares in a company that they give licences to to provide health care, with no oversight and no transparency.

And when we’re talking about mental health and mental well-being and we’re talking about patient care and we’re talking about health human resources, this government is driving health care workers out of the health care system because of Bill 124. These workers are burnt out, they feel demoralized, they feel unappreciated, and they are overworked. Until Bill 124 is repealed, that is not going to change. It doesn’t matter what kind of programs you put in, saying we’re going to get thousands more. Until you stop attacking them and start paying them and respecting them, we are going to continue to have a health human resources issue.

For the record, I have talked to those people. I’ve also talked to the front-line workers who are telling me the issues they’re facing working in our health care system. I would recommend that the member for Windsor–Tecumseh do the same.

I want to thank the member from Windsor West for sharing the great people of Windsor and making sure that we have a balanced viewpoint here.

I know I’ve spoken to Windsor Regional Hospital, David Musyj, Drs. Tayfour and Emara—on the success of the ophthalmology centre servicing the patients of our region and the success of that program, the reduction of wait times. We could have had 15,000 to 20,000 on a cataract wait-list without it. All have confirmed they’re not stealing staff from the hospital, and all the patients I have spoken to who have attended have said that the only thing that’s different is the location; they pay through OHIP.

So my question to the member is this: Have you listened to the perspective of David Musyj, Dr. Emara, Dr. Tayfour and the patients of the Windsor Surgical Centre so far?