Back to the Premier: Those stats should be concerning to any government, and it’s the result of a health care crisis. This crisis, fuelled by the government’s disrespect of front-line health care workers, has created those significant off-load delays in our hospital. Niagara deserves to be refunded the $1.7 million of taxpayer dollars that have gone into the off-load delays. We can’t continue to go down this road. Three of Niagara’s hospitals consistently rank in the bottom quarter of off-load times.

Speaker, with the local leaders from Niagara here today, will the Premier listen to their solutions and commit to ensuring long-term solutions to EMS off-load delays immediately?

Thank you to the member opposite for the question, because it is an important one. We know that the status quo is not acceptable. Having said that, of course, our government does fund ambulance partnerships with our municipal partners. But I want to go specifically to what we have done, because we know the status quo is not acceptable.

We’re returning ambulances to communities faster through the Dedicated Offload Nurses Program, and through that program, we’ve actually increased ambulance availability by over 600,000 hours. These are individuals whose patients are being directly passed over and looked after by the local hospitals and, equally important, we’re having paramedics who can now go back into community faster to make sure that we deal with these wait times and off-load delays. We’re providing timely and appropriate care in the community through the expansion of a patient care model that allows paramedics to actually provide community-based care to some 911 patients. These are concrete, specific examples of what we have done as a government to assist and make sure that status quo—

We’ve also increased non-ambulance transportation for medically stable patients. All of these things together are ensuring that we continue to train and hire more paramedics in community, because, of course, the Learn and Stay program also has a component for our ambulance operators and our paramedics. So we’re doing this work and we’re getting the job done because it has been sorely ignored for too long.

My thanks to the member for the question.

The Niagara region has experienced a renaissance since this government came to office in 2018. We are experiencing, currently, record-low unemployment. Jobs are coming back to our region. We’re seeing investments in the areas that matter most. Here are a couple of examples of this in various ministries: We are seeing a new hospital being built in my riding—the West Lincoln Memorial Hospital; we’re seeing new hospitals being built across the region, including the advancement of the new 1.3 million square feet being added to the South Niagara Hospital; we are seeing new long-term-care homes spring up across the region; when I first was elected, we had 16 hospice beds, and there are now 40 hospice beds in the Niagara region—incredible investments in health care. We’ve seen the Brock nursing school go from 300 students to 600 students. And we’ve seen thousands of manufacturing jobs come back to a region that, for too long, was left behind.

The people of Niagara know that under this government, the world doesn’t end at the Burlington Skyway.

A couple of examples of this: the Homelessness Prevention Program was expanded by 86% to $20 million annualized, supports that go to the most vulnerable in our communities. We are building housing in the Niagara region to make sure that the dream of home ownership becomes a reality. We are expanding GO train service across the Niagara region to make sure that people can get from A to B faster, easier and smarter. We’re also making sure that all of these investments are focused on the well-being of our communities, building connected communities where people have the opportunity to build a better life for them and their family.

Under the leadership of this Premier and this government, we’re getting it done for the people of Niagara.

Thank you to both of my colleagues for your comments this afternoon.

To the member from Bruce–Grey–Owen Sound: I know you talked about some particular pages of the budget that you really enjoyed—obviously, for me, I have a certain section with the investments in training, specifically in the health care area.

You also mentioned Learn and Stay—we’re going to be together with the Minister of Health tomorrow; tomorrow is the actual kickoff day to Learn and Stay. Can you tell me what you’re hearing from students in your area, or even from the hospitals and long-term-care homes, about what it’s going to mean for the Owen Sound area?

Speaker, last week was nurse appreciation week. Of course, we appreciate all health care workers and especially nurses on the front line every day, but this budget—they haven’t put money back into hospitals like they’re supposed to. They’ve been underfunded. They’re encouraging agency workers. They have actually increased funding being diverted into independent health care facilities from $18 million last year to $72 million this year in their budget.

I sent out a newsletter and asked people what they think about how to respect nurses. They write back and they tell us that, rather than spending time and money on appealing the court ruling on Bill 124, Ontario could be investing in our health care system to expand access, reduce long wait times and hire more nurses. I’m getting hundreds of responses back. Why won’t this government listen to the people of Ontario?