We all know that there are close to two million Ontarians without access to primary care; in my riding, it’s 30,000 people who don’t have access.

We also have some underemployed nurse practitioners, right here, right now, who would love to go pick up a thousand people from Capreol, from Coniston, from the Southwest Ontario Aboriginal Health Access Centre, yet there is very little money in the budget to do this. Why is it that after all of them came and presented for the budget, telling us that we need investment in nurse practitioner-led clinics, in Aboriginal health access centres, in community health centres so that they can hire the nurse practitioners who live in Ontario right now and would love to take on a roster of primary care clients, the budget didn’t deliver?

What have you got to say to those thousands of Ontarians who know that they could get access to primary care if only your government would be willing to fund nurse practitioner-led clinics and community health centres and Aboriginal health access centres?