The temporary or permanent closures are disturbing for communities, but I have to say, as we continue to invest in health care, the party opposite, the NDP, continue to vote against those investments, whether it is 50 new expanded renovations of hospitals in the province of Ontario, whether it is Learn and Stay programs that ensure paramedics, lab technicians and nurses can train in the province of Ontario and have their tuition covered if they are prepared to serve in an underserved community.

You continue to defend the status quo, and we continue to make the investments that are going to make generational changes in the province of Ontario. We’re doing that work. I only wish that the party of the NDP and the party of the Liberals, when they were in power, were making similar investments so that we were not, in Ontario, finding the same thing that is happening across Canada and, in fact, worldwide: shortages of—

Dedicated off-load nursing programs that allow hospitals to have dedicated staff who are able to take those patients as the paramedics come in and allow the paramedics to go back out into community and do what they want to do, which is continue to respond to 911 calls; 911 models of care that ensure that instead of the paramedic’s only choice—to be able to take that patient to a palliative care facility, to a long-term care facility, instead of exclusively and only to an emergency department. These are the changes that we have been making that we are seeing, on the ground, make a difference. The number of paramedics who have spoken to me saying, “These programs are literally life-changing in our community. Please keep them coming,” tells me that the programs are working. And I continue to remind them that, unfortunately, the NDP continue to vote against them.

You talk about why you’re opposed to the expansion of surgical and diagnostic centres in the province of Ontario—centres that have operated for decades but have not had the investment of previous governments. We made that investment in January in Windsor, in Kitchener-Waterloo and in Ottawa, and we now have people getting those cataract surgeries and getting back into community.

The status quo doesn’t work. We’re making the investments.

As I have said many times, when hospital leaderships make decisions about how to best serve their communities, it is not in our interest, as local members or government members, to second-guess those locally decided upon decisions.

Having said that, the investments that we are making to ensure that we have, as an example, last August, directed the College of Nurses of Ontario to quickly assess, review and expedite licences for internationally educated nurses, mean that in last year alone we had over 12,000 new nurses licensed in the province of Ontario; over half were internationally trained nurses. We’ve done the same with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario.

We will continue to make sure that pathways for licensing in the province of Ontario—the red tape is removed so that we can have as many people—

We will continue to invest. We have done that through surgical recovery programs. Hospitals have been able to expand and widen the number of surgeries that they can do with funds from the province of Ontario. We’ve done it to make sure that we have options, in the province of Ontario, including 24/7 health services provided with registered nurses, so individuals can have that conversation and make sure that they are going to the most appropriate level of care in the province of Ontario.