One code red, black or zero is one too many. That means few or no ambulances or paramedics are available to respond to emergencies. Another code black was called in my community again just last night.

Under this Conservative government, code blacks, reds and zeroes are becoming normal, and that is not acceptable. Ontarians deserve to have the confidence that if they have the medical emergency, they can call 911 and receive help quickly.

Paramedics are burning out at an alarming rate, and this government isn’t taking the necessary steps to help our crumbling health care system. In fact, they are actively making the situation worse. The staffing crisis in hospitals leads to longer wait times to transfer patients to the care of nurses and doctors. Paramedics are held up in the hospitals instead of being on the road to save more lives. Bill 124 must be repealed today.

Last week was Paramedic Services Week. I thank every paramedic in Windsor-Essex and across the province for their dedication to serving their communities.

In October 2022, my NDP colleague MPP Shaw tabled a motion calling on the Conservative government to provide necessary funding to end instances when ambulances are unavailable to respond to an emergency. The motion passed unanimously. However, in March 2023, the Financial Accountability Officer reported the government is withholding $6.4 billion in much-needed support. The Conservative government must honour their promise, properly fund the public health care system, support front-line health care workers so they aren’t doing their jobs without adequate support, and ensure code reds, blacks and zeroes are not the normal in Ontario, because lives depend on it.

Speaker, I choose to believe that the leader of the NDP understands that hospitals are more than just an emergency department, that Minden hospital will continue to offer services to their communities. The consolidation of the emergency department, while challenging for that leadership, is part of those determinations that the leadership have made.

Again, I will go back to legacy. We talk about Bill 60 and as of right—the first in Canada that ensures that clinicians who have licences in other Canadian jurisdictions can today begin working in the province of Ontario as they go through that licence process here in Ontario. Those are the legacies that will ensure that we have health care capacity and health human resource capacity in decades and future generations.

Some of those programs of course include the 911 models of care that ensure paramedics have the ability to quickly assess and make sure that individuals go to the most appropriate place. The Dedicated Offload Nurses Program that is in hospitals today in emergency rooms to make sure, again, paramedics can release their patients and get back out on the road; the Emergency Department Peer-to-Peer Program; the Emergency Department Locum Program; the extern program; the nurse preceptors program—all of these programs are available to Ontario hospitals. We have worked very closely to ensure that when it is appropriate, we will be there, and we will keep making those programs available.

Let me help the minister. She has met with the staffing agency Canadian Health Labs six times since becoming minister. Fly-by-night staffing agencies are hurting our hospitals. They are hurting the patients in our hospitals. They exist for one reason: to make money for the investor. They take health care workers from our public system and sell them back at huge profits.

How big, Speaker? A whistle-blower showed us: a $154-million profit off the backs of 500 Ontario health care workers. Let that sink in, Speaker. Let that sink in. This is sickening. Why is this minister letting this happen?

Interjections.