My question is to the Premier. Speaker, many constituents in northern Ontario must travel long distances to receive specialized health care. The broken Northern Health Travel Grant system forces patients to cover those travel costs and accommodations up front, and then they have to wait to be reimbursed. For example, Denise and her husband, Stephan, are seniors on a fixed income, and they need to come to Toronto to see Stephan’s neurologist. Denise told me Stephan will get 41 cents a kilometre, but only after the first hundred kilometres.

My question is, will the Premier remove cost-prohibitive barriers like this one that make it difficult for northerners to access proper care through the Northern Health Travel Grant?

My question is, will the Premier commit to increasing mileage and accommodation compensation so seniors like Stephan aren’t paying out of pocket to access essential medical care?