This past Friday, MPP Jordan, the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Long-Term Care, and I announced $170,466 for the Village of Taunton Mills in Whitby, to help residents with complex medical needs like dementia and bariatric care connect to specialized care and supports in their long-term-care home instead of a hospital.

Speaker, this is part of a $20-million investment this year in 189 projects province-wide through a new local priorities fund. Under the leadership of the Honourable Paul Calandra, the Minister of Long-Term Care, we’re taking action to bolster our province’s long-term-care system and put residents’ needs first.

This work is built on four pillars: staffing and care; quality and enforcement; building modern, safe and comfortable homes; and providing seniors with faster, more convenient access to the services they need. Speaker, the government is fixing long-term care to ensure Ontario’s seniors get the quality of care and quality of life they need and deserve, both now and in the future.

Thank you very much for allowing me to give my very first member’s statement in the House. I want to start off by thanking the volunteers who worked really hard on my campaign to send me here. I’m thinking of Robbie, Anika, Daniela Giulietti, Amr and so many other people—Davin—who worked really hard to send me here. I also want to make sure to give a shout-out to my mom, who I would not be here without.

The issues I care a lot about are health care, housing and climate and making sure to tackle the disabling conditions caused by harmful legislation in the House. I’m not here to be preoccupied by the strange rituals or this colonial building. I’m here because Hamilton Centre knows that I am a fighter and I’m going to make sure that people are protected, that we’re fighting for health care, housing and the issues that people need to live, because people are dying, Mr. Speaker, because of harm caused in this House.

I’m going to make sure, as the Hamilton Centre MPP, that I’m here to put up a fight. Thank you so much.

Good morning, Speaker. I would like my colleagues here to imagine themselves as a migrant worker, a refugee who fled persecution or a newcomer who came to Ontario with dreams of a good life. Now imagine you had an urgent health issue for which you needed treatment. On Friday, you’d be able to access care without having to worry about how you would pay for it. But by Saturday, that care became a lot harder to access, because this government cruelly eliminated the Physician and Hospital Services for Uninsured Persons Program.

Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Health: Will she restore this program to make sure no one risks going without receiving the care they need?

I’d like my colleagues to imagine that you are actually working at a community health centre. An uninsured client has come in. Their needs are beyond what you are able to provide. On Friday, you would have been able to connect them to the help they need so they can focus on getting better. But by Saturday, your client has to make a decision between paying their rent that month or getting better.

It’s never too late to do the right thing, Speaker. Back to the Minister of Health: Will she reverse her decision so no one is forced to make such an impossible choice?

As it happens, I spent time with Niagara community health centre workers last week, and the reality is that these programs the minister keeps mentioning are woefully inadequate. I met with one CHC worker from Niagara on Friday. Her CHC has a budget of a little over $1,000 to help uninsured clients—just $1,000. She told me that that doesn’t go very far—one year, just two clients. There are 500,000 uninsured people in this province.

Back to the Minister of Health: If she won’t restore the program, will she immediately boost investments in CHCs to make sure no one goes without the health care they need?

Interjections.

Speaker, to the Minister of Health: Will the government commit to making virtual ER funding permanent?

This government likes to talk about health care innovations—well, let’s talk about innovation. Virtual ERs were a pandemic-era innovation to reduce pressure on hospitals and keep health care public. They connected Ontarians to the care they needed and helped ease hospital overloading. But this government’s last-minute, eleventh-hour decision to extend it by just three months has effectively cancelled the program.

Back to the Minister of Health: Why is this government saying no to these public health care innovations?