My question is for the Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions.

The people of my riding of Niagara West have seen first-hand the devastating consequences of mental health challenges and addictions in Niagara. We’ve seen the losses from these challenges, and we know that the losses are devastating for loved ones and have a significant impact on our broader community.

Our government is committed to building awareness and reducing stigma related to mental health and addiction challenges. I know that through investments in community support, progress has been made, but the demand for services in my riding and so many others continues at an unprecedented rate, and our government must act to ensure that Ontarians are able to get access to the care they need, when and where they need it.

Could the associate minister please explain to this House what our government is doing to ensure that all individuals facing mental health challenges and addictions care are being supported here in the province of Ontario?

Thank you to the fantastic member from Niagara West.

This gives me an opportunity to speak about the investments that we’re making in our new budget and how we’re going to help those who are doing the heavy lifting in the province in the fight against opioid overdoses.

With an additional investment of $425 million over three years, we’re providing the community mental health and addictions sector its first base funding increase in 10 years. By providing a 5% increase in funding across the board for community mental health and addictions organizations, we’re stabilizing the sector, ensuring staff can be retained, and making it clear to the people of Ontario that we’re treating these issues with the seriousness they deserve.

I want to end the response with a quote from the CEO from CMHA, who said that the budget is “an overwhelmingly positive sign that the government understands the strain our sector is facing as we support Ontarians living with”—

Order, please.

The member for Niagara.

You done?

Interjection.

Interjection.

The reason why I did that is because I’ve been arguing about price-gouging. Because where I live, in my riding—Niagara-on-the-Lake, Niagara Falls and Fort Erie—we have the highest number of seniors in the entire province of Ontario, and they’re coming into my office, sir, and they’re crying because they can’t afford to buy their food; they can’t afford to heat their home; they can’t afford to pay for their medication. That’s what’s going on in the province of Ontario. And you know what? I lose sleep over it, because these are people that have given their entire life to this beautiful province, to their family, to their grandkids, and they’re breaking down in my office—

As far as the human resources, I can’t say it enough here; I say it almost every day: Bill 124. You’re fighting it in the courts. Nurses, PSWs are leaving in record numbers because of Bill 124. If you want to at least show respect at all to our heroes—because you guys call them heroes; we call them heroes as well—repeal Bill 124, and the crisis in health care in retention will go away.

But to your point: To stand up and have never once—your government has never once, including yourself, sir, who I sat at committee with—apologized for what happened to our seniors, to the 5,500 that died, the 3,800 who died in for-profit care. And the reason why they died there—ask the military. You brought the military in. And what did they tell you? They didn’t die because they were old and they had COVID. They died from dehydration, sir. You’re trying to tell me if we had the proper staffing in these homes, they wouldn’t have been taken care of? They found seniors that laid in their beds for 24 hours—24 hours after they died, because they had no staff. This is in the report. This isn’t coming from me.

I will always fight for seniors. I always have, matter of fact, for my entire 40 years that I’ve been involved in the labour movement and the 10 years I’ve been here. Thank you for the question.

I talk to a lot of employers. I go around and talk to them all the time, and you know what? Even small businesses that I talk to don’t want their employees coming to work sick. They also don’t want that they can’t afford to buy their groceries at the end of the week if they have to take a day off or a couple of days off because they’ve got the flu—not necessarily COVID. There’s a lot of other things that you get sick and you have to take three or four days off.

There should be sick days in the province of Ontario, without a doubt. The one thing we all have to admit is that we live in one of the richest provinces in all of Canada. Are you trying to tell me we can’t afford to provide sick days for workers? Are you trying to tell us that? Come on, think about it.

But do you know what happened to that program, sir? Do you know? I’m going to help you—you can look it up when you go home tonight. I don’t think the Leafs are playing tonight; the Jays played this afternoon.

Do you know what happened to that program? It was cancelled in the schools by the Harris government. Now that we want to bring it back, I think it’s great. I think we should do that because it gives a hand up to people who, like myself, are maybe less fortunate. I’m agreeing with you on your comment. How we get there, we may differ, but I think the programs going back into schools is a great idea for skilled trades.

The member from Niagara likes to speak about long-term care, so I have a question regarding long-term care. This budget supports over 60,000 new and reconditioned long-term-care beds. Some of those:

—Crescent manor: 28 new, 68 redeveloped;

—Gilmore Lodge: 160 redeveloped;

—Niagara Long-Term Care Residence: 100 new and 124 redeveloped;

—Radiant Care Pleasant Manor: 119 new and 41 redeveloped because of this government.

This government: 60,000 new and reconditioned beds. I’d like to ask the member from Niagara how many beds he supported before 2018 in his position as MPP?

The member for Brampton North should actually apologize to the member for Niagara Falls. That’s the person he was trying to shout down while he was trying to answer the question.

But my colleague talked about how last night he went for a walk and passed—I believe it was 20 people sleeping rough on the streets. That was within just a few short blocks. And I’m going to point out that here in Toronto, you can’t walk a block without seeing people that are experiencing homelessness, and I think it’s important to point out that those people are becoming younger and younger and younger. It’s not uncommon for me to pass kids in their teens, those in their early twenties, because of the affordability crisis created by this government in this province.

But Speaker, I want to ask my colleague about health care, because he talked about that. This government is excluding those people experiencing homelessness from being able to access health care. That’s their policy: They’re excluding them from accessing health care. But I’d like my colleague to talk about the health care system and maybe expand more on the issues we’re seeing as far as the health human resources crisis that is making it more difficult for everyone in this province to access health care.

This is from OPSEU and JP Hornick, the president: “Privatization Makes Wait Times Worse, Not Better.” That’s for the member from Kingston. “Our health care system is in crisis, and it’s clear that privatization is not the solution. Putting private profits over people won’t fix wait times or solve the recruitment or retention crisis, which is causing staff to burn out and leave their jobs.

“This government has manufactured a crisis....”

My question to you: Can you tell me how many of the people from Niagara that you listed died in their homes that are owned by ConMed during COVID?