I want to commend my colleague the member for Hamilton Mountain on her remarks. A lot of concerns have been raised about this legislation and the impact on patient safety. There are concerns about the total vagueness of the legislation when it comes to protections for patient health and oversight.

I wondered if the member has also heard those concerns being raised and whether the legislation actually does include anything to safeguard patient health in these for-profit health clinics.

I appreciate the opportunity to interact with the member from Hamilton Mountain. She always brings such clarity to the opposition position on an issue, and that’s what I was hoping to ask her.

Yesterday morning, during question period, we had a very interesting question from one of the opposition members stating that the operating rooms in many hospitals were operating overcapacity. And then yesterday afternoon, we were debating a motion from the opposition stating that the hospitals were under capacity. So I was wondering if the member could help clarify exactly what the position of the opposition is on this issue.

Thank you very much, Speaker. It’s a pleasure to see you in the chair; it’s the first time.

It is always an honour to rise in this House to represent and speak on behalf of the good people of my riding, Hamilton West–Ancaster–Dundas. This Bill 60 and the changes that this government is making to our public health care system are of significant concern to the people in my riding. They call to share their hopes and their dreams and—I’ve been hearing so much from my constituents—to ask the question: Why is this government rushing to dismantle our public health care system, our publicly delivered, world-class health care system that has been the envy of the world?

As has been said here, health care is in crisis. We acknowledge that; we recognize it’s in a crisis, but it’s this government’s job to fix that crisis with the solutions they already have before them, not in fact to make it worse. For example, in Hamilton, we have world-class health care facilities. We have Hamilton Health Sciences, we have McMaster Children’s Hospital and we have St. Joseph’s. These are world-class hospitals that are struggling under the underfunding, the lack of funding, the lack of supports they need to be able to continue to deliver the health care the people of Hamilton need. It’s been said many, many times here that the solutions—in fact, it’s been said that you’ve manufactured this crisis, taken hallway health care that was a legacy of the Liberals and doubled down by making it worse by underfunding health care, and by introducing Bill 124, that has created and exacerbated a health care human resource crisis.

It’s a mystery to me why this government would, rather than the easy solutions which are to fund the health care hospitals we have, these world-class hospitals, cut them off and let them have to put people on wait-lists for surgery. Why you wouldn’t make sure they have the adequate funding? Why you wouldn’t make sure that the money you have in contingency funds and $12 billion of unspent money could be going right now to address wait-lists? Why are you not doing that? Why is that not your first choice?

Why are there 12,000 children on a surgery wait-list in the province of Ontario when you could start to address that by making sure these closed operating suites, these unused facilities are open again so that people could start getting the procedures and the surgeries they need to save lives, relieve pain and suffering and the fears of parents who are hoping that their children would get the care they deserve under this government?

I also wonder why you continue to disrespect health care workers, nurses and PSWs and refuse to repeal Bill 124. You continue to underpay them in a time when they are burnt out, stressed and doing the best they can in a system that you have destabilized further. Why are you taking nurses and PSWs back to court on Bill 124 when it’s been shown that this is an unconstitutional bill? Why is that not your first act?

The question really stands: Why are you rushing, rather than looking at the solutions that are before you? Why is your first act, the thing you’re putting all your effort into, to introduce profits into the health care system? It’s been called the profitization of our health care system, and it’s hard to describe it as anything other than that.

We have talked in this House about the proud history of the NDP and Tommy Douglas and our medicare system. All of you know, and all of you have been hearing from your constituents, that that is the pride of Ontario. That’s one of the things we’re so proud of: that people can get access to the health care and the emergency care they need, despite their ability to pay, anywhere in this province. To now go down the road of a two-tier health care system is exactly the wrong, wrong direction and nobody, if they understood what you are doing, would support this. I can only imagine that you are also hearing from your constituents that this is not what they expected and this is not where they want to see you going with their precious health care system.

Rather than taking the steps that you know will help to relieve the burden and will help to improve our publicly delivered health care system, you’re still rushing to introduce privatization without learning the lessons of the past. In this bill, there are absolutely no protections for patients seeking care in private, for-profit, corporatized facilities. It’s not in the bill. All you have to do is to look at the evidence that comes from what already exists in private, independent health facilities.

The report from the Auditor General is invaluable, and I wonder whether the opposite members, the MPPs or the ministers, have taken into account the findings of this value-for-money audit that the Auditor General has put out, because the warnings are there. The recommendations to protect patients both financially and health outcomes are in this report, but nothing has been put into this bill to address that.

Let me just point out some of the highlights—not really highlights; some of the actual dire warnings or recommendations that come from this report that should have been included in this bill but are not there.

I’m just going to start by—it’s interesting reading if you take the time to look at it, but really, the Auditor General said that there is “inadequate and inconsistent monitoring of the quality of outpatient surgeries.” No one is monitoring the results, the outcome of how people fare after they have surgeries or procedures in these independent health care facilities. There’s inadequate monitoring.

There’s also “no regular review and monitoring of funding and billings for outpatient surgeries.” So it’s all fine and dandy for you to say that people won’t have to pay extra—it’s absolutely not the truth, because in Ontario, people already pay extra for these procedures. They pay dearly for these procedures.

In fact, the Auditor General goes on to say that there’s absolutely “no provincial oversight to protect patients against inappropriate charges.” The ministry has not sufficiently reviewed “unusual billing patterns or trends to identify possible issues, such as inappropriate billings or inappropriate rendering of services.” These are the findings that the Auditor General did in 2021, and these problems still exist and are only going to be exacerbated by this bill.

I think the overall conclusion of the Auditor General that speaks to the two protections that people should expect from a government—to protect them financially and to protect their health outcomes—when they’re being driven by this government to private, for-profit clinics, the Auditor General says, clearly, “The ministry does not have a centralized way to measure and report on surgical quality and outcomes for all surgeries being performed in Ontario.” That’s shocking. There’s no oversight in place, and this bill does not put any in place.

The Auditor General also goes on to say that “We found that some patients could be given misleading information as part of sales practices to make a profit.” So the warning is here. This is already happening. The quality of people’s outcomes are not being monitored, and the fact they’re being charged inappropriately and overcharged for fees is not at all being addressed by this government. I would be curious to know what the government is doing to address these recommendations and these findings from the Auditor General.

The Auditor General’s work is invaluable to all of us in this House to do our work. Her work is stellar, and her work is invaluable. She’s an independent officer of this Legislature, and we should be listening to this and using this to make our bills better and to improve our bills. She said, mincing no words, that “the ministry is putting patients at greater financial risk by allowing additional private organizations to provide publicly funded surgeries while also being allowed to charge patients directly for additional uninsured services to make a profit without appropriate oversight mechanisms in place.”

There it is. It’s happening already in this province. You’re putting a bill forward that’s going to double down on this and that has not in any way addressed those concerns.

My question to the government would be, what happens if something goes wrong in one of these private clinics? What is the procedure when there are complications or urgent issues that arise? How will this impact our emergency rooms that are already closing? Have you considered any of this? Because it’s not in the bill, and in the debate that I’ve heard, you don’t address any of the concerns that people have.

So I would just say, despite the despair that we feel that this government is not protecting people when they need health care in this province—that in fact, you’re protecting profits over patients—I just have to end with a quote from Tommy Douglas, because it is the anniversary of his passing. Despite the despair that we feel, I think Tommy’s words would be, "Courage, my friends; ’tis not too late to build a better world.” That’s what we should be aspiring to, not a downward spiral to privatization and lack of services for the people of the province of Ontario.