The member raises a great point. This is crisis-by-design. The minister, back in the day, spilled the beans that it was happening when she wasn’t supposed to. Comms tried to cover it up and to fix that issue. But here we are, seeing exactly what she had said years ago with the for-profit system that is going to siphon our precious health care dollars that could be paying for those surgeries, that could be paying for those kids’ critical needs and nurses at home instead of having moms struggling, not being able to go to work, instead of 12,000 kids on wait-lists for surgeries. All of those things could have been paid for instead of investing into a for-profit system helping those investors get money back when they shouldn’t even be in there in the first place.

This bill will do nothing to correct that. It is going to be the same number of nurses, the same number of doctors. You’re just splitting them in half.

Thank you to the member for that question. Having supports in the north is very important, and in underserved areas. That’s why, with the new Learn and Stay grant, we’ve seen those areas specifically identified not just for nursing, but for lab technologists, for paramedicine.

With the work that we’ve been doing to ensure that there are more doctors, this is the first time in 10 years that we’ve seen a seat expansion for doctors: 160 undergraduate spaces and 295 postgraduate spaces. This was not done under the Liberal government. It was this government that came in and said, “We need to ensure that people have access to doctors.”

I can tell you that in my own area, I’ve talked to families who are experiencing not having a local doctor, but accessing the work at some of our community care clinics through our local health teams and the resources and supports that are served there. So we do recognize the need for more doctors in the north, but also in rural and underserved areas across this province.

The status quo is not working. We need to do better for the people of Ontario. Before COVID, we were working hard, and COVID just expedited that as well, but the investments are being made. We’re here to support all Ontarians and ensure that you’re going to the doctor or a hospital and using your OHIP card and not a credit card.

I just have a note from my staff that says that as of 9 a.m. today, the Ontario Learn and Stay Grant website has had over 405,000 visits, so the word is getting out there. It’s to support northern and rural communities, the ones you’re talking about, that we’re encouraging students and paying for their education to get them to learn in those communities and make that commitment of staying for two years, because if you’re staying there for two years, you’re starting to set down roots. You are becoming familiar with the community and maybe meeting someone there and staying in that area.

But the supports that we’re giving to ensure that more nurses, paramedics, lab technologists—we’re also working with the Northern Ontario School of Medicine to ensure there are more doctors in the north as well, so that everyone has access to quality care.

Thank you to the member for that question. It’s always a privilege to tour your riding and meet with the schools in your areas as well. I think you can see my excitement about the Ontario Learn and Stay Grant, as well as the Premier’s and the Minister of Health’s, but the excitement for students who are looking to go into that field. Imagine considering nursing and to find out that you could have your education paid for if you were open to living in a different area, spending two years there. Like I said, it’s likely that you spend some time there, you start to love that community and hopefully stay in that area.

But looking at how you ensure that we have more nurses and doctors, it’s innovative programs like this, and I think—this is just the beginning of this program. We announced last March, we’ve already expanded it. It was nursing in the beginning; now we’ve expanded to lab technologists and paramedics. I think there’s so much more we can look at doing as this progresses, but we’re already seeing that there’s a huge interest in the program so there will be more to come on that and I think great opportunities to look at other communities—

We are making investments into our hospitals, our long-term-care centres. Under this government, we saw the increase of care to clients in long-term care up to four hours. We’ve also seen the investments, the 60,000 new long-term-care spaces. I’ve seen the investments in long-term-care homes in my area as well, which I know we’re all very excited about, to ensure that seniors have access to long-term care in their communities.

Thank you to my colleague from Ottawa West–Nepean for the comments. I know that they spend a lot of time with nurses in the riding in Ottawa, and I’m wondering if my colleague can tell me a little bit about some of the comments received from those nurses with respect to—you mentioned the lack of respect that they feel, especially after the pandemic, and now, on top of all that, the lack of investment in the public system. What are some of the comments you’ve heard from people in Ottawa West–Nepean?

In 2018, when our government came to power, I can tell you there was hallway health care; the health care system was broken.

Since 2018, we have 60,000 new nurses, 8,000 new doctors who registered to work here in Ontario. In fact, last year we had over 12,000 new nurses registered and ready to work, and in the colleges and universities there are 30,000 new nurses ready to come on board.

We’re putting—these are staggering numbers—$50 billion into building new hospitals on 50 sites right across this province, focusing on the infrastructure, and we’re going to make sure we have the best health care system anywhere in North America.

My question is really about the state of health care right now. We know that the system is in crisis. We have ORs that are not up and running. They’re actually tired, largely because there is a shortage of health care workers.

Does this legislation do anything to bring the nurses back into the field? Does it do anything to retain health care workers? Does it do anything to address the shortage of primary care providers across the province?