This week, the government released their legislation to bring surgeries and diagnostic services out of hospitals. While there could be merit in such a strategy if implemented in a not-for-profit manner with credible guardrails, it alone cannot be a solution to all the challenges in our health care system.

The bedrock of our health care system is its people, and that bedrock has been eroded by Bill 124. This wage-constraining, unconstitutional legislation has pushed health care workers out of the public system. Meanwhile, temporary, for-profit nursing agencies, operating with limited oversight, have been pulling them out. As this has happened, we have learned how some temporary, for-profit nursing agencies exemplify some of the most corrosive elements when profit is mixed with health care.

That is why today I will be tabling a private member’s bill that, if passed, will license and regulate temporary nursing agencies. It takes aim at the most outrageous and predatory practices in a fair and reasonable way. For the first time, nursing agencies will be required to obtain a licence that can be suspended or revoked. They will be forbidden from unethical recruiting practices, unfair negotiation tactics and price-gouging. There will be transparency and accountability achieved through inspections, along with a prohibition against unconscionable pricing.

The bill is fair. It is not onerous. It borrows from accepted practices by this very government, and it won’t destabilize our health care. What it will do is level the playing field and prevent siphoning of health care workers from our public system, and it will stop runaway profiteering.

The bill enacts the Temporary Nursing Agency Licensing and Regulation Act, 2023. The act adds a new licensing requirement for operators of temporary nursing agencies. Applications for these licences must be submitted to the registrar appointed under the act. The applications must contain a credentialing and monitoring plan, as well as a compliance plan.

Licences are subject to several terms and conditions. These include a predictable fee requirement, a prohibition on unconscionable prices, limitations on work assignment and recruitment practices, and certain disclosure obligations. Contravention of the act or the regulations is an offence and is punishable on conviction by a fine.

Mr. Blais moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill 68, An Act to amend the Public Transportation and Highway Improvement Act with respect to the jurisdiction and control of Ottawa Road 174 and County Road 17 / Projet de loi 68, Loi modifiant la Loi sur l’aménagement des voies publiques et des transports en commun en ce qui concerne la compétence relative aux voies publiques connues sous le nom de Ottawa Road 174 et de County Road 17.