I, too, would like to give a very warm welcome to Mohamed Lachemi, president of the now official Toronto Metropolitan University.

Mohamed, thank you for your leadership. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

A mother from my community wrote to me recently. Her daughter was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder. In October of last year, they got a referral for SickKids. Over a year later, they are still waiting for that appointment.

They are far from alone. Tens of thousands of kids are on wait-lists for mental health services that can take up to two and a half years.

Speaker, my question is to the Premier. How long will the children of this province have to wait before they can get the health care service that they need?

This petition is titled, “Health Care: Not For Sale.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Ontarians should get health care based on need—not the size of your wallet;

“Whereas Premier Doug Ford and Health Minister Sylvia Jones say they’re planning to privatize parts of health care;

“Whereas privatization will bleed nurses, doctors and PSWs out of our public hospitals, making the health care crisis worse;

“Whereas privatization always ends with patients getting a bill;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to immediately stop all plans to further privatize Ontario’s health care system, and fix the crisis in health care by:

“—repealing Bill 124 and recruiting, retaining and respecting doctors, nurses and PSWs with better pay and better working conditions;

“—licensing tens of thousands of internationally educated nurses and other health care professionals already in Ontario, who wait years and pay thousands to have their credentials certified;

“—10 employer-paid sick days;

“—making education and training free or low-cost for nurses, doctors and other health care professionals;

“—incentivizing doctors and nurses to choose to live and work in northern Ontario;

“—funding hospitals to have enough nurses on every shift, on every ward.”

I support this petition and will affix my signature to it.

This petition is entitled “Stand Up for Early Years and Child Care Workers.” It reads, “To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas child care centres across the province are closing rooms and limiting enrolment because they cannot retain staff in their programs; and

“Whereas child care experts and advocates estimate Ontario may need as many as 65,000 new child care workers to meet the expected demand for $10-a-day child care; and

“Whereas without a strategy to recruit and retain child care workers through setting a salary scale, increasing wages, and implementing decent work standards, parents will lose access to affordable child care; and

“Whereas early years and child care workers have long been overlooked in child care policy-making discussions; and

“Whereas the vitally important work of early years and child care workers has been historically undervalued, with low pay, poor working conditions, and high turnover;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to immediately establish an Early Years and Child Care Worker Advisory Commission to develop recommendations on how to support the early years and child care workforce and address staffing shortages, including through a salary scale, increased compensation and improved working conditions.”

I fully support this petition. I have tabled a bill for this and I call on the government to take action.