It is exactly the health care workers who we are listening to when we put forward programs like the dedicated offload nursing program, to make sure that our community care paramedics, our paramedicine experts can go in, have that dedicated offload nurse help to stabilize the patient and have that paramedic turnaround.

It is exactly why we are listening to paramedics when they say, “We can do things differently if you only change a few policies,” and we’ve done that with the 911 change, where instead of always having to go to an emergency department, they can, with the patient’s approval, take them to a long-term-care home, a mental health facility, other opportunities. We are listening to the experts in the field, the experts on the front line, to make sure that we provide better care.

I want to reinforce that this is an agreement that was reached with the Ontario Medical Association—voted upon by their members—and it will ensure that while virtual care continues, it will be appropriate. We don’t want to replace in-person care with 100% virtual care. We’ve seen that there is value in virtual care in the province of Ontario, but we also need to make sure that there is a balance—to have individuals access their primary care physicians. That’s what the OMA agreement has done.

I very much resent the suggestion that virtual care is appropriate in 100% of cases. We need to make sure that that balance is there. We need to make sure that we have individuals having access to their family care physicians, their primary care physicians, nurse practitioners—all of those organizations that are providing care in our community. That work will continue.

Virtual care in the province of Ontario will continue. What changes is an agreement that was reached with the Ontario Medical Association, voted on by their members and supported by their members—a historic agreement that did not have to go to arbitration. That never happened under the Liberals and the NDP.