I would like to recognize Patrick McGilly from the Niagara Region Police Association.

Patrick, I’m looking forward to the meeting later on this afternoon. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

I stand today in support of this motion because it supports health care workers, and, by retention, seniors, children, families and hospitals in Niagara and across Ontario. In Niagara, we have seen the cost of staffing shortages. We have seen a Niagara Health system that has buckled under the pressure. The results have been closures of emergency rooms in our region.

We have also seen the cost for families seeking pediatric care having to wait hours to get the help they need. Niagara has seen sexual assault survivors that are seeking justice having to be redirected to other communities, often more than an hour away.

We are well into half a decade of majority PC government and I think everyone will agree that health care access is worse now than it was five years ago. If the problem is getting worse—which it is—this government must take responsibility: Do more. Take action.

Nursing vacancies in Ontario hospitals have increased by almost 300% between March 2020 and March 2022. Health care workers and Ontario patients need immediate and sustainable solutions. At this point, the weight of the response needs to match the crisis.

This is why I was shocked this week to learn that in the fall economic update there is not a single new penny in the government’s economic update for nurses and health care workers as the staffing crisis shakes our hospitals.

Ford is refusing to spend in critical areas like public health and yet sits on billions. Nurses need support. They are being run off their feet. Families are facing the fear of what it will mean if their loved ones—a child or a senior—get sick and have to go into their local hospitals. Instead, we have seen the government put in policies like Bill 124, which has been widely recognized to make the health care staffing crisis worse.

The previous PC government under Mike Harris met the moment of a health care crisis with privatization and cuts. Those actions led to fewer nurses and a provincial long-term-care sector that was one of the worst performers in Canada throughout the pandemic.

Over the last five years, we have had opportunity after opportunity to fix the staffing crisis in hospitals. It is about time we do that, and it is why we need to pass this motion and fully commit to solutions to retention and recruitment in health care right now.