Ma question est pour la ministre de la Santé.

The nurse practitioners’ association is at Queen’s Park today. They have a very simple ask to the government: Lift the cap on the number of nurse practitioner-led clinics. The 25 existing nurse practitioner-led clinics are all success stories. Everywhere in Ontario, they provide access to top-quality, interdisciplinary primary care to over 100,000 Ontarians who used to go to our overcrowded emergency rooms for care.

Will the minister lift the cap on the number of nurse practitioner-led clinics so unattached patients in communities across Ontario, including in Coniston in my riding, can gain access to primary care?

In Capreol, the nurse practitioner-led clinic is the only show in town. They have thousands of people who want access to primary care. They have nurse practitioners who are available to fill those roles, but the nurse practitioner clinic in Capreol has no funding to hire them. Their request for funding continues to go unanswered.

Minister, why is this affordable, effective, immediate solution to our health care crisis being ignored? Why don’t you fund more nurse practitioners in the existing clinics?

Yes, I would. Thank you, Speaker. It’s with great pride that I’m able to read an explanatory note explaining this bill.

This bill, of course, is being introduced days before Trans Day of Remembrance, on November 20, and I’d like to share with you that the bill enacts the Gender Affirming Health Care Advisory Committee Act, 2022. This act provides that the Minister of Health shall, within 60 days of the act coming into force, establish a gender-affirming health care advisory committee. The advisory committee shall submit a report making recommendations to the minister for improving access to health care and coverage for gender-affirming health care for all Ontarians. After receiving the advisory committee’s report, the Minister of Health shall inform the assembly of the measures that the minister intends to recommend to the government of Ontario so that they can implement the recommendations to ensure that every Ontarian has gender-affirming health care and that it be delivered as speedily and as freely as possible.

Mr. Glover moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill Pr10, An Act to revive Maizal Tortilleria Inc.

When members submit written questions to the order paper, I believe the government has 24 sessional days, but my written question number 1—I’ve now waited 98 calendar days. It was due yesterday from the Minister of Health, and I would ask that I receive an answer to my written question, as is my right as a member.

Last night, my private member’s bill, Till Death Do Us Part, passed second reading. While it’s a very hopeful step for seniors in the province of Ontario, there is still so much more that we can do to ensure that senior couples are reunited in long-term care.

For Jim and Joan, who have been separated for five years, after 65 years of marriage—yesterday was their anniversary—there is a toll on their health. Jim is now seeing a heart specialist. Joan’s mental health has declined. There is the saying, “Love is patient, and love is kind”—but love is running out of patience, and they are running out of time.

What I want to ask the Minister of Long-Term Care today: Will this government commit to Jim and Joan and thousands of other seniors across this province that you will bring my bill forward at the social policy committee, that we will call delegations, and that we will ensure that reunification for seniors in Ontario is possible, that it is resourced, that it is funded, and that seniors who enter long-term care never have to go through the pain and anguish that Jim and Joan McLeod have experienced over the years?

I will repeat what I’ve said. When we have these innovative programs that are working, that are providing care in our neighbourhoods, in our communities, we obviously want to embrace that and endorse it. It’s why Ontario health teams are such an important model that ensures individual organizations are working together to treat the patient first and foremost—it’s not about stand-alone operations; it’s about ensuring our Ontario health teams are doing the appropriate care and coordinating that care around patients. We will continue that work because we know it’s working.

Last week, I had the pleasure of celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair. Many, I know, came and enjoyed it. We were joined by the Minister of Northern Development and the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. This annual fair, as I have said before in this House, has been a successful platform promoting agri-business in Ontario for the past century.

The agri-food sector provides critical support to our province’s economy and food security, and we must continue to foster its growth and development.

Can the Minister of Northern Development please inform the House what actions our government is taking to build a more robust agri-food sector in Ontario, especially for northern communities?

Mr. Speaker, can the Minister of Northern Development please share with us what investments our government is making to provide additional certainty for agri-food businesses, especially those in our remote and northern communities?

I just want to acknowledge, as I give this brief explanation, that Bob Murphy from the Toronto community for safe cycling is with us here today, and it’s one of the vulnerable road user organizations advocating with us this morning. Thank you, Bob, for being here.

The bill amends the Highway Traffic Act. It is also about the legal consequences, as you mentioned, of a collision that seriously injures or kills a pedestrian, a cyclist, a mobility device user, a roadway worker, an emergency responder outside their motor vehicle or another individual listed in this bill.

Some highlights include that the driver who caused the injury or death is guilty of an offence if they caused it by breaking one of the rules listed in the bill, which includes unlicensed drivers, driving while using a cellphone, speeding, careless driving, disobeying signs or lights at intersections or pedestrian crossovers, improper signalling, sharing the road and so on and so forth.

In a nutshell, it’s continuing a piece of legislation that’s been attempted three times in this Legislature. I look forward on this fourth occasion to winning the support of my colleagues in this House to keep our streets safe.

Madame Collard moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill 41, An Act to amend the Consumer Reporting Act and the Prevention of and Remedies for Human Trafficking Act, 2017 with respect to certain debts incurred in relation to human trafficking / Projet de loi 41, Loi modifiant la Loi sur les renseignements concernant le consommateur et la Loi de 2017 sur la prévention de la traite de personnes et les recours en la matière à l’égard de certaines dettes contractées dans un contexte de traite de personnes.

I’m going to paraphrase from the explanatory note. This bill would introduce new legislation that amends the City of Toronto Act and the Municipal Act and enacts other legislation. The proposed changes support our bold and transformative plan to get 1.5 million homes built in the next 10 years.

The bill, if passed, together with regulations, would give heads of council in Toronto and Ottawa an additional tool to further share our provincial-municipal priorities. It would also allow the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing to appoint the regional heads of council for Niagara, Peel and York regions for the 2022-26 municipal council term. This would take decisive action to help address the housing crisis in some of Ontario’s fastest-growing communities.

Mr. Harden moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill 40, An Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act to provide for consequences to those who cause injury or death to certain road users / Projet de loi 40, Loi modifiant le Code de la route pour prévoir les conséquences qu’encourent les personnes qui causent des blessures à certains usagers de la route ou leur décès.

Yes, thank you. The bill amends the Consumer Reporting Act and the Prevention of and Remedies for Human Trafficking Act, 2017. The Consumer Reporting Act is amended to prohibit the inclusion in consumer reports of unfavourable information about a consumer that resulted from human trafficking. The Prevention of and Remedies for Human Trafficking Act, 2017, is amended to add a new part IV which provides for the concept of a coerced debt, that being a debt incurred under a credit facility while the debtor was subjected to human trafficking.

I’m also very proud to say that this bill is co-sponsored by MPP Glover, MPP Schreiner and MPP Scott. Thank you for the support.

MPP Wong-Tam moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill 42, An Act to establish the Gender Affirming Health Care Advisory Committee / Projet de loi 42, Loi créant le Comité consultatif des soins de santé axés sur l’affirmation de genre.

I want to thank the member from Elgin–Middlesex–London. His contributions to the agri-food sector are well known, and we’re sure better off with him in our caucus making a difference in the agri-food sector. I appreciate him and my parliamentary assistant and the Minister of Agriculture joining me for more than $6 million worth of announcements in a variety of different places and spaces in the agri-food sector.

There’s a very important reason for that: The largest growth opportunity for the agri-food sector is actually in northern Ontario. That’s right; from the clay belt, in Thunder Bay–Superior North and Rainy River—the official beginning of the Prairies—we see a tremendous opportunity to boost up our agri-food production.

The Premier and I were announcing in the spring a beef barn—

Northern Ontario is ready to receive the opportunity to contribute to Ontario’s world-class agriculture sector.

The newly self-anointed and self-appointed food security man from Timiskaming–Cochrane had no less than $28 million worth of agricultural investments in his riding. And do you know what he did? He voted against them every time. Why?

Interjections.

Of course, the committees will make their own decisions with respect to what bills they hear at that time. I’m sure the member wouldn’t want the government dictating the work of committees.

For Jim and Joan—a wonderful letter from Jim explaining to me the circumstances of his situation. That is why we did make changes well in advance to ensure that we could speed up the process of bringing families and couples together much quicker. At first blush, the member’s bill actually would seem to delay that process and make it more difficult to bring families together—that’s certainly not, I’m sure, her intention. It’s not what we want to do.

Ultimately, one of the reasons why we’re making so many investments into long-term care across the province of Ontario is not only for people like Jim and his wife; it’s for families who want to be close to the people they love and communities that they helped build. That is why we’re building 60,000 new and upgraded beds in every part of this province. We’re going to rural and remote communities. We’re bringing long-term care into small communities that have never had long-term care before—because we’ve heard not only from people who live in big cities, but in small communities.

We want to be close to home. We want to be with our families and friends. And we want to be in the communities that we helped build for generations.

We’re getting the job done for people.

I remind members to make their comments through the Chair.

Minister of Health.

Response?

I will ask the minister when she might be able to give the House some indication as to when the response will be forthcoming.

The House recessed from 1150 to 1300.

Mr. Clark moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill 39, An Act to amend the City of Toronto Act, 2006 and the Municipal Act, 2001 and to enact the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Repeal Act, 2022 / Projet de loi 39, Loi visant à modifier la Loi de 2006 sur la cité de Toronto et la Loi de 2001 sur les municipalités et à édicter la Loi de 2022 abrogeant la Loi sur la Réserve agricole de Duffins-Rouge.

First reading agreed to.

First reading agreed to.

First reading agreed to.

First reading agreed to.

First reading agreed to.

I move that:

Whereas staffing shortages in Ontario have forced emergency room and ICU closures across Ontario, reducing access to complex and potentially life-saving care in many communities; and

Whereas other hospitals have been forced to close units, redirect patients to other facilities and reduce beds, contributing to ER wait times of up to 36 hours for patients that require a hospital stay; and

Whereas health care job vacancies have more than quadrupled since 2015, resulting in more than 45,000 openings in primary care, and research by the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario underscores the urgent need to train and hire tens of thousands of extra nurses, PSWs and allied health professionals to meet the government’s own 2024-25 long-term care targets for hands-on staffing care, while the College of Nurses of Ontario reports over 15,000 nurses in Ontario are licensed and not practising; and

Whereas health care workers are overworked, underpaid, subject to violence, and distressed by their inability to provide the care patients need due to poor working conditions and inadequate staffing, driving many to leave the profession in record numbers; and

Whereas Ford government policies such as the Protecting a Sustainable Public Sector for Future Generations Act, 2019—previously Bill 124—and other stopgap measures have failed to fix the problem, leaving nurses, allied health professionals and other front-line health care workers with wages falling far short of inflation, while the government of Ontario chose not to invest over $1 billion of the money allocated for hospitals in the 2021-22 budget; and

Whereas this government allowed the health human resource crisis to persist while billions of dollars in unspent public funds have been allocated to discretionary funds instead of Ontario hospitals that are struggling to maintain quality of care because they are dramatically understaffed; and

Whereas the Ford government has failed to develop a comprehensive health care staffing plan to train, recruit and retain sufficient numbers of health care workers and have ignored the advice of health care professionals on how to solve the staffing crisis in hospital and primary care; and

Whereas the Ministry of Health’s inadequate temporary retention bonus for nurses fails to address systemic issues in the sector and falls far short of the efforts to retain, retrain and recruit front-line health care staff in Quebec, British Columbia and Atlantic Canada; and

Whereas the Minister of Health’s recent directives on internationally trained health care professionals fail to provide the funding, education spaces and internships needed to help address the staffing shortfall, and fails to implement many of the painful lessons learned during the pandemic; and

Whereas nursing vacancies in Ontario hospitals increased by almost 300% between March 2020 and March 2022, the turnover rate for nurses has increased by 72% since 2020, and the turnover rate for RPNs, PSWs and other health care workers more than doubled since 2016;

Therefore the Legislative Assembly calls on the Ford government to create, in consultation with unions and other health sector stakeholders, a multi-layer health care worker recruitment and retention incentive package that includes short-, medium- and long-term solutions to recruit, retain and return workers across the health sector with full-time, public, unionized positions and immediately repeals Bill 124, restoring workers’ right to bargain for wages that reflect their worth and the significant impact of rising inflation.

There is a severe shortage of health human resources in Ontario, and it’s brought our health care system to its knees. We haven’t seen a crisis like this in generations. Health care is something that happens between two human beings. When one of them is burnt-out and cannot continue to work, our system collapses.

If it was even possible, across the province, hallway medicine has worsened; people are waiting 24, sometimes 48, hours on a stretcher in a hallway in an emergency room before being admitted. We’re talking about people that are sick enough to need admission into our hospital waiting in a busy, noisy emergency room for days on end, Speaker.

According to Ontario Health, in September this year, the wait times in our emergency rooms across Ontario hospitals reached a record high. On average, every single day—they take it at midnight—there were 946 patients waiting for a hospital bed in an emergency room. Think about it: 946 Ontarians who were sick enough to go to the hospital, who were waiting to be assessed by a physician and a team of caring health professionals who have told you that you need to be admitted, and they are waiting in our emergency rooms.

That number in August was 884, but I am sure that as soon as the numbers for October come out, it will be even higher than 946 people.

Since this summer alone, Ontario emergency rooms have shut down more than 86 times, Speaker. In October, the emergency room in Chesley announced that it was forced to shut its doors until December. This is over eight weeks where there is no emergency department available to the good people of Chesley. Speaker, would you say that this is normal?

This comes after years of neglect by previous Conservative and Liberal governments that have brought us to where we are today—add on top of this a pandemic. We are at the point where people are afraid of falling sick. They are afraid to seek medical support. They are afraid to go to our emergency rooms, because they know that they are going to wait too long.

Now this crisis has landed in our pediatric hospitals, and families—young children—are paying the price for a crisis created by Conservative and Liberal governments’ neglect. Parents are scared, Speaker.

SickKids, a world-renowned pediatric hospital, had to shut their intensive care unit. The intensive care unit is where you care for the sickest of the sickest of the children. Right now, over half of the kids in intensive care are on a respirator. This is unheard of. SickKids cannot care for all of the kids. Their intensive care unit is full, at 130% capacity, yet here we are. They’re sending kids as young as 14 years old outside of the pediatric hospital into general hospitals, because they have no room to care for them. In a province as rich as Ontario, it is incomprehensible that we have come to that.

There are presently 32,000 job vacancies in our hospitals, long-term-care homes and residential care facilities. Add to this another 10,350 job vacancies, for a total of over 42,350 vacancies in our health care system right here, right now in Ontario. Things have to change. We cannot continue this way. Ontario has the lowest per capita investment. We have the lowest nurse per capita in Canada. We have the least hospital beds.

There are solutions: Repeal Bill 124 and give our nurses and everybody else who works in health care the respect they deserve. There will be many other solutions coming forward by my colleagues, and I hope they will be acted upon.

Madame Gélinas has moved opposition day number 2. Further debate? I recognize the member for Nickel Belt.

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.

I rise today in support of our opposition day motion because it’s clear that Ontario is in the midst of an unmitigated health care crisis. Recently, the member for London West and I had the opportunity to meet with the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario at their event Queen’s Park on the Road. I’d like to share some of the information that we gleaned from that evening, because it’s important that we listen to the front-line workers who are dealing with this crisis day in and day out, and who are not affected by this government’s spin.

We heard stories about a fourth-year nursing student who was paired with a nurse as their mentor who had just two months of experience. Asking nurses who barely know how to be a nurse to perform as an educator—that’s the staffing crisis that we are in.

This government has introduced legislation that has had a dramatic and drastic impact on nursing morale and the amount of people who have decided to leave the profession altogether. In fact, RNAO shares that 69% of nurses, of respondents, are choosing to leave the profession entirely, and 95% want to go into another field somewhere else.

There are stories about people who had been on a wait-list for seven days in home and community care. Another example is of a patient who needed daily wound care and had to wait 28 days to get their care. In fact, they had to turn to an emergency room.

Because there is a lack of a health human resources strategy from this government, it’s no wonder we’re in the crisis that we are in. People who are waiting for home care are left in no position but to go to an ER because they’re simply waiting far too long.

We talked to emergency room nurses who shared that they had upwards of 46 patients by 5 p.m. and they had nowhere to put people. We’re talking that the hallways were full; the closets were full. There were people who were waiting for care and there was simply no place to put them, because ERs, unfortunately, cannot turn people away from the health care they need. When they’re not able to get the home care in their community, they simply turn to an ER.

They also mentioned that the London Health Sciences Centre had recently posted that there was a 20-hour wait for people to be seen in emergency rooms, and, unfortunately, that’s not an accurate portrayal. They shared with us that it was up to 48 to 72 hours before people received the care they needed.

I urge this government to support this motion because we need a health human resources strategy to make sure that we’re responding to the health care needs of Ontarians immediately.

Further debate?

Further debate?

Today, I want this Premier to hear from people in my community, to hear from my hospital and health care professionals. I want this Premier to stop and listen and understand that his sycophantic echo chamber of yes men are not listening to women in care fields or health care workers who are desperate for support to care for their patients.

I wish this Premier cared about parents who are terrified that their kid will be one of the growing number of children who need to be resuscitated or ventilated or whose surgery will be postponed because there isn’t enough room or staff to care for them.

This government is allowing folks to get sick and to suffer. Day after day, listening to the health minister talk about the fact that they knew the surge was coming is enough to make anyone sick. How is it that they declare proudly that they anticipated this surge, but don’t understand that the terrifying and deteriorating situation we find ourselves in was not the foregone conclusion that they have accepted, knowingly, and, I would argue, invited with complacent and complicit arms.

Speaker, we are hearing terrible stories from real people. Here is a wrenching email that I received:

“Hi Jennifer. I’m sending this email because our health care system is falling apart. The hospital is understaffed with only half the amount of staff working. I’m currently at the hospital having a miscarriage and I have waited seven hours to see a doctor. This is insane, and we need to do something about this. There’s people laying on the floor who have been here before I got here waiting to see a doctor. We should not have to wait this long for health care. The hospital staff shouldn’t have to be under this much stress trying to give care to people, short-staffed.”

Imagine that.

It was only this past July that Lakeridge Health had to make the difficult decision to temporarily close and relocate the Bowmanville ICU in the middle of a significant staff shortage. Speaker, while that ICU is thankfully again operational, things are not better. Just a few days ago, the Region of Durham Paramedic Services and Lakeridge Health put out this joint statement:

“Lakeridge Health’s emergency departments continue to experience critical staffing shortages and high patient volumes. This is impacting overall wait times for less acute patients and increasing the time that the Region of Durham Paramedic Services is able to offload ambulances at Lakeridge Health hospitals.”

Hospitals are struggling with a staffing shortage and are handcuffed by Bill 124. The government is fine with them being held hostage by private nursing agencies who can demand any amount for their nurses, but the hospital isn’t allowed to pay their own employees to retain them, to bargain competitive wages or to even remotely pay them what they’re worth. Breaking the system apart to privatize it is reckless, self-serving, backwardly ideological and not what leadership looks like.

What could leadership look like, Speaker? This government needs to repeal the wage-suppressing Bill 124. The government needs to work with unions and health sector stakeholders to create an effective plan to recruit, retain and return health care workers, and restore workers’ rights to freely bargain for fair wages. That would not only be leadership, but also responsible government.

People are not only sick and tired of this government’s bully tactics, they are sick. And this government needs to listen to the health care sector and the hurting public who are rightly demanding funded and supported not-for-profit health care.

Further debate?