It’s an honour to rise today to speak to the fall economic statement bill. It’s clear that everywhere you look in Ontario, there seems to be a crisis—our emergency rooms, our pediatric ICUs, the level of homelessness we’re seeing along our main streets in our downtowns, the affordability challenges that so many people are facing, the loss of the farmland that feeds us. Yet, if you read the fall economic statement, you would get the sense that there’s no crisis in Ontario; none of these issues are really pressing. I would beg to differ.

I don’t understand how you can put forward a fall economic statement without substantial increases in funding to our health care system to shore up our pediatric ICUs, to address the labour shortages, to withdraw Bill 124, which has driven away so many nurses and other front-line health care providers. Nothing in the bill says, “We recognize there’s a crisis, and we’re going to invest in shoring up the system that so many people in this province depend on.”

Speaker, when you look at the fall economic statement, you wouldn’t know that we’re facing an affordability crisis that is disproportionally hitting the most vulnerable in this province.

I’ve been asking, demanding, pushing this government to double ODSP rates for well over a year now. The situation for people living on Ontario Works and the Ontario Disability Support Program only gets worse and worse, especially with the inflation and cost-of-living crisis that we’re facing. How can anyone survive on $1,200 a month in this province, or $731 a month? It’s impossible, especially when the average rents in many places, like my home city of Guelph—$1,800 a month; more than that in places like Toronto. It’s wrong that we’re forcing people to live in legislated poverty, especially when we know poverty costs the province $33 billion and investments would help us actually save money in the long term.

There’s nothing in this bill about addressing food inflation and the excess profits we’re seeing in the concentrated retail markets.

There’s nothing in the bill talking about how we make the province climate-ready. There’s a lot in the bill about how we’ll pave over the farmland that feeds us, the wetlands that protect us, the green space that’s so vital to our quality of life, but there’s nothing in the bill that says, “How do we get this province climate-ready? How do we get this province ready to succeed in the new climate economy?”

Speaker, I believe this bill fails to meet the moment.

I know budgets are about priorities. Right now, I believe the priority is shoring up our health care system.

With all due respect, to the comments around ODSP—I agree with the member that raising the earnings threshold from $200 to $1,000 is a good thing, something I’ve been calling for for a long time now. So we’ll agree on that. But to only raise ODSP rates from $1,100 to $1,200 a month and forcing people to live in legislated poverty, forcing them to live at about 40% of the poverty line—

I’m going to focus on food, because the biggest source of inflation right now is rising food prices. There are some things that I believe the government could do to address that, and I want to give two of them.

I’m a farm kid. I spent my whole life working in the food and farming sector.

Eighty-five per cent of food retail is controlled by three corporations in this province. All three of them are earning excess profits. All three of them have demonstrated, in the past, issues around collusion. We need more competition in our food retail sector.

At the very least, the province could be looking at an excess-profits tax and a grocery code of conduct that would not only protect consumers but would also protect local farmers and food processors.

The bottom line is, one of the biggest drivers of inflation around food is international global events, which, to me, highlights why we need to protect our local food supply. That is exactly why we have to put a stop to losing 319 acres of farmland each and every day in this province. This bill will make that worse.

I appreciate the opportunity. I want to thank all my colleagues who have spoken so far today and who I know will be speaking further to this opposition day motion this afternoon.

Speaker, there is no doubt whatsoever that we have a crisis at our hospitals. You are well aware of this. McMaster Children’s Hospital in Hamilton is strained to the limit. We’ve had ERs shut down this past summer alone more than 86 times. In October, the emergency room in Chesley was forced to shut its doors for eight weeks.

The reason for this strain or crisis on the system is not mysterious: We have a body of workers—nurses and health care workers—who have been pressed to the limit through the pandemic, who were suffering under a huge strain before the pandemic and who have been put in a box of a 1% wage increase per year. These people who risk their lives, who risked the lives of their families, were told that they were heroes, yet their financial needs, their aspirations to live a decent life, have been kicked to the side, have been forgotten.

Until we get rid of Bill 124, until we actually bring in compensation that will retain these people that we need to have, until we actually bring in compensation that will bring back some of the early retirees, we will not be able to make up for the number of people that we’re losing in our health care system, in our hospitals. That will mean the crisis that we face will continue.

Speaker, this motion to set in place an approach to retention and to recruitment is going to be critical to make sure that any of us in this room and our families will be able to get the urgent medical care they need when they need it, will be able to get the surgeries that they need when they need it—not delayed six months, not delayed a year or two years, but when they need it. If we fail to do this, we are putting the people of Ontario in an impossible position, a position where their lives are at risk, the lives of their children are at risk, the lives of their friends and family are at risk.

I am urging the government to not only vote in favour of this motion today, but, upon passage, to actually take the steps necessary to implement these very critical measures so we have a health care system that works, that will deliver and once again will be the envy of people around the world.

I am pleased to rise on this motion today calling for a solution to the health care crisis, especially after we have just heard the government side say, “Crisis? What crisis?”

Let me tell you about the crisis in Ottawa, Speaker, a crisis which the chief of staff of CHEO has just called an “unprecedented” crisis. The pediatric ICU at CHEO is at 280% capacity. This weekend we saw seven kids resuscitated. A child who went to the hospital by ambulance for a severe allergic reaction waited 13 hours to be seen. That’s “what crisis” we are seeing in Ottawa.

And it’s not just limited to CHEO. At the Queensway Carleton Hospital this weekend, there are 22 beds in the ER. There were 24 patients admitted and waiting for a bed in the hospital, yet the emergency room staff still had to see an additional 240 patients with no beds in the ER available. Wait times at Ottawa hospitals are as long as 17 hours. These are people in pain. These are people struggling to breathe. These are people experiencing some of the scariest moments of their lives, and they’re not getting the support that they need from this government.

At the same time, Speaker, I am hearing heartbreaking stories from the nurses and health care workers who are supporting them day in and day out, the nurses of ONA Local 83 and ONA Local 84 at the Ottawa Hospital and the Queensway Carleton Hospital: stories about nurses being assigned to units that they are not trained for, including the ICU and the emergency room; about a nurse who had served only a few short months being asked to take responsibility for a unit by herself overnight; about nurses who are beginning every shift in tears because they’re being asked to do work they don’t feel qualified for or that they are not being supported to do.

Nurses want to provide great care, but the conditions this government is putting them in are not allowing them to do that. There are nurses leaving the health care sector for retail jobs because they are burnt-out and tired, and tired of feeling fundamentally disrespected by this government—this government which thanked them for being pandemic heroes and turned around and capped their pay, despite the fact that they were putting in long hours short-staffed; a government that has refused to budge on Bill 124, despite hearing of the impact on health care workers and on patients day in and day out; and a government that has seen this crisis in our health care sector—one that they won’t acknowledge is a crisis—and not put a single new dollar toward our health care system in the fall economic update.

That is why it is so essential that we take this time to acknowledge what is going on in our health care sector, to acknowledge the work of our health care workers and to actually ensure that we are providing the investments and resources and supports that they need, starting by repealing Bill 124 and giving them a decent wage; providing the investments in the health care sector; and recruiting, retaining and returning nurses to the sector so that they no longer need to be short-staffed and so that everyone who goes into a hospital in Ottawa and across the province knows that they are going to get the health care they deserve in a timely fashion.

I think you’ve heard loud and clear from all my colleagues during our oppo day where the needs are and where the answers are also located. There are many answers that have been provided to this government, many suggestions that have been provided to this government.

This government continues to force hospitals and long-term-care homes to use agency nurses, which are three times the cost of what we know would work effectively. Give that opportunity for individuals to return to the workforce, to return under good working conditions: Repeal Bill 124 to remove those conditions that are there, but add 10 paid sick days so individuals can go back to work without any worries and care for the people who they work with, but also stay at home when they need to stay at home.

This government has created a self-imposed crisis. We ask ourselves, “Why did they create this crisis?” The simple answer to it is to accept them doing an action. What is that action? A lot of it comes down to privatization of those services. This government can stand in their place and deny it, but you can see it happening in all of the communities. It’s apparent this is your path. It’s in your DNA. There’s no changing it, and you cannot continually stand in this House and continue to deny that.

In Algoma–Manitoulin, a lot of the hospitals are operating their ER departments. Why? Because they have locums. We’re paying high fees for those locums to make sure that our ER—thank goodness that we have the ability, but that’s not the answer, because primary care is being set aside. Patients in their communities are not getting the care that they need. There are nurses—we had an excellent breakfast this morning with registered nurses who have the answers for this government. You need to sit with them, listen, provide them with the opportunity to expand their services. That’s part of the answer.

I usually get up and say I’m happy to rise to speak in this House, but this is a subject that hits close to my heart because I’m married to someone back home who is one of those health care professionals at CHEO dealing with kids who are struggling to breathe—struggling to breathe. This is Canada—struggling to breathe.

We have flu season every year. We don’t have seven kids over a weekend having to be resuscitated. We don’t have little kids like the one I talked about this morning, Chloe, fighting to breathe—fighting to breathe, and our friends in government are saying, “Crisis? What crisis? There is nothing happening here to be concerned about. We’re giving the system more money than we ever have before.” Chloe’s fine. My partner working her tail off back at CHEO is fine. Everything’s great. Shouldn’t we applaud them for how innovative they’re being in this moment?

I just want to appeal to the hearts of the government members opposite and ask them to truly consider the gravity and ethical implications of making comments like that, because it is one thing to ask first responders and health care workers to sacrifice, which is what they signed up to do every single day—it’s one thing to do that, but it’s another thing to tell us a story about how there’s no significant problem here and how we’re investing more money than ever before and we’re just fantastic, because it doesn’t correspond to the reality of the nurse or the doctor or the orderly or the custodian holding the hand of the mom with the breathing tube in the kid’s face. There is a disconnect. I want my friends in government to understand that disconnect. It hurts.

What also hurts is when they see government in July give 44 members of this government caucus a parliamentary assistantship—the greatest percentage of parliamentary assistantships in Ontario history. That’s a $16,000 raise while you’re giving 1% to people in hospitals keeping kids alive, a $16,000 raise while you’re telling people that you’re doing the best you can and it’s the best it has ever been.

I just want to appeal, through you, Speaker, to the government to acknowledge that we are in the middle of an unprecedented crisis. I asked the Premier this morning to lead by example and wear a mask in this place. The Premier would not stand and answer my question. He deserves the opportunity to honour the office he holds for the province of Ontario, to wear a mask and to actually be on the ground in communities across this province, repealing Bill 124 and the other legislation which is not only hurting health care workers but it’s insulting their everyday reality.

Stop the insult. Fund the health care that we need. Fix it right now.