It’s my honour to rise today to discuss our NDP motion to recruit and retain more front-line health care workers. This is an incredibly important motion. When you have a government that introduces legislation like Bill 124 during a global pandemic, capping the wages of our burnt-out front-line health care staff, you end up with a crisis in staffing.

In September of this year, the president of Niagara Health released a statement about the challenges created by the staffing crisis in health care:

“There is no bigger issue facing Ontario hospitals today than the serious shortage of health-care workers.

“These challenges are unprecedented and something we will be dealing with for years to come.”

This comes after another statement from Niagara Health in July, noting that the Niagara Health system was trying to fill a total of 608 positions, 608 vacancies, across the region of Niagara in our hospital system. Think about that. There are almost 5,000 patients awaiting non-emergency surgeries that have been postponed. Across the province of Ontario, emergency departments have had to close more than 86 times due to staffing shortages just since this summer. We see the results of the staffing shortages almost every day in my office.

This government introduced Bill 124, and it was a slap in the face to our brave front-line health care workers and other workers in the province of Ontario. It should be immediately repealed. This legislation has no place in a province of Ontario that respects workers.

We know that this government does not respect workers. They attack workers’ rights all the time. The labour minister, Monte McNaughton, supported Bill 124, the attack against workers, the attack against collective agreements, the attack against seniority. Also under a Conservative government, under Harris, they laid off 6,000 nurses.

Speaker, we know about how the province’s vacancies from nursing jobs have increased almost 300% since the start of the pandemic. Turnover rates for RPNs and PSWs have doubled in the last six years. Why do you think that’s the case? Maybe my colleagues can help me. Can we all say “Bill 124”?

Early retirements of nurses have doubled. Our health care staff are burnt-out, exhausted, leaving the profession they love because they just can’t do it anymore. They’re the people who showed up every single day of the pandemic to protect us—front-line health care workers.

This is a crisis. And where is this government? Nowhere to be found. Front-line health care workers have been telling them directly that they need to act to address this crisis. Five of the biggest health care unions wrote a joint letter to the Premier—think about this—asking him to address this crisis. As of last week, no response from the Premier—no mask, either. This government would rather attack the collective bargaining rights of workers than fix this problem.

Speaker, we need a serious plan for the staffing crisis in our health care system. And do you know how to start? It starts by repealing Bill 124. That’s the first step in fixing this incredible problem. Because Bill 124 froze wages, including for nurses, they have taken—think about this—with the rate of inflation, a 6% pay cut during this time. It’s unacceptable. Frankly, it’s another attack on the collective bargaining rights of workers. We need to repeal Bill 124 immediately—

Interjection.

It’s a real pleasure to speak to this very important motion that would launch a massive recruitment and retention plan to address the health care staffing shortage in our province, a shortage that has resulted in the worst health care crisis in generations.

For the last few months, I’ve been travelling around Ontario, from North Bay to Nepean, from Fort Erie to Whitby, from Brampton to Sault Ste. Marie, and just last weekend to Kingston. A few weeks back, I was up near Chesley. We’ve heard Chesley talked about a lot in this place. Back in October, they announced that they were going to be closing their ER until December. And if it wasn’t already bad enough, that situation—for this government to take some kind of urgent action, surely the desperate pleas of parents whose children are stacked up in overcapacity children’s ICUs should be enough, you’d think, but no, Speaker. In the midst of this, this government chose not to spend a single new dollar to address this situation—absolutely shameful.

From March 2020 to March of this year, nursing vacancies increased by 300%. Health care professionals are clear about what’s happening—the terrible working conditions; overworked, stressed, underpaid, underappreciated; unable to provide the quality of care that they know their patients deserve; hospitals forced to close emergency rooms and ICUs. Speaker, I know that many people out there have been told by this government and governments before them that this is the best they can expect, but I can tell you one thing: Waiting in an emergency room for 14 or 20 hours, that’s not normal, and we should not be forced to accept that in this province.

This government wants to tell you that’s as good as it gets, but the answers are right here in this motion. Get rid of Bill 124—there’s a start. Get rid of Bill 124. Restore health care workers’ rights to bargain for wages that reflect their worth. Work with us. Work with health care stakeholders to develop an incentive package. This government needs to do better and they need to do it urgently.

Ontario needs a human resources strategy for our health care system, which is why we brought forward this motion.

“There are more vacant positions for nurses than nurses working in one GTA” hospital, as CTV reported last week, “a sign of how dire staff shortages are ‘deteriorating’ a medical system already on edge.

“A consultants report for Lakeridge Health calls the situation at its Oshawa hospital a ‘crisis’ as it lays out how” workers are leaving the system en masse, primarily because of “low morale, misaligned incentives, and EMS offloads,” which are compounding the problem.

The chief emergency room doctor said, “Normally we would internally try to work on solutions and try to improve our efficiencies ourselves, but realistically the government is not coming in on a stallion to fix everything for us,” which means that they do feel abandoned.

“He said that the hospital is far from the only one feeling the shortage of nurses who, because of stress and overwork, are choosing to retire or leave at faster rates than they can be hired or trained....

“It’s extremely troubling that there’s a majority of vacancies. More vacancies for nurses than there are nurses.”

They are going south of the border.

Natalie Mehra of the Ontario Health Coalition said this “is indicative of what’s happening in large hospitals all across Ontario. We’ve never seen anything like it. It is really serious.”

As the finance critic, I want to point out that the government, just this week, said in their mini-budget that there’s no new money for health care in their economic update because they already prepared for the surge in illness. Parents are being sent home from my local hospital of Grand River Hospital, which is at 150% capacity in our pediatric ICU unit. It doesn’t sound like you’re prepared, it doesn’t sound like you invested, and it doesn’t sound like you are fighting for health care.

This province has the money. That’s the important part I want to tell you. The FAO has forecasted a $100-million surplus just this year. He is projecting surpluses for the foreseeable future. If the political will were there, if this government cared, they would use the unallocated contingency funds, which the FAO has said, over the next six years, will balloon to $44 billion. This is not about money; this is about political will and this is about not having a human resources strategy which recognizes how important our health professionals are to maintaining a publicly funded health care system.

I urge the government to listen to this motion and to work with the NDP—His Majesty’s official opposition—to bring forward solutions to serve the people of this province.