Bonne Halloween. Ma question est pour le premier ministre.

Members of Hospice Palliative Care Ontario are at Queen’s Park today. Their message is really clear: Annualized operating funding increases are needed now to prevent the collapse of the lower-cost, highly valued hospice sector.

Does the Premier think that palliative care patients should do grocery shopping, cook their own food, wash their own dishes? Does he think that they should change their own bed and do their own laundry? Does he think that they should clean their room, wash the floor, take their trash to the curb? Does he think that palliative care patients should pay for heat, hydro, telephone, cable, Internet? Then why is it that the Premier does not fund any of these basic services in Ontario hospices?

Hospices are not only a pressure valve for emergency room crises, but they’re an access point for grief, for bereavement, for mental health services. Members of Hospice Palliative Care Ontario are here to remind us that hospice palliative care means system savings and efficiencies. It means improved patient care and caregiver experience. Nobody should spend their last day alive washing dishes.

Can your government commit today to funding hospices to a minimum of 70% of their operating costs?