After decades of underfunding, it is this government that has made unprecedented investments in our health care system. As I said yesterday, health care funding has increased a record 6.2% year over year—the largest increase on record, including an over $5-billion increase in base funding, which is an 8.9% increase. A lot of these investments are because we’ve just gone through a very difficult time for the health care system. As everybody knows, the pandemic has been happening for two years.

That is why we passed our plan to stay open—because you want to stay open. The pandemic had shut everybody down for a while, and we want to make sure we stay open. That plan has five important initiatives to, once fully implemented, help our health care system get back on track. We’ve added up to 6,000 more health care workers after that plan is instituted—but you know we’ve already added 11,700 health care workers since the pandemic began. Our plan also frees up over 2,500 new hospital beds and expands models of care.

We’re going to continue working for the people of Ontario in finding solutions to make our health care system better.

All of these efforts are to make sure that Ontarians get the care that they deserve, and we are going to keep working on these things, because we have long said the status quo is not working. That’s why we’re making changes, and we ask the members opposite to stop opposing all of the solutions we’re putting forward. Help us to fix the health care system for generations.