Thank you, Speaker. Through you, I have to say—and I’m going to quote Anthony Dale, the CEO of the Ontario Hospital Association: “Ontario’s hospitals are rapidly becoming the health care provider of last resort for thousands of people who actually need access to home care, long-term care and other services.”

In our budget that we just passed, a billion dollars was set aside for community home care services in the province of Ontario. We are building the capacity to ensure that people are able to be in their homes in community, whether that is in their own homes with appropriate home care support or, in fact, with long-term-care-home facilities. We have invested so much, as a province, to make sure that the capacity is there, the staffing is there, the oversight is there. We’ve done that work.

Now we have to make sure that those individuals who are languishing in alternate-level-of-care beds in our hospitals are actually in community, where they deserve to be.

I have to remind the member opposite that in March 2019 you said, “One out of every seven hospital beds is used by somebody that we call ALC, alternate level of care. It’s a fancy word that means that you really would like to be supported at home, you really would like to be supported someplace else....” What has changed, respectfully, from March 2019 to today? We have built the capacity in our long-term-care homes. We’ve built the capacity within community. So why does the member now change her tune and suggest that alternate-level-of-care patients need to be in hospitals when where they really want to be is in community?

I’d like to take this opportunity to highlight some of the investments that we have done specifically related to emergency departments.

Speaker, $90 million in the emergency department Pay-for-Results Program provides funding incentives for 74 high-volume emergency departments to make improvements in areas such as length of stay.

We have, in the province of Ontario, 49 municipalities using a 911 model of care pilot, which allows for palliative and mental health and addictions patients to be treated or referred to or cared for in community, instead of immediately—and only having the option of taking them to an emergency department.

These innovative solutions—we’re working with partners to make sure that the pilots we are doing are working, and are expanding them. That was why we were able to—during the Association of Municipalities of Ontario—announce that we’re going to continue expanding these successful models that communities want, patients expect. It is making a difference in reducing wait times and delays in our emergency departments.

I would love for the member opposite to have some conversations with paramedics, with the organizations that are doing these innovative pieces—and saying, “Do you see value in expanding them beyond the current 49 pilots?” I see the value. We have made those changes and we’re expanding those programs, because we see it making a difference in the lives of patients.

We’re not going to keep doing the status quo and expect a different result. We’re having this innovation, we’re seeing results, and we’re continuing to expand it across Ontario.

I have to say, well done to Michal and his family for beating the odds. It is an amazing story of resiliency.

But I have to ask, have you told Michal that you voted against a billion-dollar investment in home care—a billion dollars that we’re putting into community care?

We’re making sure that individuals like Michal who want to live in their home with support have that option available to them.

With the greatest of respect, when you vote against those kinds of investments, it sends a very different message to your constituents—that you do not believe in community care, that you do not believe that we need, as a province, to expand home care services in the province of Ontario. Clearly, we do.

Our government has made that commitment. We’ve made that investment.

Why isn’t the member opposite lauding that and talking about how that is going to make a difference in the lives of her constituents, including—

This is how we are going to get a health care system that ensures that no matter where you are—in hospital, in long-term care, in your own home, in palliative care—we will have the supports available to support you through that journey.