My question is to the Premier.

When Michal Kaliszan, a resident of Waterloo region, was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy, doctors told him he had the life expectancy of 16 years, but he’s now 39 years old. Michal has beaten the odds, thanks to round-the-clock care from his parents. But with no family left to care for him and the lightning-fast passage of Bill 7, Michal says, without funding for a comprehensive home care program, the province will likely place him in a long-term-care home, which he says will be his “death sentence.” He is desperately trying to preserve his autonomy and his self-determination. This is a serious gap in our health care system.

Can the government explain why they think it’s appropriate for a 39-year-old man to be forced to live in a facility that primarily serves seniors?

Michal’s mother is now in palliative care, and he says the GoFundMe program to raise money for his home care is “the only way that I can help my mom find peace as she’s more worried about me than her own death.”

Michal is semi-independent. He can work and has a life that is not defined by his disability. The care he receives should be reflective of that. But with no serious investment in a comprehensive home care program—because the gap is there, and the minister knows that—institutional care is looking more and more like the warehousing of vulnerable people like Michal. That is the system that you are overseeing, Minister.

Does this minister believe that this is the right care at the right time at the right place, like the long-term-care minister said yesterday—because Michal doesn’t, and neither do we.