C’est toujours un honneur de se lever en Chambre pour représenter les bonnes gens de Mushkegowuk–Baie James.

The community of Kashechewan is facing a nursing crisis at their nursing station, which is their only medical facility. It’s their lifeline. They currently have two nurses manning the station, when usually they have nine—and even 12, prior to the pandemic. They are open for emergency-only cases. Basic medical care is not an option—no prenatal services, no regular checkups. Being proactive and preventative for health issues such as complications with diabetes is not an option. They deserve better.

The entire province is facing a nursing shortage, but these communities have even greater challenges, and things need to be addressed. These are fly-in communities with no road access, no access to nearby hospitals or ER departments. There is a surge of COVID that has threatened the community. Funding is heavily needed in these communities in order to hire proper staff, to get specialists and doctors in and out of the communities for clinics and consultations to give them the medical attention they deserve.

Finally, a long-term recruitment and retention plan needs to be developed with the First Nations and Inuit health branch, Indigenous Services Canada and the provincial government to ensure adequate and accessible health care for all northern communities facing these issues.

The only part that I will agree with the member opposite: It is concerning when an emergency room closes temporarily, whether that is for an hour, a shift or, in fact, over a weekend, which is why Ontario Health works so closely with our hospitals to make sure that individuals who could perhaps do a locum are matched with a hospital that is facing a short-term closure. We’re doing that work. We have done a lot of work with Ontario Health to make sure that those matches are done, and frankly we avoid many closures as a result of that work. That work will continue.

But I also want to remind the member opposite: You talk about the shortage of health care workers. It was actually under the NDP government, when Bob Rae was Premier, that you cut residency spaces for doctors in the province of Ontario. So I will take no lessons from the member opposite or the NDP on how to better provide health care services in the province of Ontario.