I’d like to take this opportunity to welcome a new team member to Team St. Catharines, who was born on June 16, 2022, to his proud parents, Jesse and Kasey, and his proud big sister, Elise: Jack Reginald Michor. Welcome to our team.

My question is to the Premier.

Sabrina and her husband, Jack, are both registered nurses. Their four-year-old daughter, Hazel, lives with type 1 diabetes and is starting junior kindergarten in September. In what should be a time of excitement for a young family, Sabrina will have to take an unpaid leave of absence to administer medication to her daughter at school. Hazel is on a wait-list. There is not one single community nurse available who can come into the classroom each day and assist Hazel with managing her needs.

Premier, we are in the midst of a staffing crisis. With this province already short 30,000 nurses, will this government commit to more community nurses for schools so health care workers like Sabrina and Jack aren’t forced to choose between their families and their jobs?

Back to the Premier, through the minister: Increasing nurses at this time for Jack and Sabrina doesn’t help. They’re RNs. They’re nurses. Their workplace will be short now that they have to go and look after their daughter.

During the pandemic, we saw that working mothers became the default parent, leaving their jobs to manage virtual learning during a time when daycares and schools were closed. Now nursing shortages have trickled down to the education sector. Every child has the right to equal access to education, and every parent deserves to know their child has the care they need when they need it—without sacrificing their career.

Premier, will your government commit to a plan to ensure working mothers like Sabrina are not forced out of a workplace that is already in a severe crisis to fill gaps within an already broken system?