It wasn’t a priority.

It’s not in the bill.

That’s right. Almost every hospital that you see in this province was conceived of, thought of and built by a Conservative government.

And I forgot to mention how medium-sized hospitals—I thank some of the members in some of the smaller jurisdictions, who kept saying, “You know, the Liberals kept starving small and medium-sized hospitals. They kept starving them. They could hardly do anything.” Well, of course, we fixed that funding model too. I forgot to mention that. I almost forgot what I was talking about, because there are just so many good things that are happening.

But what is the bill ostensibly about? It is about looking at somebody who’s in a hospital—Madam Speaker, I’ve actually been there. I’ve been there. I’m not lucky enough to have had a parent, my own parent, that lived long enough to come even close to a long-term-care bed, but I have a father-in-law who did. He was discharged from the Markham-Stouffville alternate-level-of-care centre at the old Humber Valley site—at 400 and Steeles, I think, or something like that.

He didn’t want to go at first. He didn’t want to go. Do you know why he didn’t want to go? It wasn’t because of the distance, but he just thought that that meant too much of a difference, a change for him. You know, “I can’t be on my own anymore and I worry about it.” Once he got there and saw how good the care was in comparison to a hospital, he was grateful for the opportunity that he had to go there. He wasn’t so excited about transitioning out, but we saw what happened. As a family, we saw what happened: He started to do better. He started to thrive. He came back. He came back to the point where he could live on his own again. And I’m glad the member from Niagara Falls is almost finished reading the bill, because he seems to be agreeing with some of this now. He came back. But that’s what we are offering.

The member for Toronto Centre talked about—and I was at the Rekai Centre just a couple of days ago. It is a wonderful place. Not-for-profits are wonderful. Our municipal homes are wonderful. Our for-profit homes are wonderful. What has not always been wonderful is the regulations that they, the Liberals and the NDP, failed to put in place to ensure that the quality of care was equalized among all sectors. We did that. But I was at the Rekai Centre, and she is correct: It’s a great facility. Many members of the LGBT community are now transitioning into that home. It is a home of preferred choice.

But the member talks about how if somebody is in ALC—and if I’m wrong, the member can correct me, if I get it wrong—we won’t be able to address their specific needs. But again, that is incorrect. It’s incorrect. It’s not—I’ll choose my words carefully. It’s incorrect. Why? Because of a couple of things. First of all, nobody can be discharged to a home that doesn’t have the staffing. It’s part of the Fixing Long-Term Care Act. So when they talk about how there are not going to be enough staff, that’s actually incorrect; the law doesn’t allow that to happen.

But part of why we are doing this, part of the rationale for consent, part of the rationale to look at a patient’s needs is so that we know that before we offer a facility that is not a preferred choice, we can ask: “This is what this patient, who is discharged from a hospital, needs. Can you cover this person’s needs?” Whether it is cultural, whether it is, as I’ve said, dialysis, or many of the patients in hospital have dementia, they need specialized care. We can ask, “Can you handle that?” And they will say to us, yes or no. If it’s a no, then we’ll say, “What do you need in order to handle the person we want to send to you for better care?” They may say, in the case of somebody with dementia, “We need additional resources from behavioural services Ontario to ensure that there’s an attendant who can work with the patient.” They may say, “We need a special diet for the patient.” They may say, “We need larger beds for bariatric patients.” They may say, “We need kidney dialysis.” And there’s funding in place to ensure that that happens—funding that doesn’t exist now but that will exist because of this bill. It is matching up the needs of the patient with the resident—the person who will become a resident. So we don’t have to ship people off to get dialysis.

Who would get up in this place and advocate for a system that they know is not in the best interests of the patient?

What we’ve heard from the opposition today is ludicrous—that, somehow, offering a better quality of care to somebody is going to make them give up. My father-in-law didn’t give up because he was asked to go somewhere else. He ended up thriving. And that is what we are trying to accomplish with this bill.

At the same time, it is unacceptable—the member from Niagara Falls talked about how Ontario is a rich province—that if I have to bring my child to an emergency room, or if you have to bring your grandchild, your child, a parent, a loved one, that they have to wait, and that if they need to be put into a hospital, there’s not a bed available. Why? Because we have people there who aren’t being treated in the best possible way. It doesn’t serve the needs of the person who’s waiting. It doesn’t serve the needs of the person who wants or needs a room. And we can do it better.

The worst part is, the NDP are arguing for a reduced level of care. They are arguing to treat our seniors—because that’s what this bill is talking about—like less, that they don’t deserve the same quality of care that somebody else gets. I think that’s wrong. That’s why we’ve made the investments that we’re making. That’s why the bill does what it does. That’s why it makes the extra investments. Their lies, their argument, everything that they say runs counter to what is best for the patient, but what it is best for is the status quo and the people they’re more interested in—because, I would submit to you, Madam Speaker, it’s not the patient who, as my parliamentary assistant said, wants to become a resident, wants to have a home; a patient who will get treatment, who will get care in a long-term-care home while waiting, if they’re asked to move, at the top of the waiting list for their home or preferred choice.

Better care in your community—close to your family, close to your spouse, close to your caregivers, while waiting at the top of the list for your preferred choice. I think it’s a choice that Ontarians understand is in the best interests of the people of the province of Ontario.

It’s always an honour to speak in this House—today, more of a tragedy, I think, on Bill 7.

There’s one thing I profoundly disagree with the House leader on: I think every member in this House, regardless of party affiliation, cares about the people of Ontario and wants them to live in an Ontario with the best health care possible, regardless of their age or where they live. He accuses the NDP of fearmongering.

How about we just read the explanatory note into the record? The explanatory note is somewhat different than the picture that the House leader is weaving: “The bill amends the Fixing Long-Term Care Act, 2021, to add a new provision for patients who occupy a bed in a public hospital and are designated by an attending clinician as requiring an alternate level of care. This new provision authorizes certain actions to be carried out without the consent of these patients.” That’s a key point—without the consent.

“The actions include having a placement co-ordinator determine the patient’s eligibility for a long-term-care home, select a home and authorize their admission to the home. They also include having certain persons conduct assessments for the purpose of determining a patient’s eligibility, requiring the licensee to admit the patient to the home when certain conditions have been met....

“Certain limitations apply. The actions cannot be performed without first making reasonable efforts to obtain the patient’s consent.” What is a reasonable effort? “If consent is later provided by an ALC patient, the parts of the process that have been consented to must be conducted in accordance with sections 49 to 54.”

They do stop, however. “The section does not”—where the government stops is—“authorize the use of restraints in order to carry out the actions or the physical transfer of an ALC patient to a long-term-care home without their consent.”

The government House leader talked about his father-in-law, and I respect the government House leader. I disagree with his position, but I respect him. When we had to admit my mom into long-term care, it was the hardest decision of our lives. The families are all—you know, it’s really tough. And it’s really tough for the person. But now on top of everything else they have to face, they have to face this hanging over their heads: that if they don’t make that decision quickly enough, they potentially could go somewhere else.

The government House leader said, “Well, it doesn’t say anywhere how many kilometres.” I agree with that. But it says “in accordance with the geographic prescriptions that are prescribed by the regulations.” Why aren’t they in the bill? Regulations can be changed at any time. Put them in the bill. He accuses us of fearmongering, yet what he claims isn’t in the bill either.

At the most stressful time of a person’s life—we all want our parents, our family members, in the best place possible. And do any of us really want our family members in ALC? No. We want them to get where they can get the best care. And there are places where they can get the best care, but for many of those places there are waiting lists. Now this bill gives the opportunity to say, “Okay, we will give your personal health information to someone that bureaucracy cares about. We will send your personal health information without your consent. We will do many things without your consent. And, oh, the last step, you might have to pay some more money if you want to stay in the hospital, if you don’t like that.” That’s a pretty big hammer at the end of that process.

And you know what? A couple of days ago, I asked a question in the House about someone who was denied a second shower a week through home care. Those are the types of people who end up in ALC. Because I asked that question, do you know what? She got her second shower. But that shouldn’t come into the House. That community care coordinator—how was that decision made?

Now you’re asking people to believe that these decisions will all be made without the person’s consent. That’s a travesty. That is truly a travesty of democracy. A person’s health consent should never, ever be given up. And that’s why we are totally opposed to this bill, because it doesn’t improve people’s health.

John Robarts.

Further debate?

No further business.