Since day one, since we were elected in 2018, we have put a focus on rebuilding the health care system that was so badly neglected by 15 years of Liberals and, for many of those years, by the NDP. We’ve put incredible resources. We are building out the health care system like no government has before: a new hospital in Brampton, new hospitals in Niagara and long-term-care homes in every part of the province, because we know that long-term care can be part of the solution to the acute care problems that we have.

We are hiring additional health care workers. We’re building new medical schools in the province of Ontario. I think the Minister of Colleges and Universities talked about the first new medical school in over 100 years—the largest investment of health care in the history of Mississauga. The only consistent that there has been is that the NDP have voted against every single initiative, Mr. Speaker. We’ll keep rebuilding the health care system because it’s important to the people of Ontario.

Despite the fact that we did that, they then voted against that funding. They voted against the 27,000 additional health care workers for long-term care. They voted against the four hours of care, Mr. Speaker.

We will work closely with patients in hospital who want to become residents of long-term care because we know that is better for them. It’s not me saying that; it’s health care professionals who are saying that. It’s even people who are in those homes.

I’m surprised to hear that the member for Don Valley East is not aware of the fact that since 1979 hospitals have actually been able to charge for alternate-level-of-care patients. I guess that’s perhaps part of the problem.

At the same time, Mr. Speaker, what we are doing is, we are using—when a patient in a hospital acute care setting has been seen by a doctor, and that doctor has said that their time in an acute care facility should come to an end because they would be better serviced in the community or in a long-term-care home, we are facilitating that for them. That is what we’re doing. We’re listening to medical professionals across the province of Ontario, who all agree. And I think the member opposite—in some of his statements—agrees as well that when you are ready to be discharged from a hospital, when you are on the long-term-care waiting list, the best place for you is in a long-term-care home. We are going to make that happen.

Mr. Speaker, Bill 7 is flawed at its core because it violates patient rights. True patient consent must pass three tests: (1) The patient must be capable; (2) they must be fully informed; and (3) they must give their consent voluntarily and freely.

When it comes to transmitting confidential health information and authorizing admission to a long-term-care home, Bill 7 doesn’t even pretend to ask for patient consent. It’s not required. And after all that, if a patient is given space in a faraway, culturally inappropriate long-term-care home, although patients don’t have to say yes, there’s a steep cost to saying no.

To quote the Minister of Long-Term Care on August 24, “Are there instances where the hospital will be charging? Absolutely, if someone refuses to move into a home.”

Will the Minister of Long-Term Care explain why he is choosing to entirely circumvent informed patient consent and instead violate patient autonomy?

Additionally, while I agree that patients need and deserve to be in long-term-care homes, it should be under their own terms and under their own circumstances, not by violating their rights in the process.

You know, this bill is actually so bad, so unethical and so immoral that it actually apologizes for itself. It says, “Despite subsection 3(2), this section ... shall not be interpreted or construed as being inconsistent with the residents’ bill of rights,” even though it does. It fails to pass the three tests of patient consent, it fails to protect patients’ confidential health information and it fails to respect patients’ express wishes.

So I ask again: Will the minister withdraw his bill and instead focus on the root causes of our ALC crisis, such as the mass exodus of health care workers created by Bill 124 in the last four years?

Interjection.

First and foremost, let me just say this: The problem in acute care in the province of Ontario has been a problem for many, many, many years; a problem that was not addressed by the previous Liberal government, and that was, of course, before Bill 124, Mr. Speaker.

But having said that, we have made significant investments into long-term care—significant investments into long-term care. I will let this medical professional explain to the people who have been discharged from a hospital, who are on the waiting list for a long-term-care home, why, all of a sudden now that he has a seat in this Legislature, their needs are better met in an acute care setting as opposed to a long-term-care setting. Because he will be alone on that, because medical professionals we have talked to and who have been advising us—even patients themselves have said that they want to be in a long-term-care home after they have been discharged from hospital. We are going to make that happen, and we can make that happen because of the investments we’ve made in long-term care and in nursing and in health care across the province.

To the Premier: Bill 7 is a give-consent-or-go-broke government bill. It is poised to strip ALC patients and families of their dignity by allowing seniors and patients with disabilities, among others, to be forced into long-term-care homes some hundreds of kilometres away without consent. Through Bill 7, patients could be forced into for-profit long-term-care homes, which we know are more likely to be understaffed and underfunded. During the pandemic alone, for-profit private homes have accounted for thousands of patient deaths, far outnumbering those of publicly funded and operated homes.

My question is to the Premier. Does this government think their plan to strong-arm seniors, patients, away from family and community-based services is best for their physical and mental health? Is this what the doctor ordered?

My question—Speaker, through you—is back to the Premier: Why does this bill not make any reference to home care, the number one choice of seniors and advocates like TAIC, SPRINT Senior Care, Seniors for Social Action (Ontario), the OVCO seniors’ working group, the Reena Foundation, Community Living Toronto—I could go on and on—folks who want seniors to receive care while aging in place in their homes and communities for as long as possible? Why does a bill saying that it’s going to do better care not include home care? Why is home care absent?

In fact, it’s only the opposition who are suggesting that our seniors should be strong-armed. In fact, we’re doing just the opposite. We’re providing different opportunities and solutions for those people who are being discharged from hospital and who are on the waiting list for long-term care.

Now we’re going even a step further, Mr. Speaker: In addition to the four hours of care that we’re already moving towards, through this legislation we are providing additional resources for dementia care and over $60 million in resources for Behavioural Supports Ontario on an ongoing basis. We’re providing kidney dialysis, for example, in homes. Only the opposition would suggest that we should bring somebody from a hospital to a home and back and forth.

We think our long-term-care homes can do better. That’s why we’re providing those additional resources to do that. It is about working with patients in hospital who want to be residents of a home, working side by side with their family, because we know how important family is to the well-being of their loved ones in long-term care, and that’s—

I’m thankful to rise and speak to Bill 7 today. Let me say this clearly: Bill 7 is one of the worst and most cruel bills I’ve ever seen before this Legislature. Despite what the part-time Minister of Long-Term Care keeps saying to try to cover the true intent of this bill—I’m going to begin by reading a section of this bill directly: “The actions listed ... may only be performed without consent if reasonable efforts have been made to obtain the consent of the ALC patient or their substitute decision-maker.”

So there you have it: Action can be taken without consent, Madam Speaker. The weasel words that are in it are what is considered reasonable efforts and who defines it. Honestly, this government has dropped even outwardly denying the fact that they’ll be moving people without their consent. They wanted to deny that reality, and now they’re moving on to simply saying our hospitals are over capacity and they need to move people. Tough luck, seniors and those with disabilities; you’re moving somewhere you probably don’t want to be, away from your community and your family—their solution. Those are cruel actions by this government. And the reality is, Madam Speaker, some will give up and they’ll die early. They are taking our loved ones who are sitting in hospitals waiting for care and they’re going to rip them away from the health care staff they know and their loved ones, from their families, and they’re going to ship them to long-term-care homes without their consent, mainly going to for-profit homes where the openings are, where people don’t want to go.

The minister is smiling right now. There’s nothing to smile about.

Going back to Christmas, in a place called Oakwood Park Lodge and Millennium Trail Manor, 60 of our seniors died over Christmas—60. Do you know why they died? Lack of staff. Lack of PPE. There’s nothing funny about it. Christmas Eve, they were calling my house and we were talking to the family as they were crying. Every one of those deaths could have been prevented.

So when you smile when people are dying—and if you take a look at AC. Can you imagine being in a long-term-care facility tomorrow or yesterday and how hot it was, and they’re sitting there with no AC? Last night at the Jays game, they wouldn’t open the roof because it was too hot, because they wanted the air conditioning in the ball park, yet our seniors are living without air conditioning. It’s absolutely disgusting.

I think we all know in the House what happens in many of these homes during a pandemic. Close to 5,000 people have died in long-term care in this province during COVID—close to 5,000; 40 of them died just in the last two weeks. Private homes have the worst record for long-term-care deaths.

I ask my colleagues on this side, the Liberals, independents, the PCs: Do you guys not have parents? Do you not have grandparents? Aunts and uncles who are going to these long-term-care facilities with a lack of staff? The quality of food is not good. A lack of PPE. Did any of you guys have anybody die? I raised it the last time I talked. I had my father-in-law and my mother-in-law die in these facilities. How do you guys sleep at night? Because I’m telling you, I don’t.

Speaker, we literally have had our military come into long-term-care homes to sort out the mess from years of underfunding, neglect, corporate greed and quite frankly, the privatization that was started under the Conservative government of Mike Harris. That’s when it started. The military—not Wayne Gates, not the Ontario Federation of Labour or the health coalition—found absolutely disgusting things in those homes. They documented seniors dying because of dehydration—the basic need of water that we have our pages come and give to us all the time. All we have to do is put our hand up and our page will come and give us water, but if you’re in a long-term-care facility, according to the military, not Wayne Gates, they couldn’t get that in a long-term-care for-profit home.

Do you know what the result was, Madam Speaker? And I appreciate you looking at me. They died. They died because of dehydration in the richest province in the country. How does that happen? I don’t understand it.

The record stated that people died simply because of lack of staff. They needed water and assistance for cleaning, and our loved ones died because of it. Moms, dads, grandparents, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law—whoever they are.

It’s so disturbing to think that seniors and those with disabilities may be forced into a private home without consent. The government has gone out of their way to play down the reality of this bill. They have gone as far as suggesting these changes are just simply conversations with ALC patients to request they reconsider the homes they may choose to go to.

But then one must ask, what changes here? Hospital administrators today have always had the ability to try and use reasonable effort to move ALC patients to a long-term-care home. There is nothing new. No, instead, this government intends to use one of the particularly powerful tools of persuasion: financial ruin.

I don’t know anybody—I shouldn’t say I don’t know anybody, but I know there are a lot of people that won’t be able to afford what they’re going to be asked to pay if they want to stay in a hospital. You see, if you are in a hospital waiting for long-term care, then your stay is covered by OHIP. We all know what OHIP is. We all have OHIP in this room. The system built by Tommy Douglas that says no one should have to be bankrupt trying to get medical care is still the cornerstone of our system here in Ontario. But, this government, through this bill, thinks it’s okay for seniors and people with disabilities to be charged $500 to $1,500 per day to stay in these beds. That’s what this government is doing to seniors. They’re saying that if you try to fight it, they may charge you and then move you without your consent. It’s in the bill. I was asked about the bill. The bill’s right here; I can hold it up. I’ve read it a number of times.

This comes back to: What are we debating here today? They aren’t just numbers on a sheet. These are real humans—moms, dads, parents, brothers, sisters. I’ve spoken directly with these people. I know them. They live in my community. They’re our neighbours. If you have a loved one in a hospital right now waiting for LTC, you will be terrified. I don’t know how the families can sleep at night knowing what this government is going to do to the seniors of this province. I’m going to frank: I don’t even know how my fellow MPPs can sleep at night passing a bill like this, particularly knowing—I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think I will be—that these seniors that we move out of the hospital are going to die, and they’re going to die a lot sooner than they had to. It makes no sense.

I’m dealing with a family right now in my riding. He’s 84; he’s sick. She’s 84. They’re trying to get him into a place that’s close so that she can walk and go take care of her husband. They’ve been married for 60 years. That’s what we have to continue to protect. Shipping people 30—I don’t even know what the kilometres are going to be; they haven’t told us exactly what they are, but the rumors are out there: 30 kilometres, 100 kilometres, 300 kilometres away from your family. I challenge anybody here—Speaker, I challenge anybody to tell me that if your mom or dad gets sick, do you not want to spend the time with them and make sure they’re getting the proper care? A lot of us know they don’t have transportation. Families won’t be able to go as often. I told the story about my wife; She was there every day, trying to keep her mom and dad alive.

What are we doing? I don’t get this, honestly. Please, don’t support this bill. This bill will make that reality far worse for many. We could have families completely separated between communities.

Somebody said to me the other day—and I’ve got only a minute and a half left—“Well, it’s only 30 kilometres.” Go talk to somebody in Fort Erie who’s going to have to maybe go to Grimsby, a 30-minute drive. We all remember what happened just in January this year: They closed their urgent care hospital, and the community was saying, “What are we doing? We’re a senior community. We can’t get to Niagara Falls.” How do you expect them to get to Grimsby to see their loved ones or whatever the distance is going to be.

It’s completely shameful that this government refuses to understand the real human impact it’s going to have. This bill will cause stress, and in some cases moving away from their family and community will cost lives. The people will never forget what you did to cause such pain. What makes this even worse—these wonderful residents, seniors, who built this province are being targeted by this government, and this government doesn’t seem to care about them.

We didn’t even have public hearings on this bill because this government is too scared to hear what experts, stakeholders and families are really talking about. I’ve got 24 seconds. Quite frankly, I don’t think you want to look the families that may separate in their eyes. They can’t handle the reality.

This bill is cruel, it’s awful, and I’m begging all of you, all my MPPs here, to vote this bill down.

I’m pleased to speak further to the misleadingly titled More Beds, Better Care Act that looks to free up hospital beds by forcing seniors and those disabled into long-term-care homes not of their choice. Since the bill was introduced I, along with my colleagues, have raised urgent concerns with this bill, and in fact it seems the population of Ontario is also alarmed and outraged. The government’s heavy-handed move to bypass committee and thus public consultations is an affront to democracy.

First and foremost with this bill, we are bypassing the Patients’ Bill of Rights, and in this province, or indeed anywhere in civilized society, the government should never, ever use force or coercion by putting someone into a facility without their informed consent.

Speaker, hospital discharge coordinators have long had the authority to have conversations with patients regarding the discharge process. We also know that patients or their designated caregivers have been required to submit a list of their top five long-term-care home destinations. But this bill bypasses the discharge conversation, and instead patients are told where they’re going, to places that could be up to 300 kilometres away from their families.

This side of the House had their own public consultations yesterday morning, and we continue to hear from a frustrated and frightened public. For example, I was contacted yesterday by Michelle from Thunder Bay, who wanted to tell me about her experience looking for long-term care for her mother. Her mother wound up in hospital due to failing cognition and physical decline, and it was clear she needed to be moved into long-term care. In keeping with the rules at the time, Michelle chose five long-term-care homes, but none of these were available at the time.

She was then told to check out a home not on her list that had space available. Sadly, this privately owned long-term-care home was chaotic, dirty and understaffed, and Michelle swore she would never let her mother go to this home. Fortunately, she had the choice to wait until a home of her choosing was available, and her mother was well cared for in her final years.

In addition, the PSW named Susan I referred to last week also said she would never allow her own mother to become a resident in the privately owned long-term-care home where she currently works, and we know that is because there is no staff there.

Time and again, we have tried to tell the government that the health care crisis is a direct result of low staffing levels. These low staffing levels come from front-line workers exhausted by COVID, tired of working short handed and demoralized by the wage and bargaining hammer of Bill 124. Add the many for-profit agencies making record profits from public dollars, and you get front-line health care workers who have had enough and are leaving the vocation in droves.

The government’s choice to ignore the many voices calling for the repeal of Bill 124 demonstrates a government determined to bust unions and to privatize health care. We have heard eloquently from the member from Nickle Belt about solutions, about how easily this government could end the health care crisis. With good pay, benefits, paid sick days and mileage compensation so that PSWs can afford to do the work they love, we could solve this crisis now, but the government chooses not to.

Bill 7 is cruel, punitive and sets the stage for real harm to elders and those disabled. There are much better options that would show respect for workers and respect for seniors and people with disabilities, without stripping them of their rights and their humanity. I beg this government to withdraw this cruel and punitive bill. Please, we must stop Bill 7.

Let’s get something out of the way: I don’t want ALC patients to languish in acute care hospitals. It’s not fair to them and it’s certainly not fair to the patients of Ontario. Our seniors deserve to age with dignity in supportive environments of their choosing, but this bill does not accomplish that.

The number of ALC patients in this province has ballooned over the last four years, and now this government is trying to rush things through without addressing the root causes. They could treat health care workers with respect and repeal Bill 124, but they won’t. They could reduce the massive wage differentials between long-term care, home care and acute care hospitals, but they won’t. They could improve conditions in long-term-care homes, implement the recommendations from the long-term-care commission, but they won’t. I guess you’re seeing a trend here, eh? They could prioritize primary care, but they won’t. Instead, they have chosen to make patients victims by forcing them to leave their families and move to distant long-term-care homes.

So, to be clear, I want as many seniors to age with dignity in the place of their choosing as possible, and I want our acute care hospitals to focus on what they do best, which is providing acute and critical care. But this bill is not the way to do it. This bill violates patient autonomy and is coercive.

True patient consent must pass three tests, as I mentioned this morning: The patient must be capable, they must be fully informed and they must give their consent voluntarily and freely. When it comes to the management of personal health information and authorizing admission to long-term care, this bill fails all three tests. Consent is simply not required. It also fails when it comes to transferring patients to long-term care. Again, consent is about enabling patients to make an informed decision that is voluntary and free. It’s not about getting a yes from a patient. It’s not about getting a signature from a patient or their family. And it’s definitely not about holding a gun to a patient’s head and saying, “You don’t have to go to this long-term-care home, but you will have to pay $1,500 a day if you don’t.”

And don’t let references about past bills from 1979 fool anyone into thinking this bill is about the same thing. That one and this one are completely different.

The definition of coercion is “the practice of persuading someone to do things by using force or threats.” The threat of a $1,500-per-day bill sure sounds like coercion to me, especially when it comes to vulnerable patients and their families, especially when there is already a power differential that exists between patients and their health care teams.

With that in mind, it’s actually amusing to think that Bill 7’s short-form rhetorical title is the More Beds, Better Care Act. It should probably be the more people, better care act, because at least that would start solving some of the fundamental staffing issues in long-term-care homes. But this bill has nothing to do with that. The long-form title is actually along the lines of amending the Fixing Long-Term Care Act with respect to patients requiring an alternate level of care and “to make a consequential amendment to the Health Care Consent Act.” The change is consequential, and the major purpose is all about circumventing consent.

The sponsors of this bill know that. That’s why the bill actually says, “Despite subsection 3(2), this section ... shall not be interpreted or construed as being inconsistent with the residents’ bill of rights.” But it is a violation, and it is inconsistent with that bill of rights. And just saying that it isn’t doesn’t make that true.

This bill does not protect confidential patient information, and it fails to pass the three tests of informed patient consent. The worst part is that we couldn’t even invite any lawyers or medical ethicists to explain this to the members across, because they opted to circumvent going to committee—for shame.

There are other major issues with this bill. It can send patients hundreds of kilometres away from their homes, without consideration for their choices or their cultural or social needs. There is no reassurance to patients that their long-term-care homes will be adequately staffed or that they will remain adequately staffed—

Speaker, let’s talk about what this bill really means. It means that we’re giving up on those who took care of us, our seniors, the people with disabilities and the people who are most vulnerable, and the most vulnerable communities that some of my colleagues have pointed out. So in my short time, I just want to point out the fact that, when we’re talking about a health care crisis, this bill is essentially blaming those who are the most vulnerable people in our province.

No one wants ALC patients to end up in hospitals. No one here does. I don’t, and I know ALC patients themselves certainly don’t. Out of the 6,000 patients who need ALC, only about 1,800 are the ones who actually need long-term care. That means we need to build capacity for long-term care. We need to improve long-term care, and we need to make sure that we have things like inspections, things like staffing. What impact will this bill actually have on the crisis that we’re facing in our long-term care or our health care? It does not solve that problem.

The capacity issue that we face in our long-term care: Donna Duncan, the CEO of Ontario Long Term Care Association, said the following in the Toronto Star. She said that the nursing homes themselves actually do not have the capacity to take up the patients who might end up in these homes as a result of this bill because we’re not addressing the fundamental problem, which is staffing, which is the issue of these homes and which is what’s happening in our health care system.

So what we’re asking for is, withdraw Bill 7. All patients have the right to consent, especially our elders. They’re the people who built this province. These are the people who are the most vulnerable and these are the people who should not be blamed for the crisis that many of the past governments—including this government, because they were in power for the past four years—have created, this health care crisis. We really need to do better by everybody, especially those who are waiting for us to make the right decision.

The fact that there are so many advocates across this province talking about this bill and the fact that we did not have committee hearings—and we actually heard from more than, I think, a dozen people who joined our meeting yesterday, which was a mock hearing just so we could get an understanding of what people are saying. We heard from so many people who talked about the fact that we need to withdraw Bill 7. We need to fix the health care crisis, and the way to do that is to retain and recruit staff. We need to make sure we recognize internationally trained professionals who want to contribute to this province. We need to make sure that we actually help the health care system by investing in our health care system, and we need to invest in our home care. That’s where these seniors and these people want to be. They want to be in their homes, with the care they need.

And I appreciate that the member for Niagara Falls is finally reading the bill.

But did they do anything? No.

And now, somehow, they come here, when you have a government that has from day one made enormous investments in health care—we’ve talked about it: a new hospital in Brampton, new hospitals in Niagara. The largest hospital expansion, I think, in Canadian history is in Mississauga. The largest expansion of long-term care in Canadian history—province of Ontario. The largest investment in health care for Ottawa is happening under our government right now. That’s what’s happening in the province of Ontario. We’re hiring thousands of nurses, thousands of PSWs, hundreds of doctors.

They talk about—and I heard the member from Scarborough Southwest talk about, “We’ve got foreign-trained doctors and medical professionals.” Well, we’re actually doing that. We’re doing it, Madam Speaker. It could have been done, but it wasn’t done.

Now, I want to talk—the opposition House leader asked me a question about respite care. She said, “Well, are you going to bring back respite care as part of this?” Well, yes, of course we are. It was part of the news conference.

They say, “You’re going to move people hundreds of miles away.” The announcement talked about what we hoped to accomplish with this program. Yes, there are almost 6,000 people in hospital who should not be there. There are about 2,000 of them who are waiting to be in long-term-care homes, who have applied and want to be in long-term-care homes.

Are there some that should be in home care or would rather home care? Absolutely. Of course there are. That’s why we’re spending $1 billion to improve the system. That’s why I wish they would have voted for it and not against it. They’re going to have another opportunity, though. They voted against the throne speech, but very soon, colleagues, they’re going to get one more chance to vote for home care, a $1-billion investment, and we’ll see how that goes.

The member from London talked about respite care. Colleagues, I’ve talked about this before, when I first spoke. This is the program where you have a loved one and you’re taking care of the loved one at your home. More often than not, it’s an elderly couple: a husband who’s taking care of his spouse and he doesn’t want or she doesn’t want them to be in a long-term-care home, but they need a break. They just need a break. It happens, right? It happens.

The option they have available to them right now is the hospital. That’s the only option they have available to them: the hospital. This bill changes that. This bill reopens the respite care program in the province of Ontario, making available space for about 500 people who are in the hospital right now as ALC patients to come out of that, where they’re not being taken care of, and to get the respite care.

The member from London asked for that to be done. We were already doing it, but the members of the NDP say, “Well, despite the fact that you’re doing it, we can’t vote for it.”

It also said that ward beds, three- and four-bed—and why do I bring up the ward beds, the three- and four-bed rooms? It’s because the member for Niagara Falls, in his speech, talked about how—not even in his speech, in his public Twitter feed—says that we are going to move people into three- and four-bed ward rooms. Now, forget the fact that you can’t do that, but the member spoke about it—

So I’m glad that the member for London screams out that it’s not in the bill. But then I remind the member for London that nor is a $1,500-a-day charge in the bill, nor is sending people 300 kilometres away in the bill, nor is sending somebody 100 kilometres away in the bill.

What the bill ostensibly, though, is about—which they don’t want to talk about, because the NDP and the Liberals together, whether in coalition or separately, like to see chaos, right? They don’t like to see things actually accomplished. It’s not in their interests to do it. It’s about protecting the status quo.

You’ve heard about this a lot. We talk about the status quo a lot. That’s really the essence of the opposition: They are the party of the status quo. That’s what they are. Forget the fact that, to be clear, it was a Progressive Conservative government that brought in socialized medicine in the province of Ontario in the first place, right? It was a Progressive Conservative government that did that.

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.