Thanks for the presentation by my colleague. The Conservative government never ran on the privatization of health care. Not once was it discussed at the door, not once did the candidate that was in my area even come to debates. Privatization of health care, with their 18% of the vote in the province of Ontario, is an absolute disaster. Bill 124 is a disaster.

The new word that the PCs are using is “innovative.” That’s their new word. It’s not innovative to have seniors taken out of our hospitals without consent. It’s not innovative to have people call 911—they’re supposed to get an ambulance, and they end up getting a cab. So my question is very clear: Is it a myth that seniors moved without consent is not in the bill?

Thank you for asking a question about home care. The solutions in home care are clear. To continue to invest into the for-profit companies that dominate our home care system, when there are no checks and balances, does not give us better home care.

To give us better home care, mandate permanent full-time—mandate 70% of jobs in home care to be permanent, full-time, well-paid, with benefits, sick days and pension plans, and the problem will be solved. You will make a huge difference. Tens of thousands of PSWs who presently work elsewhere will come back to the job that they love, to the job that they are good at doing.

By keeping all of those people in their homes, you free up beds in the hospitals. There are solutions that are within the government’s control to help free up beds in the hospitals. I hope you will do it.

If you share information with a physician, with a nurse, with a lab tech, with a physio or whatever, they are bound to keep that information secret. Nobody will know. The bill, Bill 7, takes away that right, takes away that bond. Now health care professionals will be able to access information without your consent—

We just came out of a pandemic. We have seen the difference between private, for-profit long-term-care homes, where two times or three times more people died than in not-for-profit. When you see the difference is so clear in the quality of care—it costs the exact same to the taxpayer to invest in a not-for-profit home as it does to invest in a for-profit home. Why not make sure that we get the best value for taxpayers’ money and invest in a not-for-profit long-term-care home, as opposed to what you’re doing?

I truly don’t think the opposition understand what we are trying to accomplish here. The Premier just highlighted the fact that there are some 6,000 people who are in ALC across this province. The impact that has on hospitals all over the province is of a magnitude that I don’t think the opposition understands.

What we are saying is that long-term care can be part of the solution. For the first time in decades, because of the investments that this government has made in new and upgraded long-term-care beds, in four hours of care, in 27,000 additional health care workers, we can be part of the solution. I appreciate that the opposition always want to tear down what is being built up, but we will not stop, Mr. Speaker, because we cannot. As the Premier has said, as the health minister has said, the status quo is just simply not an option any longer, and there is nobody who would suggest that somebody who is on the long-term-care wait-list should wait in a hospital as opposed to being in a long-term-care home.

Better math scores. We have more teachers in schools. Our students finally—finally—are doing better in STEM, Mr. Speaker. When you combine that with the investments that the Minister of Colleges and Universities has made, when you combine that with the great work of the Minister of Labour to bring the skilled trades back into the schools, we are building an education system that works for all Ontarians and we’re doing it faster and better than anybody could have ever imagined with higher investments than any other government in the history of this province.

Look at the record of this government. We took over from a Liberal-NDP coalition that almost bankrupted the province of Ontario. They didn’t build long-term-care homes, they didn’t invest in hospitals, they didn’t build schools. In fact, they closed schools. Together they laid off thousands of nurses.

What have we done? We have been working to create thousands of jobs in the province of Ontario, not by government jobs, but by bringing back policies that bring back companies to the province of Ontario—300,000 lost jobs under them; thousands of jobs because of the work of this government.

We brought back the auto industry. The Minister of Labour brought back the skilled trades to support all of the new building that is happening with the Minister of Transportation.

Subways: How long did people wait for subways? Under that crew, nothing got done. Under us, Ontario is moving forward. We will build and we won’t let them tear down the progress we made.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker, we can’t keep doing the same old thing over and over again, pouring billions of dollars into the health system, and expect a different result. We need new solutions to old problems that the Liberals and NDP created. The opposition will always find reasons to say no. They will keep defending the status quo, saying no for the sake of saying no. We refuse to accept the status quo. The opposition want people who should be in long-term care in hospital beds. Hospital beds weren’t made for long-term-care patients. And what’s happening is it’s clogging up the emergency departments, delaying surgeries. These problems are decades in the making, created by years of refusal to act under the Liberals and NDP. The Liberals and NDP, who caused the problem, are now complaining about the solution. Their solution is to do absolutely nothing, to change nothing.

The opposition will always say no to building more hospitals, no to hiring more nurses, no to building more hospital beds. They will say no to shorter surgery wait times, no to making the system better. The Liberals and NDP built 611 long-term-care beds. We’re building 31,000 new long-term-care beds, investing $4.9 billion, hiring more than 27,000 long-term-care staff—

My question is to the Minister of Health. Nurses who work full time in health care with good union jobs with benefits and what used to be good wages are making the unimaginable decision to leave their jobs in hospitals to go to private temp agencies without benefits or protections. Remember, Speaker, that hospitals are forbidden by this Premier from paying fair or competitive wages because of Bill 124.

All nurses are paid for with public dollars. This Premier is making darn sure that private agencies can reach deep into the public money bucket.

Hospitals want to keep their nurses and pay them fair and competitive wages. Why won’t this Conservative government remove their public sector wage cap and let them?

This is not about opportunities; it is a racket that is bleeding public tax dollars out of our health care system and into private agencies—publicly paid-for, privately delivered, Premier-approved. Why won’t this Premier scrap Bill 124 and allow hospitals to pay their nurses what they are worth?