Je lis la pétition nommée « Modifier les zones de gestion des appâts … du Nord-Est et du Nord-Ouest.

« À l’Assemblée législative de l’Ontario :

« Alors que les zones de gestion des appâts dans certaines villes ne permettent pas aux pêcheurs d’acheter des appâts dans leur propre zone pour aller pêcher dans les lacs à proximité;

« Alors que 95 % des lacs approvisionnés à Hearst sont situés à l’ouest de la ville et les zones courantes font en sorte qu’il n’y a pas d’option légale pour les pêcheurs de se procurer des appâts et d’aller pêcher ces lacs;

« Alors que le gouvernement a investi beaucoup de temps et d’argent au cours des années pour assurer une population de truites élevée et saine pour que les pêcheurs puissent l’apprécier et en profiter;

« Alors que les propriétaires de pourvoiries dans la région ne peuvent plus se procurer des appâts en proximité de leur camp avec les zones courantes et ils n’ont aucune option routière à s’en procurer près de leur camp;

« En conséquence, nous, soussignés, pétitionnons l’Assemblée législative de l’Ontario :

« —demande d’offrir une exception ou une exemption pour les villes du Nord suivantes : Chapleau, Wawa et Hearst, où les deux zones se trouvent à être séparées basé sur la voie ferrée et les chemins routiers;

« —nous demandons au gouvernement Ford et au ministre des Richesses naturelles de modifier la législation des nouvelles zones de gestion des appâts pour faciliter l’achat de ceux-ci pour les pêcheurs, et d’assurer la continuité de ce sport et ce mode de vie qui représente tellement les gens du nord de l’Ontario. »

Il me fait plaisir de signer cette pétition et la remettre à Elya pour amener la pétition à la table des greffiers.

I’ve had really great discussions with seniors within my riding. I’ve spent a lot of time talking to them because I know their concern has been about long-term care.

We have made historical investments in long-term care, and I know there was strong excitement by the people in my region about being able to have long-term care that was built in our region.

I’ve also had good conversations with our health care system within Ajax, and I recognize that we are challenged. COVID has really ripped off the Band-Aid of quite a few things that were already—the cracks that were already in the system. I know that the ALC patient concern is one of the things that was brought up very often in regard to one of the items that is really causing backlog within our health care system and within our emergency department.

For the people in my riding, I continue to have conversations around what can be done, and for the seniors within my riding, we also have great conversations about the larger capacity in long-term care.

When we last debated Bill 7 at second reading, the member for Ajax had made her presentation, and we were in the midst of questions and answers to the member for Ajax. We’ll resume.

Questions to the member for Ajax?

I just want to again thank my friend the member from Ajax for her contribution to this debate. I was really interested to hear about the long-term-care facility that you mentioned in your riding and how that is providing some spaces for people who need long-term care. I know you mentioned that under the former Liberal government—when we came to office, there was something like a 40,000-person wait-list to get into long-term care. I know that this is a huge problem with our health care system and has really led to hallway health care.

I think it’s really important that we are building these long-term-care facilities. Could you please tell us a little bit about this specific long-term-care facility in your riding and what it is going to do for the people of Ajax?

I’d like to thank the member for her presentation. As you’ve heard throughout this debate, New Democrats are quite concerned about fees being charged to patients who are not able to leave the hospital, who are refusing to take the transfer into long-term care. It’s something that’s been happening historically, as we know, but the government did nothing to reverse that, and yet is putting more pressure on people to have to move to a long-term care that is not of their consent.

Has the member heard from her constituents in this regard, because it clearly is a big deal throughout all of our constituency offices and has been for some time. How would she deal with that when it comes to her office and her constituents?

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas our government was elected on commitment on keeping costs down and putting more money back in Ontarians’ pockets by increasing housing supply, making it less expensive to drive or take transit, and by providing relief on everything from child care to taxes; and

“Whereas the government is delivering on that commitment by:

“—reducing 5.7 cents per litre on the gas tax for six months starting July 1;

“—$120 each year in savings in southern Ontario and $60 per year savings in northern Ontario by eliminating licence plate renewal fees for passenger and light commercial vehicles;

“—$300 in additional tax relief in 2022, on average, for 1.1 million lower-income workers through the proposed low-income individuals and families tax credit enhancement;

“—scrapping tolls on Highways 412 and 418;

“—cutting child care costs by 50% on average by December of this year; and

“Whereas the government is reducing the cost of housing by:

“—increasing the non-resident speculation tax rate from 15% to 20% and expanding the tax beyond the greater Golden Horseshoe region to apply province-wide and closing loopholes to fight tax avoidance;

“—implementing reforms that reduce red tape associated with new housing builds, making it easier to build community housing, and speeding up the approval process; and

“Whereas this plan is working—last year, over 100,000 new homes began construction, the highest in more than 30 years in the province of Ontario;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

“To urge all members of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to support the housing action plan of the Ontario PC government.”

I’m proud to sign this petition, will affix my signature and deliver it to page Samreen for delivery.

Resuming the debate adjourned on August 23, 2022, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 7, An Act to amend the Fixing Long-Term Care Act, 2021 with respect to patients requiring an alternate level of care and other matters and to make a consequential amendment to the Health Care Consent Act, 1996 / Projet de loi 7, Loi modifiant la Loi de 2021 sur le redressement des soins de longue durée en ce qui concerne les patients ayant besoin d’un niveau de soins différent et d’autres questions et apportant une modification corrélative à la Loi de 1996 sur le consentement aux soins de santé.

Thank you for that question. I will say I don’t think the long-term care in my riding is very pretty. I think they could have done a lot better with regard to the outside creation of that building. But we do have an additional 320 beds for our Lakeridge Gardens long-term care. We have both private and semi-private rooms that are very important to members within my community, to be able to have what is no longer ward-type settings with four beds in a room. We have had a really good response to it in my riding. The people in Ajax are extremely excited about it coming in.

I know we have our Bomb Girl. I spoke about her before. She’s 100 years old and she couldn’t wait to get her room in that long-term care. We have done everything with regard to getting her in and settled.

It has been a very impactful piece in our community, to have that long-term care. We’ve also had investments to redevelop other beds within Ajax as well. It’s been fantastic having that built and it has made a really big impact within our community.

It is a pleasure to rise today and speak on behalf of the residents of Thunder Bay–Superior North to the government bill, Bill 7, the More Beds, Better Care Act, 2022.

In my inaugural speech last week, I spoke of the crisis in health care and the assault on public services initiated by massive funding cuts and an aggressive campaign to undermine unions that began under the Mike Harris government. These cuts continued through Liberal and now again Conservative governments. People on the other side of the House like to claim that the NDP is somehow responsible for this shameful debacle. But it is the Conservatives who were the official opposition during the years of Liberal mismanagement, and surely they bear responsibility for the slashes to health care spending undertaken with such glee by the Harris government.

Former Minister of Education John Snobelen advised Mike Harris, who was Premier at the time, that his Conservative government needed to create a crisis in public education in order to create an appetite amongst the public for for-profit education. This is exactly what we are seeing today in the crisis created four years ago by this government with the implementation of Bill 124.

The privatization of health care services and the restriction of bargaining rights for public sector unions with Bill 124 have increased the strains on our health care system and have, in fact, helped to manufacture a health care crisis. Bill 7 before us here today looks to amend the Fixing Long-Term Care Act, 2021, by including a provision to allow hospitals to discharge patients determined to need alternative levels of care so that hospital capacity can be increased.

I know from watching the debate this week that the Minister of Long-Term Care denies that patients can be discharged without their consent. The fact is, however, this bill talks of hospitals being expected to make a reasonable attempt to obtain consent, while clearly giving hospitals the authority to carry out actions needed to transfer patients if the resistance of patients or the family is deemed unreasonable.

We also know that hospitals threaten patients with impossibly large fees if they don’t agree to be moved, something this bill could, but does not, address.

It is in section 2, part 3 of the bill where it is outlined that the authority for clinicians and placement coordinators to determine eligibility for a patient to be transferred into long-term care can be found. As far as I can see, anyone within the hospital system can be designated to make this assessment. That designated person then chooses a home for the patient based on their assessment, and there is nothing in this bill that talks of patient or family consultation or consent. This bill, Bill 7, in its haste to free up hospital beds, seems not well-thought-out and does not place the patient, their needs and their families as a priority.

Of further concern are the government’s claims about the quality of care in for-profit long-term-care homes. During the COVID pandemic, members of the military brought in to help with crisis conditions in long-term care reported horrendous conditions that directly contributed to the high number of deaths in these same for-profit homes, and yet not one of these homes has been shut down.

Today I am hearing exactly the same concerns originally reported by the military being reported again by front-line workers and family members. I was recently contacted by a PSW I’ll name Susan, who told me she is frequently the only staff member looking after residents—no nurses, no other PSWs, no cleaners, no one on the front desk screening visitors and not even paper towels at the handwashing stations—just one PSW to provide what this government referred to yesterday as the highest level of care in the country. Is this the standard of care you were boasting about?

The four hours of care you keep referring to doesn’t exist. You keep claiming to have hired thousands of additional health care workers, but where are they? Are they wearing cloaks of invisibility that only members of the Conservative caucus can see? They certainly are not visible in any of the health care settings in the riding of Thunder Bay–Superior North.

Susan, the PSW who continues to find herself working alone on all floors of the home, shift after shift, made a formal complaint to an inspector, who called her back saying that there were no problems at the home. Clearly the inspector did not attend the home in person, or the standards the Minister of Long-Term Care keeps touting are extremely low. This is the reality of for-profit long-term-care homes.

It worries me deeply that after learning of the dreadful conditions in for-profit homes during COVID, the government has not shut down homes that do not meet even the most basic standard of care. Even more egregiously, they have sold 35-year licences to the same long-term-care homes already discredited as the sites of the greatest number of COVID-related deaths. If the Conservative government is claiming to have mandated the highest standards in the country, why are inspectors not shutting down homes that are clearly not in compliance?

Speaker, keeping patients close to family members where they live is the most compassionate action to be taken. Indeed, as many of us who have taken of care elders in hospital, long-term care or retirement homes know, family members fill the gap in nursing and PSW shortages and end up taking on a critical role as caregivers. When a family member ends up far from where they live, that support system can’t be maintained. This adds up to emotional and physical stress on both the patient and the family members.

The title alone—More Beds, Better Care—shows the disconnect this government has towards health care. As any health care worker will tell you should you choose to listen, more beds without more staff is simply more furniture. This province cannot retain nurses, PSWs or other valuable health care workers because they are overburdened and underpaid. They frequently work short-handed, and many work two and sometimes three part-time jobs with no benefits just to make ends meet. These are the same workers we keep calling our heroes, yet this government keeps persisting in the same status quo policy of Bill 124, which removed bargaining rights from public sector workers and capped their wages.

The government is subsidizing for-profit agencies with public money to the detriment of our health care system and the morale of health care workers. I note that the Premier this week has, once again, been looking to the federal government for more health care funding. But we should be reminded that, according to a report by the Financial Accountability Office, the previous Ford government underspent on health care by $1.8 billion last year. The FAO report also highlighted that Ontario in 2020 had the least amount of health care spending per person in the entire country. This failure to spend health care dollars fell in the middle of this government’s previous mandate.

Again, as much as you try to deflect criticism by blaming previous governments, you already had four years to do right by health care workers and the people of Ontario, but you chose not to. And frankly, if we want to blame a previous government, we can look to the Mike Harris Conservatives who slashed funding from health and education in a deliberate strategy to generate support for for-profit corporations.

In 2021, the Financial Accountability Office reported that Ontario did not spend any funds from a $2.7-billion COVID response program in the first quarter. That’s two years in a row that this government chose not to spend its available health care dollars. Could it be that this government is following the Mike Harris playbook and deliberately creating crisis after crisis in health care because of its burning desire to turn more public dollars into private profits? Financial transfers from the federal government during COVID have also largely been held back, not properly accounted for, and explained by this government as “saving for a rainy day.” While I’m not a meteorologist, I would suggest to this government that when it comes to health care, it is not only raining, it is a monsoon and we need action now, here, today.

Simply put, public health care dollars must remain in the public system. Every dollar of public money should not be reduced by shareholder dividends, private agency fees or the wage gouging by private agencies that undermine our health care system. We, on this side of the House, have been sounding the alarm about long-term care and retirement homes for years. I recall our former leader Howard Hampton pleading for better standards and more hiring for long-term care decades ago. Neglect by this government and previous Liberal governments have only added to the dire situation we find ourselves in today. But the government doesn’t have to listen to our voices. A wise government would listen to front-line health care workers and community advocates who know the on-the-ground reality of health care.

Natalie Mehra is one such advocate, and she is a member of the Ontario Health Coalition. She states, “The bottom line is the Ford government is using the health care crisis to privatize Ontario’s public hospital services and to push seniors out to fill long-term-care beds in the worst nursing homes that no one wants to go to because they have terrible reputations, most of them for-profit. It is all couched in very carefully selected and manipulative language, but the actual policy changes they are proposing are clear and they clearly benefit for-profit companies at the expense of patients, particularly seniors.”

Speaker, we know that this government has deep ties to the for-profit long-term-care industry. Many ex-Conservative staffers are now back in the House as long-term-care lobbyists. Ex-Premier Harris sat on the board of one of the largest for-profit long-term-care companies, and his partner heads up one of the for-profit health care agencies that is subsidized heavily by public health dollars.

In my riding of Thunder Bay–Superior North, private agency staff are making two to three times the amount that hospital nurses are. Our hospital nurses, who have committed to living in and serving their home communities, wind up training the agency nurses and thus further subsidizing agency staff—talk about adding insult to injury. I have also learned that nursing students who come to hospitals on placements are deciding not to pursue careers in nursing after seeing the workload that full-time nurses are carrying and after seeing first-hand how badly nurses are treated by this government.

Bill 124 has created a crisis in health care that is resulting in health care workers leaving the profession in droves. This is the status quo created by this government, and this is the status quo that could so easily be fixed by offering existing health care workers the wages and respect they deserve. It is clear that Bill 124 is not about saving money, but it is about creating an excuse to expand for-profit health care. Bill 7 does nothing to actually address the health care staffing shortage. Emergency departments and hospital intensive care units are staffed by specialized RNs and regulated health professionals, while alternative-level-of-care units are typically staffed by PSWs and RPNs. Clearing alternative-level-of-care beds will not free up nurses or specialized staff to address the recent rise in emergency room and urgent care closures.

The devil is always in the details, and unfortunately, Bill 7 is very weak on actual details. Here are a few key points of what this bill does not have. The More Beds, Better Care Act fails to present a timeline to determine how quickly patients will be moved into long-term care and, just as importantly, whether the homes will actually have an opportunity to do their due diligence in being prepared for additional residents. If long-term-care homes turn down residents because they feel they can’t meet their needs, it is not made clear what options that resident has. Where will they be placed if a home repeatedly rejects residents? What measures are in place so that any of these decisions along the line are being done in good faith?

This government talks of the importance of home care, and this side of the House quite agrees and, indeed, thinks that investments in home care are more important than just talking about it. This bill makes no mention of home care, despite it being a very reasonable and preferred alternate level of care. We know that 90% of Ontario elders would rather have home care in their own homes and communities, but this bill neglects to mention home care or if a patient’s primary care providers could be maintained with at-home support.

The minister has publicly stated that he is hoping to pass this bill by September 1 and, in the week following, to pass regulations. Once again, this government is rushing through a bill and shortchanging the public by not allowing for adequate consultations.

Those details I mentioned that are lacking will be expanded under the regulations. The legislation, for example, makes no mention of how far away a resident may be placed in a long-term-care facility from where they actually live and have family support. The regulations presumably will set that out, but that makes me very nervous, I have to say.

This bill has been met with widespread anger across the province, and the government’s response has been to attack the opposition for even trying to raise salient points we object to in the bill. Seeing and hearing this reaction, it is not a surprise that the government did not campaign on this in the June election, choosing instead to rush it through in a summer sitting.

Any bill worth introducing is worth debating and deserves the proper consultation time for the public to weigh in. Unfortunately, this government’s status quo is wielding their power with a heavy hand and not seeking out or desiring public input and consultation. In the case of Bill 7, the More Beds, Better Care Act, it is seniors and their families who suffer.

We know that long-term-care lobbyists have the direct ear of this government and this minister. I ask them: When will the government listen to front-line workers, health care advocates and families? When will the government listen to seniors themselves about what they need in long-term care, home care and—what we don’t talk about enough—retirement home care, that grand enterprise designed to suck every last dollar out of a senior’s life savings?

We also know that Ontario funds its hospitals at amongst the lowest rates in Canada, so we should not be surprised that we are in a health care crisis. Given the history of the Harris and Ford governments, we shouldn’t be surprised to see innovation touted as grounds to transform even more public dollars into private profits. Public dollars spent on public health care keep money and resources circulating throughout the system. The siphoning-off of public dollars for private profits destroys the system. This is exactly what Bill 7 is designed to do, and I, for one, will do everything in my power—

Point of order?

I’ll remind the House not to impute motive.

Speaker, point of order.

Speaker, on a point of order.

What I’m really concerned about here is that you seem to have missed the part where we fixed long-term care by allowing four hours of care per day—a historic investment—and we have doubled the number of inspectors. We now have more long-term-care inspectors—because you mentioned inspections—in Ontario than any other province in Canada. It is almost one for every two homes, I believe.

So I think we’ve done a lot to try to fix long-term care and make it better, and I wish you would support this, because we really do need to get people into the proper place, where they can get the best possible care.

We’ll now have questions and comments. So we will have the member from Sault Ste. Marie.

The member for Thunder Bay–Superior North.

Or HWAD, if you want. It’s a lovely acronym.

I just want to say how disturbing this bill is, because if you read the bill, it talks about all the things that this government can do without the patient’s consent. They can assess you without your consent or the family’s consent. They can send your health records, your personal health records, without your consent. They can assign you and admit you to a home that you may or may not want to go to or that your family doesn’t want to go to. In fact, the only thing it says they don’t have consent to do is to restrain an ALC patient to carry out the actions. So they can do everything but strap granny to a gurney to send her to the long-term-care home.

Why would this government put forward such a cruel bill when our seniors have suffered so much already? Five thousand seniors died—

All right. I will be careful about that. I will note, though, that some of the things I referred to are part of the public record.

And I am finished. I think the last thing I would like to say is that the PSW who has been in contact with me and in tears about how difficult it is to look after the people under her care because she’s left there alone, time after time, has said she would never, ever put her own mother into a long-term-care home, because she knows she would not be taken care of properly.

Interjection.

Members on your side talked about trying to create a home space that they can move into—that’s not of their choosing, that’s not of their family’s choosing. And will that space have the correct number of people on staff and the four hours of care that have always been promised but have never happened?

As I say, the condition in so many long-term-care homes has been clearly documented as not supporting the well-being of the seniors who are living there and not supporting the work conditions of the people working there.

I think this is going to be a very exciting afternoon. I think there’s going to be a lot of back and forth, Speaker, and it’s going to be a great time for you to be able to get some pretty concrete experience in the chair.

I will say to the member from Thunder Bay–Superior North, if you want to talk about Mike Harris and you want to talk about everybody else, let’s go back to Bob Rae. The regulations that you’re talking about go all the way back to 1979. And if memory serves me correctly, the one and only time in Ontario’s history that we’ve had an NDP government was from—what was it?—1989 or 1991 to 1995. There was an opportunity for that Bob Rae government to repeal or change or do all kinds of things with these specific regulations—not only that but an opportunity for them to make some serious concrete investments in long-term care, and guess what? They didn’t.

So if you’re going to stand here and chastise everyone else, why do you think that they didn’t make changes?

Thank you to the member from Thunder Bay–Superior North for your comments. You made a very clear and fact-based argument that this government has been deliberately underfunding our public health care system in order to create a crisis in order to privatize it, just like they privatized our long-term-care system—

Interjections.

Well, thank you very much, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity.

To the member opposite: I listened very carefully to your comments, and I’ve been listening to debate now on this for several hours over the last couple of days. As a new member in this House, there’s a lot of references to the opportunities and, in fact, the need for us to work together. I’m wondering, in the spirit of working together, and as a new member, is there something within this bill that you see that you could point to that supports the work that we are trying to do on behalf of all of our constituents to create more space for residents in this province to have access to good long-term care when and where they need it most? Do you see anything in this bill that you can agree helps the residents in this province to obtain that?

Response from the member from Thunder Bay–Superior North.

I think this brings me back to the basic math that I referred to earlier. We move people out of hospitals into for-profit long-term care, and that solves the profitability problem for those long-term-care homes. But it does not address the fundamental needs of dignity for our seniors.