Merci. Je tiens à remercier le député de Glengarry–Prescott–Russell. J’ai écouté attentivement ses commentaires sur ce projet de loi. Nous pouvons tous convenir ici, je pense, qu’il y a une crise dans les soins de santé, dans nos hôpitaux, sûrement. Parlez à n’importe quel hôpital en ce moment du problème et il vous dira que le problème, ce ne sont pas les lits; ce n’est pas « l’issue. » C’est le manque d’infirmières. Pourtant, rien dans ce projet de loi ne recrute une seule infirmière ou ne supprime le plafonnement de leurs salaires.

Pourquoi le député pense-t-il que la réponse la plus appropriée à cette crise est de continuer à manquer de respect à ces travailleurs sur le dos des plus vulnérables de notre province?

Votre gouvernement dit qu’on n’est pas à l’écoute. Dans votre projet de loi, il y a six fois que vous mentionnez « sans consultation avec le patient ». Je peux vous dire, dans le projet de loi, c’est assez clair que c’est l’intention—ce que vous allez faire. Mais ma question ne s’arrête pas là, puisque vous le savez, la francophonie—félicitations pour votre élection. Je voulais commencer avec ça.

Mais on sait que la francophonie, les lits sont très—il n’y a pas tant de lits que ça. Dans ma communauté, moi, à Hearst, il y a deux ans d’attente, ou trois. Puis à Kapuskasing, il y en a peut-être deux aussi—deux ans d’attente. Ça veut dire que si je suis francophone, on a des lits—« ALC beds », des lits qu’on considère à niveau de soins différent. On a beaucoup de monde. Ça vient enlever la pression sur le système. Là, on dit à ce monde-là que, sans consultation, on va vous envoyer dans un lieu différent. Ça veut dire que moi, si je ne parle rien qu’en français, ils vont m’envoyer dans une maison qui parle rien qu’en anglais? Mais s’ils m’envoient dans une maison francophone, ça veut dire peut-être dans votre coin du pays—ça veut dire peut-être à huit heures de chez nous.

Vous trouvez que ça, c’est raisonnable? Sans consultation? Ce n’est pas raisonnable. Ça c’est manquer de respect envers les aînés, c’est manquer de respect envers notre culture et notre langue, puis on mérite beaucoup mieux.

Puis moi, en tant que président des comtés unis, j’ai siégé sur le comité pour notre maison de soins de longue durée. S’il y a quelque chose que j’ai constaté, c’est que, oui, on contracte la COVID-19, donc certains employés ne peuvent pas faire leur shift. Je pense que c’est quelque chose qu’on ne mentionne pas souvent, mais je pense que c’est important de mentionner que c’est un facteur, parce que les investissements sont là dans notre région. Les nouvelles maisons—

Là, on va prendre les personnes qui sont dans ces lits-là—des « ALC », comme on peut dire en anglais—puis on va les transférer à des lieux, peut-être anglophones, où le monde n’est pas capable de s’exprimer. Il n’y a pas de grandes options, là.

S’il faut transférer du monde, pour respecter leur langue et leur culture, il va falloir les envoyer probablement à un coin d’Ottawa qui est à huit heures de chez nous—à huit heures de chez nous, et plus.

Alors, je vous demande : comment allez-vous répondre à ce besoin-là? Votre projet de loi dit « sans consultation »—ça veut dire que je ne pourrai rien dire. Vous allez assigner la personne dans ces maisons-là. Alors, j’aimerais entendre votre point de vue. Comment allez-vous respecter ces francophones-là dans ces maisons—

Point of order.

Questions?

Interjections.

Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke.

I do want to ask my friend from Glengarry–Prescott–Russell—and congratulations; a great victory for Stéphane. I also welcome the new member for Thunder Bay–Superior North. I listened to her earlier, and I was concerned with one of her answers to the questions. When asked by my colleague from Kitchener–Conestoga, was there anything in this bill that was redeeming, to that extent, she said—essentially; I’m paraphrasing—“Absolutely nothing.” So I have to conclude that she wants the status quo of 5,800 people being left in ALC beds in hospitals, where it’s inappropriate. Some will stay, but most will be able to find a place that is—

Interjections.

Can we have order, please? Can we have the member to order, please? Excuse me. Thank you.

My apologies on that. I made an error in regards to rotation.

The time is out, and we are on to further debate. The member from Davenport?

Speaker, on a point of order: I believe there was an error in rotation there. That question should have gone to the government side, and it unfortunately went to the opposition side.

Interjections.

Really? This is a brand new Speaker. She’s been in the chair an hour.

Absolutely, there were.

While low-paid PSWs and other care workers got sick or were forced off the job, we remember the army had to be called in to help. Their report—which these members don’t even talk about; they don’t even want to talk about it—identified absolute—

Interjection.

Their report—and I encourage you, if you haven’t done it, to read it. Please read their report, because it identified absolutely horrifying examples of neglect happening—and let’s be very clear—predominantly in for-profit long-term-care homes. Those report findings: What did this government do with them? They ignored them, and they went even further: They blocked our calls and the calls of those families for a full public inquiry into long-term care—shameful.

Throughout the pandemic, there was a—and I just want to say, because the other interesting thing that was going on here—

Interjection.

Despite the death and the neglect that was so evident in the for-profit sector, many of those same corporations—again, let’s not fool ourselves that this has nothing to do with the fact that so many of those Conservative staffers have moved into lobbying for those homes. Many of those same corporations were granted 30-year licence renewals—shame.

Of the 30,486 beds announced by this government, more than half of them—16,304—were in the process of being allocated to for-profit corporations as of November of last year. This is this government’s record. It’s the record of a government that applies arbitrary caps on salaries of our front-line heroes. It’s the record of a government that gifts shareholders of corporations that have failed our seniors—and that’s why the chorus of criticism is growing across this province. That’s why this government is working so hard to spin this a different way.

I want to be completely clear: This bill is going to be an absolute boon for the for-profit long-term-care sector. And I want to add as well that I think we can expect that, due to those worse outcomes for residents in those homes, they will have much shorter wait-lists than non-profit and municipal homes. People don’t really want to go to them, and they are more likely where those seniors are actually coerced to go. I think that’s the saddest part of all this: As people have found that those for-profit long-term-care homes had such a terrible track record during the pandemic, folks don’t want their parents to go there. They don’t want their loved ones going there. But this government wants to send those seniors there so badly that they’re willing to put in place legislation that will result in the coercing of those seniors to go into those homes. This is about dollars and cents. This is about profits. This isn’t about patients. This isn’t about creating more opportunities for other patients to move into those hospital beds.

This government’s position has been that this bill is going to address hospital capacity, even if it’s at the expense of the rights of patients. But this, like their plan to expand the use of private services in the health care sector, absolutely ignores the fact—and I mentioned this in my question to one of the members opposite previously—that this is a staffing crisis. This is about staffing.

I won’t pretend that hasn’t been a long-standing issue. We’ve seen government after government—certainly in the last 20 years—dealing with a staffing crisis in our hospitals and our long-term-care facilities. But that was without question made worse by the pandemic. And what was this government’s response? To put in place some kind of arbitrary cap on the salaries of the very same people they call heroes, and then wonder why in these conditions they would be fleeing, desperate to get out of this sector. They’re treated with such deep, deep disrespect.

The crisis has reached, without question, a breaking point. We’ve all talked about that in here. We’ve all heard it in our communities. The government here, though, is still refusing to address the root of the problem. I think that’s what’s so shameful about this legislation. Because you would think that in this moment the government would be looking for real solutions, not just solutions to footing the bills and padding the pockets of the shareholders of long-term-care corporations, no, but actually finding solutions that will mean that our loved ones get the care they need and, yes, are moved into the most appropriate care.

Their only solution, ever—and it’s really mind-boggling—seems to be to look to the private sector, even knowing that it’s going to drain money from a public system, exacerbate a staffing crisis and ultimately pad a system that we know failed Ontarians so badly in the pandemic.

I want to speak in the remaining moments that I have here about a better way, because this government could use the lessons of the pandemic to make historic changes to the way we deliver seniors’ care. Ninety per cent of seniors would prefer to stay home. Providing publicly funded, quality, dependable home care would go a long way toward keeping people healthy in their homes and keeping hospital beds and workers free to care for folks who are in need. But this bill doesn’t mention home care, not even once, and it doesn’t put forward a single idea to expand it.

Perhaps the most effective way, I want to add as well, to improve seniors’ care would be getting the profit out of long-term care. The government could have chosen to meet the growing demand and reduce the wait-list and wait times by expanding the not-for-profit and municipal sector, where funding goes to patient care instead of padding the dividends of those wealthy shareholders I’ve spoken about.

I wanted to add: There’s a new culturally sensitive long-term-care home and affordable housing development that’s being planned to be built in my community for Portuguese-speaking seniors. It’s been in development for years, but we need it built yesterday. Under the current system that’s in place, they can’t access provincial funding until the building is completed. They’re continuing to work. They’re spending so much time—the community has been working on this for years, fundraising like crazy, while seniors in our community wait. And now what this government is telling us with this legislation is that those seniors might not end up even in Toronto. Gosh knows where they could end up if this bill is passed. And their families could be coerced into that, based on what this government decides to put in those regulations. Again, do we trust this government to put the interests of those seniors and vulnerable people ahead of padding the shareholder pockets? No, we do not. It’s really unacceptable.

I spoke in my response to the throne speech recently about the need for humility from this government instead of hubris. This is an opportunity to get this right. What this government has presented in this legislation is a lost opportunity. It’s very unfortunate.

Listen to seniors. Listen to advocacy groups. Listen to the health care workers who are telling you that this legislation will harm people, not help them. Bring some transparency forward instead of hiding the changes in your still-to-be-announced regulations; how about that?

Seniors in Ontario deserve dignity, respect and agency. This bill is going to affect some of the most vulnerable seniors out there, especially those with dementia—

No, there were no cuts.

They don’t like being faced with the truth.

Point of order, Speaker.

Order, the member from Renfrew. Thank you.

Thank you, Speaker, and thank you to the member opposite for her contribution to the debate. The members opposite, as a whole, have been saying to this government, “Do something about crowded emergency rooms and closing emergency rooms,” and yet when we added 3,500 new hospital beds, they opposed that. Then, when we said we were going to add another 3,000 hospital beds, they opposed that.

What I’d like to know is just how you expect people to be able to get into the hospitals if nobody is leaving the hospitals and you don’t want us to build any more beds.

I have a minute left, so I’ll make the most of it.

As I was saying, seniors in this province deserve dignity and they deserve respect. What this bill will do—again, it’s this “just trust us” approach with a government that has given us and Ontarians absolutely no reason to trust them. It’s going to target the most vulnerable among us.

I would urge the government once again to expand the opportunity for these folks to come and speak to you. Reach out to those people who are going to be most impacted. Listen to what they have to say. Do something to actually improve working conditions and pay for nurses and other front-line health care workers, because that will do more than anything that this bill will accomplish.

We have a responsibility to make sure that we don’t divide our most vulnerable residents from their families and from the care they deserve. I would encourage the government to take a second look and do something more positive with the opportunity they have here.

I spent two minutes talking about home care because that’s what seniors want: They would like to stay in their home, at least in my community, and I think, from speaking to seniors, across this province. So I would urge the member opposite to take a moment to really read this legislation and consider what’s not said here and what’s going to be determined in regulations because I think that is what is concerning to most Ontarians.

It’s a low bar to say that the only thing that this government has put in this legislation that they’re preventing is the actual physical restraint of individuals. But, unfortunately, it is a low bar, because what we think is going to happen is that people will be coerced using other means.

Our health care workers—the same people this government and these members stood up and proclaimed were heroes during the pandemic—have been hit hard with an arbitrary wage cap, while the cost of living is increasing for them, they’re living with PTSD from the experience of COVID, for goodness’ sake, and they’re overwhelmed, overworked.

We have a staffing crisis. If this government wants to actually do something to deal with the crisis in our hospitals right now, they would be addressing that. Repeal Bill 124.

I want to thank the member from Davenport for her passionate speech and for sharing with us exactly what many seniors in our province have gone through throughout the past couple of years, as well as the reality that we’ve had in this province and the deterioration in our long-term-care sector.

One of the things we’re noticing—and it’s clear from the member from Eglinton–Lawrence’s question—is that this bill doesn’t actually address the crisis we’re facing in long-term care or in health care in general. Rather, it’s just something they have put forward which takes away consent, takes away patients’ rights.

One of the things I think is important to highlight is that clearing ALC beds will not actually free up nurses or doctors. I would like the member to maybe add a little bit on why this government might be doing this. Does it actually do anything for our health care crisis or what’s happening in long-term care?

Ancaster–Dundas.

Why would this government treat our seniors so cruelly after all they have been through?

I think we can allow it to continue.

I’m sitting here very disappointed with what I have been hearing for the whole afternoon. I was hoping that the House leader would just call it off because we are not really debating.

This is an important bill, the More Beds, Better Care Act. I’m sitting here waiting for the debate, waiting for some good answers from the opposition. But from what I’m hearing, they are not focusing on the bill. We care for the seniors, but they’re talking about something else. Rather than focusing on long-term care, they’re talking about community care—which we care so much about and we definitely will want to work on that. That is not what we are debating and what we are discussing today.

The other thing too is, I’ve heard all the members giving different kinds of information that, “This is incorrect. This is incorrect.” They keep on bringing it back. That is not right—

Interjections.