Thank you to the members for Mississauga–Lakeshore and Mississauga Centre for their comments.

Speaker, I’m curious to understand the rationale of the government to proceed with this legislation. We just came through a pandemic in which more than 4,000 seniors died. Many of these seniors were forcibly transferred from hospitals into long-term care through the emergency powers legislation that this government passed. Proper supports were not put in place in long-term-care homes. The proper infection prevention and control measures were not put in place. So why does this government feel that forcing seniors to move from hospital alternative-level-of-care beds into long-term-care homes is any kind of solution to the health care crisis that we have before us?

I’m glad the member asked the question, because she wasn’t here during the last session of Parliament, and so I’ll take this opportunity to educate the member on how much we as a government have done to bolster the nursing profession.

For one, we have granted colleges stand-alone programs where students can now decide to obtain their bachelor of nursing at our regional colleges, like Humber College, or La Cité for our francophone nurses.

We have introduced the Learn and Stay program, where, for the first time in the history of Ontario, the government will be paying for the entire tuition costs, textbooks and other fees for our nurses who actually commit to staying in rural and underserviced areas for two years.

We have increased the nursing student enrolment by about 19%, and we are getting more internationally trained nurses into the workforce, with CNO recently sending a press release about a historic ground-breaking amount of I believe about 4,000 new IENs entering into our workforce right now.

So we are doing a lot to bolster our nursing workforce, and I’m glad that member asked the question.

You know, Speaker, when I as a nurse go in and give out my medications to the right patients at the right time at the right dose, I think as well of our current health care ecosystem. We need to be providing the right care in the right place. Simply, alternate-level-of-care patients who are stabilized and well enough to be transferred into long-term-care facilities are taking away valuable resources from other acute care patients: those heart attack patients, those stroke patients who need those beds. The status quo is not working, and that is why we are providing tangible and practical solutions.

I would like to say to my colleague before I start off what a great job that she did on her hour lead. It’s never easy, to all the new people that are here, to stand up and do an hour lead. On behalf of myself and, I’m sure, my colleagues, you did a great job. Hopefully, the Conservatives were listening.

Bill 7, long-term care—Madam Speaker, thank you for allowing me to rise and speak today to Bill 7. Let’s get right into the proposal of this bill: It’s to move patients into long-term-care homes, away from their communities, without their consent. And I want to be clear on that because my colleague was right on the money. Because you can say, “Well, we’re going to put them in your riding.” Well, my riding is an hour’s drive from Fort Erie to Niagara-on-the-Lake to Niagara Falls.

I’m dealing with a case today with a senior who wants to get her husband into Millennium Trail Manor in Niagara Falls, and do you know why she wants him there—it’s her choice, right? You get choices—because she doesn’t drive. This way she can walk and take care of her husband all day. So when you say, “Well, we’re going to keep them close,” you can say you’re going to keep them in my riding but it’s going to take an hour, in some cases, to get to those long-term-care facilities.

We’ve seen this government stretch the meaning of some of the bills, but anyone who just reads Bill 7 can understand entirely what’s going on here. In fact, there’s an entire section labelled, “Certain actions may be performed without consent.” And what are those actions? They empower hospital administrators to now share your medical information without consent. They’re allowed to discuss your personal situation with private for-care providers without your consent. They’re allowed to reassess you without your consent. And I believe, as it is written in this bill, they are allowed to move you without your consent. Speaker, with this clearly spelled out in black and white, why on earth is the part-time—I can’t say that. Why on earth is the Minister of Long-Term Care trying to convince people that’s not the case? The minister seems to indicate it’s not the case because there is a clause that says, “The actions listed in subsection (3) 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.”

I know you guys have some lawyers on the other side of the House, and they understand what “reasonable” is. Here’s the issue: These discussions already happen. If someone is waiting in a hospital bed today, this discussion already occurred with them. Administrators have had this power now; there’s nothing new. In fact, for years advocates have been saying the power to have these discussions already leaves seniors without proper representation. So they have these discussions, sometimes without their family members. They do it all the time.

So what is new here? Well, now they have the power to move your loved one without consent. As I get further into this, I’m going to discuss something around my family.

A serious question arises: What does this government feel is a “reasonable attempt” to obtain consent? Where’s the line? Why is the government giving hospital administrators the power to override the wishes of a patient or their substitute decision-maker? This is the roundabout way that they’re going to do this.

Speaker, don’t just take it from me; you can read it in their own bill. It’s right before all of us and available online. I encourage people to read it—or they can take it from the Ontario Health Coalition. In their release on this issue, they said, “Advocates and experts spoke with one voice today decrying the new law that the Ford government introduced yesterday and intends to pass within just two weeks. The new law ... titled ‘More Beds, Better Care Act’ gives new powers to force the elderly and persons with disabilities who are waiting in hospitals into long-term-care homes against their choice, in what legal experts and patient advocates warn is a fundamental violation of their rights.” It is there in black and white, and the government should be honest about the language they put in this bill.

What I don’t understand is, there’s nothing in this bill that talks about sending anybody to a publicly funded long-term-care facility, or a not-for-profit long-term-care facility where we know the outcomes are a lot better. Nothing in the bill—nothing. You can read it, if you like, when you’re home tonight.

The real problem with this bill goes much deeper. This is the second term of this government. Long-term care has been fully under their watch for four years now.

It’s not in my notes, but I will add here, I just came through a campaign. Actually, I’ve been campaigning for a year and knocking on doors. Not once did the individual I ran against, the PC—or not once that I’m aware of in the province of Ontario—speak with residents in the province of Ontario and told them what you wanted to do—not once. They can correct me, when they do their 10-minute question period, if I’m not accurate. But I know that in my riding it never happened.

Think about this, as you’re all on your computers and doing whatever: This bill doesn’t hire one nurse. It doesn’t recruit one new doctor. It doesn’t send more money to create not-for-profit long-term-care beds in communities where people want to live. No, instead of properly funding our long-term-care homes—or home care, by the way; there’s nothing mentioned in the bill about home care, where 90%—90%—of our loved ones want to stay home. We want them to stay home as well. We just need more support. No, instead of properly funding our long-term-care homes, this just ships people across the areas, without their consent, to try and hide the problem. One is left to ask, what did seniors do to this government that they’re such a target? How can a government of the people so cruelly abuse our elders? Not everybody agrees with me on that statement. That’s how I feel.

Speaker, it should be absolutely clear to this government why this law is wrong. If loved ones need long-term care, part of that plan is to be around family and friends that they love. That means they need to be close to that family that can visit them. Oftentimes with seniors stuck waiting in long-term care, the facility is so understaffed that the family plays a critical role in delivering care.

I’d like the PCs to listen to this. I’m going to talk about my mother-in-law and my father-in-law, and my wife, Rita.

My wife, Rita, decided to retire a year early so she could take care of her dad, who was in a retirement home. My wife did an incredible job, quite frankly, because they were short-staffed. She’d get up every day, after she retired, to go help her father, to make sure he got his pills, to help him get his breakfast, sometimes to help him get clothed. She did that for a number of years with her dad until my father-in-law got too sick, went to the hospital and he passed. But if it wasn’t for my wife and the rest of her family going to that home, Mr. DeLuca probably would have passed sooner. It’s why it’s important to have family members involved in any of these decisions, including consent.

I’m going to talk about her again, because not that long after, her mother, my mother-in-law, got sick and we had to put her into a long-term-care facility. Again, the family took care of her. They went there every day. They visited her. I visited her as well. What happened while she was there was, she got sores. If anybody who has had grandparents or parents—she had sores on her leg. It was getting close to the point where they were going to just take the leg. In Niagara, quite frankly, I think we have more people who get their legs chopped off than anywhere in the province of Ontario. But through the family saying, “We’ve got to find a solution to this. We’ve got to get this fixed before she loses her leg,” the family got a doctor in Hamilton—I don’t have his name, and I apologize—who worked with her, got the sores better, and she didn’t have to have her leg chopped off, which happens right across the province far too much, especially to those who have diabetes.

Her mom has passed. But again, without the family’s support, Grandma and Grandpa would have been gone a long time before they did pass. I talked to my wife about this because, like I said, she retired a year early, and she doesn’t regret taking care of her dad or her mom one bit, because she’s Italian. Mom and Dad took care of her growing up, put her through school, supported her, and she was there for them.

That’s why I believe, from the bottom of my heart, it’s so important to involve the family, make sure we have consent, make sure we’re talking to them all the way through this process.

Under this bill, if my wife and her family, who are Italian, were not told that they were giving away their medical information—I would like to see it, but it would not be pretty, trying to find out what happened here, without a doubt.

We know our nurses are under stress. We know they’re overworked. We know they’ve done an incredible job for the last three years. We also know that some nurses, some doctors, are being abused more than at any time, I think, in recent memory that we’re aware of, and this bill will cause that, if families find out that they’ve given consent to long-term-care facilities to give them their private information. It’s a mistake. It just doesn’t even make sense to me, quite frankly, and we lived it for the last number of years.

Rita’s mom and dad have been gone for a few years, but I know my wife thinks of them all the time—because everybody grieves differently; every nationality grieves differently.

What happens when an elderly patient’s spouse doesn’t drive? You can imagine that the partners of these ALC patients are so elderly themselves, and many depend on their families to drive them to see their loved ones. The story I talked about that I’m dealing with in my own riding doesn’t drive and can’t get there through a bus route. Can you imagine saying, “Well, I’m sorry, your husband is going to Niagara-on-the-Lake” and they live in Fort Erie? It’s an hour. There’s no transit between the two. In a lot of cases, they wouldn’t be able to afford it. They certainly couldn’t afford a cab. It makes no sense.

When you separate families like this, we see the health outcomes of these seniors absolutely drop. This plan will take years off seniors’ lives. It will separate families. It will absolutely crush the elderly patients who are being moved. How is it possible that that outcome is better than just properly funding seniors’ care in our communities?

I talked a little bit about home care. Seniors want to stay at home. As we get older, I think we all want to stay at home, be with our family, be with our friends, be with our neighbours. Why aren’t we investing in home care? Why are we not investing in more PSWs? Why are we not paying PSWs the way they should be paid so that they can work full-time as PSWs in home care, so they’d have some benefits? Some may have a pension—and God forbid, from your side, maybe we’ll make it easier for them to join a union so they’ll get respect on the job. We saw what happened with a company called CarePartners. We had that discussion here a few years ago. Why wouldn’t we do that?

I know I’m supposed to go through you and I really am trying to, but I see the minister is here and I’d like to ask him—we know that minister has a lot of weight in his party. We all know that. Let him tell us why he won’t repeal Bill 124. Everyone is begging you guys, all of you guys. That is the single one that can send a clear message to every nurse, every PSW, every corrections officer, every health care worker, that we care about the job they’re doing, because they’re all covered under Bill 124. Why don’t we do that? If you care about our seniors and you care about the crisis in health care, repeal Bill 124. There’s more to this new plan that actually makes it worse than it looks and, honestly, in my humble opinion, it looks pretty bad.

Let me read you another quote from the head of the Ontario Health Coalition—and I want to be clear to my colleagues on the other side. I see my good friend from the Liberals is here as well. I want to be clear with you guys: I’m not saying this. This isn’t Wayne Gates just standing up and saying it. This is coming from the Ontario Health Coalition, which is one of the most respected organizations in the province—non-partisan, and their facts and their research are second to none in this province. I admire the work they do with the limited resources they have.

“What we think it is about is filling up the beds of the worst long-term-care homes that people do not want to go to, for good reason.... The government cannot override the rights of seniors to shore up the profits of long-term-care operators with terrible records and reputations. The Ford government has come under fire for its connection with the for-profit long-term-care companies before.” Now, I didn’t say that. It didn’t come from Gatesy. It could have, but it didn’t. It came from the Ontario Health Coalition.

This is where I’m going to say again that over the last couple years, two and a half years, close to 5,000 of our moms, our dads, our grandparents, our parents, mothers-in-law, fathers-in-law, aunts and uncles have died in these facilities. Most of those deaths—where were they from? They were in for-profit long-term-care facilities. Now, I don’t have the stat right in front of me so I’m not going to—I guess I will guess. I would say it’s over 70% who died in these for-profit long-term-care homes. We had better outcomes in publicly funded, publicly delivered homes.

It’s not mentioned in the bill. I read the bill because I was asked to read the bill by the minister. I read the bill and I can’t find anything where it mentions not-for-profit homes and regional homes. By the way, the regional homes do a great job as well.

Speaker, imagine that. We know for a fact that properly funded, properly staffed, safe long-term-care beds aren’t available right now. We know that. The safe ones aren’t available. In fact, most of them have long waiting lists.

There’s a reason the homes this government plans to send people to have openings. Oftentimes they are the worst-run homes with records of abuse, with several seniors to a room and without air conditioning. These are homes that are closely related to PC insiders, and we all know about that. We know who’s on boards. We know that.

I’ve only got a minute and 30 seconds left. I want to talk about the air conditioning in the rooms. The minister did speak about that there’s 100% air conditioning in long-term-care homes. What he didn’t talk about is the air conditioning in the residents’ rooms where, because of COVID and because of the outbreaks, they then have to stay in their rooms. They’re staying in their rooms for days because of the COVID outbreaks, and it’s 40 degrees Celsius. I challenge anybody, any of my colleagues—I’ll go with you—to go sit in one of those rooms with no air conditioning for 24 hours. That’s our seniors. We know that they are fainting because of the heat. As a matter of fact, it’s going to get hot again today, tomorrow and the day after. They’re going to go through the same thing in a lot of these long-term-care homes. We know they are fainting. We know they’re getting sick. We know they’re having heat stroke. Everybody knows it. We have to do better, as a government—and I’ll take some of the blame. Maybe I wasn’t loud enough. Maybe I didn’t talk enough. But we need to have the air conditioners put in the residents’ rooms. No senior—not your mom, not my mom—should have to live under those conditions in the summer.

How many of you have gone out to a ball game or anything, and you’re sitting there sweating? Can you imagine sitting in a room with no air conditioning in our long-term-care facilities? It’s absolutely wrong in the province of Ontario. Many of the homes with wait-lists are even missing basic things—I just said that.

We see numerous record-breaking heat waves—

I’ve always been one, when I look at legislation—there’s winners and there’s losers. There’s positives, and there’s negatives. I always try to get to the point of, why is this coming? Why is this the top priority for the government of the day to bring this forward? It leads me down to a path as far as, who’s going to be benefiting from this? I don’t see seniors or individuals that are in long-term-care homes that are going to be benefiting greatly with the language.

Words are also powerful. When you grab this at face value and you read the legislation where one title is, “Certain actions may be performed without consent,” and there’s a variety of things that can be done here without consent, it leads me down to the path that, yes, words are powerful and you are doing things without consent.

My question to the member is, who is going to benefit from this legislation?

We now have time for questions and answers.

Next question.

What I do know, sir, is that if I’m a senior and I’m in a hospital, I should be able to give consent. You should have to come to me to give you consent. Just because I’m old doesn’t mean that I don’t matter in this province. Just because you’re a little younger, maybe you’re in your fifties, they can go to you and get consent. But with a senior, you don’t need consent.

You can give away their medical history. Do you think that’s right? You’re the minister. Do you think it’s right? I don’t mind having that debate with you, or that talk. I don’t think it’s right that we don’t say to that senior, “We’d like to do this for you. We need your consent,” and have those discussions. They’re having them now. The difference is that they’re giving them to other people. They’re not keeping it in the hospital; they’re giving—

But I’m pretty sure we know who’s going to benefit from it because they didn’t mention in the bill that they can go to a publicly funded long-term-care facility or a not-for-profit. All they talk about is for-profit. So who’s going to benefit from this? In my humble opinion, the owners of the for-profit care; I think that goes without saying.

And we know, just to add a little bit to it because I’ve got a few seconds left, they’ve already, over the course of the last 10 years, made $1.2 billion in profit. What we need to do is to take that profit out of long-term care and put it into publicly funded care, so we can take care of our seniors properly, so they can live longer, so our parents live longer.

That’s a great question. Thank you.

You know, I hesitated on whether I should get up and ask a question at all, given how incorrect many of the statements were in the member’s—and, obviously, there’s no intention, actually, to accurately reflect what’s in the bill. But I would just ask the gentleman this: Does he know the difference between “consent to move” and “consent to review”?

Okay, so that is a very good question on behalf of the minister, because nobody’s going to be forced. It’s not in the bill. Because you have said very clearly it’s not going to be forced. But what they’re going to do to them is they’re going to have them charged the higher rate in that hospital—that’s what’s going to happen. And then what’s going to happen? They’re not going to be able to afford it. That’s one of the things that they can do.

So you’re not going to forcibly treat them like a prisoner and put the stuff around their ankles and their wrists and then send them out. You’re not going to do that. But you’re definitely, definitely going to make sure that they leave that facility. You know it, I know it, and that’s why the consent is such a big issue, not only here today, but outside these four walls. That’s why they’re talking about consent.

But I’ll tell you, and I already said it in my question: My family’s Italian. They’re very, very close. They love each other to death. Every Sunday we go to grandma’s and have our pasta dinner. But if this bill would have been brought forward to my family, it would not have been a good discussion at the hospital. And I think that’s wrong, quite frankly, because they take it out on the wrong people, for sure.

So to answer—the outcome? I can’t answer the outcome. I know that my wife and her family and everybody around them gave as much love and as much care as we could, and the end result was that they both have passed. So I can’t answer the question of would they have lived six months later, but I know that this wouldn’t have passed with my family.

If that would have happened with my family, they would have been extremely upset, and the problem that I think I’m having is that they wouldn’t be taking it out on who they should be—

Thank you, Speaker, welcome to the chair. It’s good to see you there.

I just simply want to say to the member: You know that the delegation of power to override people’s basic rights by having them moved without their consent, because it says that specifically in the second line of the explanatory note. We can all imagine conversations that go like this:

“Mrs. Smith, we have to move your mom.”

“Why are you moving my mom that far away? I’m not going to be able to get to her as often. We won’t be able to see her.”

“Mrs. Smith, I’m sorry, but that’s the law. I have no choice.”

How do you think those conversations would go in the case of your family?

The member shared with us what had happened to some of his family members—more particularly, to his wife’s family members. How different do you figure your family situations would have been if this bill had been there and the placement coordinator would have been able to determine eligibility for long-term-care homes, select a home and authorize a patient’s eligibility if—the story you shared about your mother-in-law—how different would her last few years of life have been if this bill would have been enacted at the time?

Le projet de loi 124 leur a fait plus de mal que tout autre texte de loi dont je me souviens. Et maintenant, le gouvernement propose le projet de loi 7. Le projet de loi 7 va violer les droits fondamentaux des patients en modifiant la loi pour leur permettre, entre autres, d’être déplacés sans leur consentement. Ce n’est pas juste.

Imaginez une conversation : « Madame Smith, nous devons déplacer votre mère. »

« Mais vous ne pouvez pas la déplacer si loin. Nous ne pourrons pas la voir. »

« Je suis désolé, madame Smith. C’est la loi. Je n’ai pas le choix. »

Le projet de loi ne fonctionnera pas pour les patients, leurs familles ou les personnes qui s’occupent d’eux. Ce n’est pas parce que vous êtes vieux que vous n’avez pas les mêmes droits que tout le monde.

Les foyers de soins de longue durée sont confrontés à des pressions encore plus fortes en matière de dotation en personnel que ce que nous observons dans nos hôpitaux. Contrairement à nos hôpitaux, ils n’ont pas de soupape de sûreté. Ils ont quelqu’un dans ce lit qui a besoin de soins 24 heures sur 24, sept jours sur sept.

Pour aggraver les choses, les agences de recrutement à but lucratif débauchent leur personnel. Dans certains cas, ce même personnel revient travailler à un coût deux ou trois fois supérieur. Et les maisons de soins de longue durée ne peuvent pas refuser une admission. Sinon, elles sont pénalisées.

For months now, homes across Ontario have been pleading with this government for help. Long-term-care homes and the associations have been pleading for help. Bill 124 has been one of the most destructive pieces of legislation to our health care system that I can remember.

And now the government is proposing Bill 7. Bill 7 is going to violate patients’ basic rights by changing the law to allow them, among other things, to be moved without their consent. That’s not just. That’s not right.

Imagine this conversation:

“Mrs. Smith, we’re going to have to move your mom.”

“But you can’t move her that far. I’m not going to be able to get there as often. I’m not going to be able to see her.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Smith. It’s the law. We have no choice.”

Bill 7 is not going to work for patients, their families or the people who care for them. You’re putting the people who care for them in a bad position. You’re putting them in a position where they’re going to use this law to pressure people.

I know the government says, “Well, we’re not going to physically restrain them or drag them out,” but anyone who’s been involved with a conversation at a hospital about a loved one knows from time to time you’re told you have to do things, and a lot of people just say—well, they defer: “I guess if the doctor says that, if the nurse says that, that’s what I’m going to have to do. I don’t want to break the law. My family doesn’t want to break the law. I guess mom has to go over here.” That’s what’s going to happen. It’s not about physical restraints or dragging people out; it’s about the pressure you’re putting on people in long-term-care homes to accept people, the pressure that you’re putting on families.

The reality is that our hospitals, well, they have a release valve. They can close down ambulatory services inside a hospital. Sometimes they close an ER or an ICU. A long-term-care home—24/7, that person is in that bed and they need care. And if there’s no one there, that’s a problem. We’ve seen what has happened when there are not enough people there. There’s no mechanism to assure us that the people will be there. It’s especially concerning because long-term-care homes are experiencing greater staffing and personnel pressures than our hospitals. This is because some people are going from long-term care to working in hospitals. Many of them are being poached by for-profit staffing agencies, and they’ll go back and work in the same place for two or three times the price. So they can’t get staff.

And it’s not just nurses and PSWs; it’s dietary people. There is no relief valve in long-term-care homes to protect people, like we have in hospitals. That’s the thing that should be concerning to most of us.

Now, we’ve all talked about the patient’s right not to be moved without their consent. I think I very clearly explained this. Actually, the bill is saying that and is creating the context to create the pressure. But the other piece is, we’re just tossing personal health information protection legislation out the window; you don’t have it. Do you think that’s going to happen to any of us? Do you think any of us would stand for any of this that’s happening right now? Anybody’s family? Can you say that for your family this is okay? I wouldn’t say it’s okay for my family. I don’t think it’s fair; I don’t think it’s right. What needs to happen is, we actually have to provide the supports in long-term-care homes so that we can get people there, so that they will be safe, so that they will have steady, stable workforces. Right now, it feels like the government’s plan is—and I appreciate the minister being here. It feels like we’re thinking of sending people to places that aren’t ready, because there’s no real mechanism to determine their readiness. That’s an inspection. So we don’t know.

I think the government should withdraw Bill 7. I don’t think it’s going to have its intended consequences, that it’s going to have the consequences that the government believes it wants to do. I don’t think people want this to happen to people, but it’s going to. I can tell you, it’s going to happen. The pressure in the long-term-care system is far too great on their human resources. It’s easier to know that, the pressures at hospitals, because you see an ER close or an ICU close. It’s very easy to see. It’s very hard to see in our long-term-care homes. They don’t get the same kind of coverage. As a matter of fact, most of the time, most of us don’t know what’s happening in our long-term-care homes.

Overriding people’s basic rights is something that we wouldn’t stand for. Just because you’re old or frail or close to the end of your life doesn’t mean that your rights are any less valid than any of us. I urge the government to withdraw Bill 7 and, I’m just going to say this again for the umpteen-millionth time, as everybody else has in here, to repeal Bill 124. Bill 124 has done more damage in long-term care, especially not-for-profit long-term care—just ask them. They’ve been telling you for 18 months. For gosh sakes, even the Ontario Hospital Association told the government before Bill 124, “Don’t do it. You’re going to make a mess. It’s going to be a problem.” Then the pandemic happened, and like the pandemic has done with so many other things, it’s made the problem infinitely worse.

This is not going to fix the things you think you’re going to fix. It’s going to hurt more than help.

Can the member point out, given the statement that he just said, where specifically in the bill it says that somebody will be forced against their will to move into only a for-profit long-term-care home?

So again I ask the member, because it’s not consistent with what he’s answering to questions, with what he has said in his speech. So will he agree then, again, as he just did, that it is actually not in the bill that somebody could be removed from a home without their consent?

Madame la Présidente, imaginez une autre conversation, où M^me Smith arrive avec une douleur thoracique : « Madame Smith, vous avez besoin d’une chirurgie cardiaque. Madame Smith, vous avez besoin d’un lit de réadaptation cardiaque. Mais, madame Smith, on n’a pas de lit dans cette unité—on a juste un lit dans le couloir—car on doit attendre une décharge de l’hôpital des autres patients. »

Aujourd’hui en Ontario actuellement, il y a 5 000 patients—c’est l’équivalent de 11 hôpitaux communautaires—qui devraient être soignés pas dans les hôpitaux.

So my question to the member, if he opposes this policy: Are you suggesting that seniors are better off in institutionalized hospital-like settings—in the hallways, perhaps—rather in the home-like environment that long-term care offers?

As the member mentioned, in the explanatory note, it says, “This new provision authorizes certain actions.... 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.”

What do you think will happen to ALC patients in our hospitals after this bill is passed?

We have time for questions and answers.

Question?

The place where you’re asking them to go is experiencing more pressures than the place that they’re already in, and they’re going to have difficulty delivering care. Why would you do that, at the risk of separating people from their families, from their essential caregivers? Look, there’s no easy answer to that; I’m just saying this is not the answer. The answer is to provide the supports that are necessary in long-term care—

There’s going to be a lot of pressure on those placement coordinators—it’s not easy—and that pressure will be: “Get them out of the hospital. We need you to get them out.”

All I’m trying to say is the value of the lives of those people who are ALC is the same as anyone else, and we have to try and treat it as best we can the same—

I just want to circle back to what he’s saying. Forget the fact that both opposition parties say that we can’t trust long-term-care coordinators and hospitals to work on the best behalf of the patient. Forget that for a moment, Speaker. He understands, of course, that nobody can be discharged into a long-term-care home that doesn’t have the appropriate staffing, that that is part of this bill and that it is actually part of the Fixing Long-Term Care Act. He does understand that that is actually the case.

So I’m wondering if the member could hearken back to the Fixing Long-Term Care Act and to this part of the bill that is very clear: You cannot be discharged into a home without your consent and into a home that does not have the resources needed to handle the patient who is being transferred.

So why do you need this bill? Why do you need this bill—

Just withdraw it.

I want to begin by saying that I would like to share my time with the member from Burlington, later in the speech, of course.

I want to start by thanking the good people of Sault Ste. Marie for giving me the privilege and the honour to represent them once again here in the provincial Parliament of Ontario. It’s my third opportunity to represent my wonderful community, and I was really proud to have this opportunity on June 2, so I really wanted to take that opportunity to say thank you.

I’m going to be taking some time this afternoon to speak about the More Beds, Better Care Act of 2022 and the difference that it is making in my community of Sault Ste. Marie. I’d like to bring that perspective on behalf of my constituents, because I think it’s so important that we can really appreciate how the work we are doing in this House is impacting the lives of individuals across every part of this province, but most notably within the communities we represent. In Sault Ste. Marie and across northern Ontario, and of course throughout all of Ontario, this work is significant. More important than its significance is how important it is to the people of our communities, to the people we love, the people we care for, our seniors.

We are the first government to enshrine this commitment into the legislation with the Fixing Long-Term Care Act.

There are two key components that I would like to speak about here today.

Firstly, the work that we are doing that is proposed within this legislation is going to do so much to improve staffing levels and increase hours of care for every resident per day. This has been going on incrementally since 2021, and it will continue to 2024-25.

I then want to speak about the great strides that are being made regarding the building of modern, safe, comfortable homes for our seniors. A key pillar of the work that we are doing to fix long-term care involves hiring 27,000 new care staff. That is going to increase the quality of care that the people of our great province are receiving. It’s going to allow our government to fulfill our commitment of providing an average of four hours of direct care for every resident for every day.

Last year alone, our government invested $270 million to increase staffing levels by over 4,050 people. This year, we’re looking at investing an additional $673 million into our long-term-care homes so that we can hire—and not only hire, Madam Speaker, but retain an additional 10,000 long-term-care staff across our great province of Ontario. This is part of a $4.9-billion—and of course, that’s billion with a B—investment over the next four years to allow us to reach our commitment of hitting that average of four hours of daily direct care per resident. There has been $100 million dollars invested already, which has increased our nurses in long-term care by 2,000 through to 2024-25 and has supported the training of thousands of PSWs and nurses who wish to advance their careers in the long-term-care sector. Earlier, in the fall economic statement, our government announced that $57.6 million is being invested over the next three years to add an additional 225 nurse practitioners in long-term care.

As I said, Madam Speaker, I want to speak a little bit about my own particular riding of Sault Ste. Marie. Within my hometown, all of this funding amounted to an additional $2.8 million for staffing in 2021-22, and $17.2 million when we look at moving to 2024-25. Some of the specifics we have in my riding: a wonderful long-term-care home, the Ontario Finnish Resthome. That home this year alone received additional funding of $549,000, and $980,000 looking over next year, and by the time we get to 2024-25, we’re talking about over $1.3 million. It didn’t stop there, Madam Speaker. The F.J. Davey Home saw a funding increase of $3.2 million this year, $5.8 million over the next year and over $8.1 million by the time we get to 2024-25. This is a significant investment in long-term care. These large numbers we speak of translate into large numbers within every one of our ridings—every one—so that residents across all of Ontario receive the care and the dignity they deserve.

I want to speak next about a key pillar for our plan to fix long-term care across the province of Ontario and to address the tremendous wait-list that was left behind by the former government, who built a measly 600-plus beds.

Interjection: Wow.

Interjection.

I have seen the fruits of our government’s work in my riding of Sault Ste. Marie. Moreover, the people of Sault Ste. Marie have seen it. I believe that is why they saw fit to send me back to this House on June 2.

The Ontario Finnish Resthome Association was allotted 68 new beds and the redevelopment of another 60 beds. But we didn’t stop there. Extendicare in Sault Ste. Marie saw an allotment of a net new 20 beds and 100 redeveloped beds.

But Madam Speaker, something I’m so proud of: I wanted to ensure that I speak to you in my last moment here about the great work that our community has done, that our government has done, of not having a one-size-fits-all approach, but working with long-term care in a way that is culturally appropriate for the communities we represent, and in partnership with our Indigenous communities.

In March 2021, I was so proud to announce that we received 96 new beds for the Batchewana First Nation long-term-care home.

Then, in April 2022, I was able to join Chief Jason Gauthier of the Missanabie Cree First Nation to announce an additional 192 new beds for Sault Ste. Marie, and I was proud to be able to have a groundbreaking celebration with Minister Mulroney in Sault Ste. Marie for that newly established centre.

In my final seconds, I want to say that we have created 376 new beds, 160 redeveloped beds—all in all, just about as much as the Liberal government created in eight years—and that was in one riding in the province of Ontario, Madam Speaker, something I am very, very proud of.

With that, I will conclude, and I thank you again for the opportunity to address the House.