My question is to the Premier. Rick Brown lives in London West and is exhausted from more than five years of caring for his wife, Marian, who has an incurable brain disorder. His only break is during her weekly nine hours of home and community care. Before the pandemic, Marian could stay up to a week at a long-term-care home through the short stay respite program. That program was suspended in March 2020.

Will this government restore the short stay respite program to give caregivers like Rick the break they so desperately need?

The ministry told us that the short stay respite program was suspended to free up long-term-care beds. Why is this government more interested in forcing seniors from hospitals into long-term care than in providing caregivers like Rick with the respite they deserve?

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—