My question is to the Minister of Health. After spending weeks in hiding, avoiding accountability, the government is downplaying what Ontario Health is calling an unprecedented hospital staffing shortage. Grand River Hospital in Waterloo region was recently forced to close an operating room and postpone elective surgeries because 120 staff members were off with COVID-19. According to Health Quality Ontario, as of April, half of the hospitals whose average ER wait times top the provincial average were in Waterloo region. That average is over 19 hours waiting in an emergency room.

When will this government stop normalizing this grave position our health care system is in and start listening to health care professionals’ calls to action? Everything is not okay.

If this government was actually concerned about the urgency of what is happening in our health care system, they would listen to the ONA; they would listen to the RNAO and other groups of health care professionals and you would repeal Bill 124. Instead, the Minister of Health says repealing Bill 124 “is a conversation for another day.” That is a direct quote. Well, we think that day is right now. That day is today. Why is this government actively preventing nurses and other health care workers from being fairly compensated in our system?