My question is to the Minister of Health. SickKids is one of the best hospitals for children in the world, but the hospital’s ability to help, see and heal children is being put to the test by this government. Demand at SickKids is skyrocketing. Visits to the emergency room are up 47%, and over 3,400 children are waiting for surgery beyond the acceptable timeline for them to wait. No child—no child—should have to wait too long for necessary surgery, Minister. This is my question: What is this government’s plan to address the surgery backlog at SickKids?

Minister, this is my question: Can you increase funding to SickKids to meet the need, to address the staffing shortages, so that children can get the care that they need?

Again, Speaker, I will remind the member opposite: In fact, we have already increased funding to SickKids in the amount of 4.3%, which equates to $22 million. We’re working with SickKids actively to make sure that anything we can do to assist, to find those opportunities that SickKids provides, incredible opportunities across the world and in Canada—we will continue to work with SickKids to make sure that that opportunity is there for us when we need it.

That is coupled with 52 different hospital expansions that are in process in the province of Ontario. That is unprecedented. When we see the kinds of investments that we are making in our hospitals, in our health care system, it makes me very proud to serve with this Premier, with this caucus, because it means we understand and appreciate that you need to make the investments. You need to build to make sure that we have the health care system we need when people need it. Thank you.

Our government has already started those investments. We have the hospital infrastructure that we want. We have already invested to ensure that we have personal support workers in community, in our long-term care, and we will continue that work because we understand how critically important it is.

As I said this morning, I’ll be sharing my time with the member from Toronto–Danforth.

Earlier this morning, I raised the two major issues that were contained within some of the language of the throne speech. One of those issues was the small, insulting increase to the ODSP levels, tied to inflation. This is a total of $245 million from the government. The other issue was this $225 million contained within the tutorial promise by this government, which, interestingly enough, will be money that is not being put—

Interjections.

As I was saying: The $225 million is this promise to offer cash for tutorial programming. It’s interesting, because when you do the math on this promise, it could come up to maybe $90, which is one tutorial session in the private sector, for instance. It could have been so much more of value to the people who are committed to public education in Ontario than one private session of tutorials. Quite honestly, Mr. Speaker, this is not a plan to help students recover from a very devastating interruption in their learning through the public education system and through the pandemic; this is simply a gimmick.

Yesterday at the press conference, I found it incredibly interesting when Colin D’Mello asked the finance minister a question around the deficit reduction. You’ll know, of course, that the deficit reduction is going to be $1.1 billion this year. There was an increase in some taxes. I beg the government to have another look at this $1.1 billion, because this is cold comfort to the people who are waiting over 19 hours in an emergency room. This is cold comfort to the 911 operator from Dundas who was, at one point, not able to send and dispatch an ambulance to a crisis. She was on the line with a woman whose baby was choking, and she was also on the same line trying to help a family deliver CPR over the phone. Those are the choices that are being made right now in our health care sector.

When we say that these are life-changing decisions, there’s truth to that. And I want the government members to hear this because both the Ontario Nurses’ Association, the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario, SEIU and the Ontario health sector helped put forward very good recommendations around investment. The $1.1 billion in an increase in tax revenues going down to a deficit when the health care system is in crisis is a choice that this government is making, and it is not centred on the people we serve. The 19.1 hours that folks are waiting in emergency rooms is an issue that is affecting all of our ridings across the entire province. No one is exempt from this kind of pain, Mr. Speaker.

The finance minister said that the entirety of the new net revenue would be put against the deficit and no new funding so far to overcome the ongoing hospital closure crisis. This is a quote from yesterday.

I also want to point out, because I am the finance critic, that the proposed increase around health care funding according to the Q1 quarter was 5.92%, when inflation is at 8.1%. That is a cut to the health care sector. So you cannot say to the people of the province, as the Premier did earlier today, that we are investing historical amounts of money into the health care sector when you proposed a budget that did not recognize the inflationary pressures, and at 5.92% when the inflationary level is at 8.1%, you are actually admitting that you are cutting health care.

This is why the morale and the energy in the health care sector is so challenged right now, and it’s so stressed. This goes from midwives to the paramedics—interestingly enough, paramedics, you’ve given them a greater scope of practice. You’ve said, “Oh, you can do more, paramedics.” Paramedics are waiting in emergency room drop-offs in the hospital bays waiting to drop off people they’ve gone to pick up, and there’s no nurse for the pass-off to go to.

In fact, when the Liberals had this problem which I do want to point out—when the Liberals froze hospital funding for five years, that was a cut, a cut, a cut, a cut, a cut, and those cuts were never addressed. But at the very least they actually created a new position in the health care system called the “hallway nurse.” You have created a position called “batching” where you can actually drop off multiple people with one person, which is completely unsafe. Paramedics across the province have said, “Yes, great. You want us to do wellness checks? We’re stuck in hospital drop-off bays because there are no nurses to be had.”

The children’s and social services sector is also seeing a 1.8% cut. When you look at the most vulnerable—and as I said this morning, that is why we are all here. We are here to fill that gap and to make sure that when we invest tax dollars in the health and well-being of the people of the province, the return on the investment is for the province as a whole. After this pandemic, all of us should have a clear understanding that the health and well-being of the people we serve is directly connected to the economy. If you think that a company is going to relocate to the province of Ontario when the health care system is in shambles, I have news for you: This is a direct disincentive for companies to come to Ontario.

The other point that I wanted to make is that—especially after question period this morning, Mr. Speaker, because the disconnect of what we are hearing from the government side of the House around what is actually happening in our health care system is truly alarming. As my colleague here has said, in order to address a problem, you have to admit that the problem exists. A GTA emergency physician is inviting the Premier and the health minister for a tour of her emergency department, so that they can witness first-hand the staffing shortages and crises facing the province’s health care system. I’d like to urge the Premier and the Minister of Health to actually take this extra step.

There has been some language used in the hallway right outside here where the Minister of Health has said that she takes exception or she rejects the premise that there is a crisis. We have so many examples from our ridings—so many examples—that indicate that the crisis is real. Perhaps you are using a different definition of “crisis,” but this doctor has said, “This is a true open invitation. I’m a professional, respectful person. There will be no hate, nothing but professional. I just want you to see what we are seeing.”

This is what they’re saying: “Emergency departments normally equipped with three doctors are sometimes down to two, and with nurses also in critically low supply, patients are not getting the attention or care they deserve.”

She goes on to say, “The waiting room is packed. There are people waiting on the floor. There’s blood on the floor from patients who are bleeding. There’s a long triage line, meaning there’s a lineup of people we don’t even know how serious their illness is.”

This is Dr. Nour Khatib. Dr. Khatib said that even after ER patients wait hours to be admitted to the hospital, she’ll watch them wait up to two or three days for a bed. I, and we on this side of the House, would describe this as a crisis.

And then, to add insult to injury, this is the truth around wage suppression: Your policy on wage suppression in the public sector is undermining the strength of our health care system, since, in the last year, 5,400 health care workers have left that profession. We cannot retain health care workers when the government has a bill on the books that limits those wages to 1%, especially when we have an inflationary rate of 8.1%. As Doris Grinspun from RNAO said yesterday, this is a 7% cut to nursing.

So those nurses are going elsewhere. Many are going across the border to the States. They’ll still live in Windsor, but they’ll go across the bridge and get a really good job in the United States. They’re getting incentives, they are getting perks and they are getting working conditions that provides them integrity and dignity, not only to those patients, but to their colleagues.

Interjection.