There is absolutely no doubt that this bill is the beginning of throwing open the door to private, for-profit investor-owned corporations into our public health care system. This is the beginning; let’s make no mistake. And we already have evidence from the Auditor General that these private, for-profit health care facilities are not regulated. There’s no oversight. In fact, the Auditor General said, “More specifically, there’s a higher risk that privately owned organizations may prioritize profits by charging patients for add-ons, and those charges would not be adequately monitored and scrutinized by the ministry.”

So my question to you is—you say that you can guarantee people won’t be overcharged, you can guarantee that they won’t be put to the bottom of a wait-list because of not agreeing to sign up for the add-ons by these private clinics, but you have absolutely no government mechanism to oversee them. What do you say to the Auditor General’s questions about this lack of oversight that you’ve done nothing to address?

Thank you to my colleagues the PAs from Newmarket–Aurora and Eglinton–Lawrence for that wonderful presentation. Our government has for the first time opened the door for foreign-trained nurses and foreign-trained doctors. It was a firewall for the last decades and decades, and we lost so much human intellectual capital and talent which left the province for south of the border for so many decades, including my sister. She was a foreign-trained doctor. She couldn’t get into the system; five years full-time studying, came to U of T, this building, and she couldn’t get into the system 21 years ago. So she left the country and she went to America, along with hundreds and hundreds of doctors who have left.

For the first time, our government is opening the door for foreign-trained credentials, and I have to thank and commend the minister, our Premier and the PAs.

Can the members tell this House, what is the government doing to expand our health care human resources and ensure health care workers aren’t moving out of the province and out of the hospitals?

Thank you very much for the question from the member for Hamilton West–Ancaster–Dundas. In fact, I would think the members opposite would be supporting Bill 60, because for 30 years in this province, we’ve had something like 900 independent health facilities, and what Bill 60 does is integrate those 900 independent health facilities—which, by the way, have been renewed licences for 30 years under every government of every political stripe in this province. But this piece of legislation actually integrates those formerly—after we pass Bill 60, hopefully—independent health facilities into integrated surgical community centres, which will be integrated with our health care system.

But what are we doing to make sure people are not having to worry about oversight, etc.? We’re making people post uninsured charges online and in person so a discussion can happen ahead of time; a process for responding to complaints; patients can’t be denied treatment if they don’t purchase uninsured services; and the Patient Ombudsman—

Further questions?

Third reading debate deemed adjourned.

Report continues in volume B.

Speaker, if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent to see the clock at 6.