Later today, I will have the honour of welcoming the Minister of Health of the Republic of Poland to our wonderful city of Mississauga alongside my colleagues the Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery and his parliamentary assistant the member for Mississauga–Erin Mills. We have the distinct honour of hosting the minister, Dr. Adam Niedzielski, accompanied by Witold Dzielski, Poland’s ambassador to Canada, at our state-of-the-art Trillium Health Partners Credit Valley Hospital.

With our government making historic investments into health care infrastructure, operations and human resources, it is important we continue to build our system by working with and sharing best practices with other jurisdictions. We will continue to collaborate and build bilateral relations, with the common goal of enhancing the level of health care received by our constituents.

We are actively doing this, as our government released the Your Health plan last month, which focuses on providing people with a better health care experience by connecting them to more convenient care closer to home while shortening wait times for key services across the province and growing the health care workforce.

As a registered nurse and a proud Polish Canadian, I am very excited to be welcoming Minister Niedzielski to Mississauga, and it brings me great pride to be a part of a government that understands the challenges in our health care system and is taking bold and innovative steps to address them.

My question is for the Premier. Speaker, it has come to my attention that cancer patients waiting for surgery right now at the Ottawa Hospital are being bumped by clients of the for-profit clinic that’s been operating on Saturdays at the Riverside Campus of the Ottawa Hospital. This for-profit clinic has been offering nurses double the wages they earn in our public hospital system, and that has had an impact on our public system’s ability to have the staff capacity ready for cancer surgeries for patients in urgent need. This is what I’m being told privately by hospital staff who fear the repercussions for speaking publicly.

Speaker, a very simple question to the Premier: Will they commit today to investigate this matter?

I’m not sure if the member opposite is second-guessing the work of the hospital CEO and the public board at Stevenson Memorial. I can tell you that, as a government, Premier Ford and I have had the opportunity, with the member from Simcoe–Grey’s advocacy, to actually visit Stevenson Memorial. Because of that important facility that serves the people of Alliston and the surrounding area in Simcoe–Grey, we’ve actually announced a redevelopment project for that community hospital.

For the member opposite to suggest that she knows better about what is happening at Stevenson Memorial, more so than the management team, the president and CEO, speaks volumes about what she understands about the public health system.

Again, I will say Stevenson Memorial in particular—incredible hospital doing incredible work with incredible staff. Because of that work, we are doing an investment of a redevelopment project—because of the leadership of Premier Ford, because of the leadership from the member from Simcoe–Grey. We will continue to do that regardless of what the NDP want to do.

Thank you to the Mississauga member for the question. Our government’s plan to build Ontario is one of the most ambitious in the province’s history, with planned investments of $159 billion over 10 years and $20 billion in 2022-23 alone.

Last week in Mississauga, Infrastructure Ontario and Trillium Health Partners selected their builder to build the Mississauga hospital, now named the Peter Gilgan hospital. Together, the three parties will work in a co-operative and collaborative manner over the next 12 to 18 months to determine the schedule, design, price and risk. This will be the largest hospital in Canada with the largest emergency room in Ontario, 950 beds and nine new operating rooms to address the growing community.

In the west end of Toronto and Peel region, our government is investing and expanding the Queensway Health Centre. We’re building two new long-term-care homes through our rapid delivery program, which will bring and activate 600 beds. We are investing in the cancer care centre in Brampton, and we’re building a brand new hospital in Brampton with 250 patient beds and a 24-hour emergency care centre.

But we’re not just investing in growing areas. We are investing in health care facilities right across the province.

If the member opposite would actually look closely at what Bill 60 is going to be able to do: If passed, it will expand those surgical opportunities, ensuring that individuals who are waiting for life-saving surgeries do not have to languish on wait-lists. We have an opportunity here with Bill 60, if passed, that not-for-profit, for-profit community-based hospital partnerships are going to be able to form so that individuals who have been waiting on wait-lists, who are calling every one of our constituency offices saying, “Can I get my surgery faster,” now have that opportunity, if and when Bill 60 is passed, because we have a process that will ensure individuals who want to have these surgical and diagnostic surgeries in community will have a pathway and a complete understanding of how they can do that.

My question is for the Minister of Health. I hope the minister can help me understand something. Why is it that a group of orthopedic surgeons who work at the Ottawa Hospital in my riding had to form a private company in order to rent operating rooms at the hospital they work in, and then hire a private company to get surgical instruments and then hire nurses off-book? All this was just to address the surgical backlog that exists in the hospital they already work in.

Can the minister explain all this jumping through hoops instead of the Ottawa Hospital using the capacity that already exists within it?

Of course, since the pandemic began over two and a half years ago, we’ve actually had a surgical backlog recovery program of almost a billion dollars. That has been available to organizations such as the Ottawa Hospital and other publicly funded hospitals, and they’ve been able to utilize it very well. They submit their program on how they can use existing OR capacity with their health human resources. It has, in fact, helped us a great deal. We are—and perhaps I haven’t said this enough—actually back at pre-pandemic wait times.

Now, having said that, some of those wait times are still 12-months-plus—six to 12 months—so we can do better, and we will do better. Because of Bill 60, we have a process that ensures that individuals, organizations, hospital partnerships can be formed and have that surgical recovery—surgical options—available closer in community.

Thanks to the member from Flamborough–Glanbrook for the question. She’s absolutely right: Investments to support children with special needs are important, and so is the innovation and trying new things that will help create programs for the future and for the need for now. That’s why I was happy to launch a new pilot program last week. The Integrated Pathway for Children and Youth with Extensive Needs program will connect children and youth with complex special needs to the care that they need. They and their families will connect to a team of professionals, including physicians, social workers and behavioural consultants who work together to provide a tailored approach, based on the individual needs of the child or youth and their families.

We are investing in creative and innovative solutions that will improve the lives and outcomes of our most vulnerable children and their families.

Starting in April 2023, this program will be offered at McMaster’s Children’s Hospital in Hamilton, Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital in Toronto and the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa, and the surrounding regions. This exciting new pilot complements our investments to build service capacity and simplify early intervention through children’s treatment centres and Surrey Place.

Together with my colleague the Minister of Health, our government knew that the status quo was not working, and programs like this innovative integrated pathway will help to ensure children with complex special needs get the care that they deserve.