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?

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.

The member opposite highlights exactly why we have brought forward Bill 60 and why we are expanding the community surgical and diagnostic piece. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have had a fund available to our publicly funded hospitals of almost $1 billion. And yes, the member opposite is right: They have not been able to utilize that full $300 million that was assigned in the last fiscal. But does it not speak to the fact that this is why we need more innovation? This is why we need more opportunities in community to ensure that where there is capacity, where there are wait times that are unacceptable to all of us, we can make sure that we have a process, an oversight piece, that ensures people get access to surgeries faster.