Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. It’s nice to see you in the chair today.

My question to the minister today would be about process, and the process that a bill moves through in the Legislature. We know that this bill came very late last week and here we are, already at third reading. The committee process has been skipped over due to other circumstances. I would like to know if the minister and the government have done the full consultation process with the community. There are two communities involved in this process. We’re in favour of this moving forward, but we also think it’s important that the community has the opportunity to have its say.

Did the minister do a full consultation process with all of the community and allow people to have their opportunity to speak?

I would like to welcome Michau van Speyk from the Ontario Autism Coalition back to Queen’s Park. It’s nice to see you, Michau.

My question is for the Premier. Hamilton Health Sciences has 270 patients waiting in hospital who cannot be discharged because they are waiting for alternative kinds of care, such as long-term or home care. This has gotten so bad that Hamilton hospitals have resorted to keeping these patients in a satellite health facility. Clearly, Bill 7 and its promise to free up bed space by sending seniors up to 70 kilometres away is not working for Hamilton.

It has been four years of empty promises from this government. Will the Premier commit to repealing Bill 7 and finally focus on providing the funding our health care system needs?

These problems are getting worse, not better. Why is the Premier sitting on $3.5 billion in contingency funds instead of ensuring we have a strong health care system that people can rely on?

I’m pleased to have the opportunity to be able to speak to this motion brought forward by our leader today to stop the government from privatizing our health care system—to fund and fully utilize our public operating rooms, instead of further privatization.

We know that we have a severe crisis happening in our health care system, but the government’s plan is not the way forward. Creating a private system that is going to take the people and the human resource factor out of our public system is just going to further break our public system. And that is completely their goal. We have watched this happening for years.

Bill 124 was definitely something that we have seen deplete our nursing and health care staff out of our public system. We’re watching nursing temp agencies with double the wages being the golden apple for many of our nurses to chase after. And why wouldn’t they, quite frankly? They’re getting respected hours, they’re getting better pay and still doing the same job.

The regulations are definitely not in the system that the government is currently building—we’re watching the inspections and the regulations going to dwindle. Who will be able to serve in these private facilities, who will be able to do the work without the proper regulating health care bodies? My constituents know it. One said to me—this was at 10 to 1 today: “I called our family doctor today and waited 45 minutes to get a hold of a staff member. She said, ‘Sorry, we were short-staffed.’

“Sitting at McMaster, the halls are filled with children who are admitted, waiting for surgeries or procedures. Wheelchair scales are broken and most likely are not being fixed or replaced.

“We live in a health care system where I can tell you horror stories of sitting in the ER waiting to get triaged with a broken arm that was visible to hallway medicine. To tell my daughter, age four—needed surgery, in trauma bay—’Advil shortage crisis.’” This parent is just going on and on and on, as you can hear, because she faces our health care system and is desperate. She’s desperate for a public system that Canadians have known that we could count on since the time Tommy Douglas brought us universal health care.

This program that the Conservatives are bringing forward is the wrong direction. It will only further deplete our public system and put the haves and the have-nots into a totally two-tiered health care systems.

I hope that the government members see the difference and vote for our motion today.

I was here while the member did her debate last week and I think it’s important, since we don’t have a lot of time, that maybe she just wants to recap the impact that this will have on her constituents.