This past Friday was the 37th anniversary of the death of Tommy Douglas. In 2004, the CBC did a Canada-wide vote to find the greatest Canadian of all time; 1.2 million people across Canada voted. The winner wasn’t Wayne Gretzky, Shania Twain or even Terry Fox. It was Tommy Douglas.

Tommy was the father of our universal public health care system. As Premier of Saskatchewan, Tommy introduced the first single-payer, publicly funded and publicly delivered health care system in all of North America. Tommy did this as Premier while also running 17—that’s right, 17—balanced budgets in a row, and even achieving surpluses. Keep that in mind when you hear politicians saying we need to cut public services to be fiscally responsible.

Before that, government didn’t help families with health care costs. Health care was expensive and not accessible to most people. Tommy knew it wasn’t right that some people could afford health care and some couldn’t. He spent his life trying to make change for the better.

We need to remember and honour Tommy Douglas and his legacy. People across Ontario and across Canada know that universal, public, not-for-profit health care is part of what it means to be a Canadian. We take care of one another. Ontarians, Canadians don’t want American-style private, for-profit health care where the wealthy get faster and better care and lower-income families go bankrupt trying to get the health care they need, or go without care at all. The Conservatives call this profit-driven, call it innovation. But it’s really the oldest game in the book. Frankly, it’s a cop-out that will hurt Ontarians.

First, I’m going to start off by thanking Tommy Douglas, who brought us publicly funded, publicly delivered health care.

I had a speech done, but I’m going to talk about two issues—and one is because it was raised by the opposition. I’m going to talk about a place called Shouldice.

This is how it’s going to work when it comes to private health care. I had a hernia a few years ago. I could have went to Shouldice. I didn’t have any extra—diabetes or something. My heart at that time was good—not so good now. But I decided to go to a publicly funded, publicly delivered hospital in Niagara Falls to get my hernia done. It cost $4,000. If you go to Shouldice—and this is what the problem is when we go to private—it’s somewhere between $18,000 and $20,000. So instead of that $14,000 going back into publicly funded, publicly delivered—does anybody know where that extra money is going?

Interjection: Shareholder pockets.

Interjection: That’s exactly what happened.

Now I’m going to tell you a personal story, because I think it’s important to relate. Some of these people here aren’t as old as I am. I’m going to tell you what happened to my mom and dad. When I was growing up, I lived in poverty. I never understood why. We had the neighbours come and bring us food. I remember the firefighters coming and bringing me Christmas presents. Then I got talking to my sister and the rest of my family. We were sick—I had five brothers and sisters—five. My sister Irene had a hole in her heart, my brother had some mental and physical challenges, and my parents had to pay for their health care costs, because at that time there was no Tommy Douglas who said, “No, this is wrong, that we’re going to have people have to pay.” Do you know what happened? We lived in poverty for a long time, and it wasn’t my mom’s fault, it wasn’t my dad’s fault, because my mom and dad worked. They worked seven days a week. They worked very hard, but what happened is, every penny they were getting was to pay for their medical bills.

Do you know what the biggest day in my mom and dad’s life was? After 30 years, they paid off the medical bills for our family—30 years. And I’m challenging anybody in this House—because that’s what’s going to happen if we destroy our publicly funded health care system. It’s not going to be the rich who are going to suffer, because they’re always going to have lots of money; it’s going to be the poor and the less fortunate in our society, families like mine—30 years to pay off their medical bills.

My dad got his first car after 35 years. His first car was a standard—it was an ugly car, by the way, but it was a car. He was so proud that he was able to drive us.

So please rethink what you’re doing. Support Tommy Douglas—the greatest Canadian ever in this country, voted by Canadians. Don’t go the wrong way, because if you guys continue to go down this road—

Interjection.

If you continue to go down this road, you are going to get defeated in the next election, because everybody who has took on publicly funded, publicly delivered health care—that’s what has happened to them. You’re going to have the same thing happen to you that happened to the Liberals when they privatized hydro: You’ll be down to a van.

I always find it interesting listening to my Conservative friends. You talked about listening; I think both presenters did. There was no consultation with the nurses. There was no consultation with paramedics. You brought in Bill 124; you never talked to the union leadership. I’d just like to know who you consulted with—certainly none of those who really are front-line.

So my question is pretty easy—well, it’s not easy for you guys. Why are you funding for-profit clinics instead of adequately paying doctors and nurses who would help increase surgical capacity in public hospitals? And this is the one that’s really creating a crisis which they won’t address—why is this government still challenging the ruling on Bill 124?

Just last week, I had a town hall in Niagara Falls, and we had over 200 people there. It was a full house. They were very passionate about protecting our publicly funded, publicly delivered health care. The health coalition was there, who we all know and have talked about in this House. We had an ER doctor. We had mental health organizations, paramedics who are saying that they’re stuck at hospitals. So I believe that Ontarians are going to fight tooth and nail to protect their publicly funded health care system.

It’s interesting today, because it’s the first time I’ve heard it—for the last three years, we’ve been raising Bill 124 in this House, and today they’re now saying, “It’s before the courts. We can’t comment.” I want to ask my colleague, why do you think they’re saying that?

My question is to the doctor. He said the Ontario Hospital Association has said very clearly to this government that Bill 124 shouldn’t be extended. I think that’s pretty clear.

What I’ve never understood is why a labour minister on that side of the House, who is supposed to be non-partisan, is supporting and continues to support Bill 124. I hope he hears me; I don’t know if he can hear me or not, but I hope he does.

You also said that performance is better in not-for-profit compared to profit. When I look at long-term care, because I’m the critic, 5,400 people died in long-term care; approximately 3,800 of them died in private long-term care.

My question to you is, do you agree that everything should stay not-for-profit?