I am so proud of my new leader and the first motion that she brings forward for debate as an opposition day motion, focusing on a program that defines us as Canadians, as Ontarians: medicare. Medicare is a program where we know that if you need to go to the hospital, if you need to see a doctor, you will get the care you need based on your needs, not on your ability to pay. Through the government’s bill, they intend to change all of this. The motion this afternoon is really to show that we have the infrastructure in Ontario—we have the hospitals, the know-how, the technology to help the 12,000 kids who are waiting for surgery right now, the 12,000 kids who are waiting longer than they should to get the surgery they need. We have the knowledge, the skills and the infrastructure to provide people the surgery they need in a timely manner. What we need is a government willing to support our publicly delivered health care system. And this is what this motion speaks to. The motion shows that there are solutions right here, right now in Ontario. You don’t have to wait for the bill to pass. You don’t have to wait to issue requests for proposals so that private, for-profit, investor-owned corporations bid on those and then invest in surgical suites. We have them right here, right now in Ontario, and they’re not being used.

I can talk about Health Sciences North. Health Sciences North is the name of the hospital in Sudbury. Most of the people I represent in Nickel Belt get their surgery done in Sudbury at Health Sciences North. Health Sciences North has 17 surgical suites, fully equipped, negative pressure—all of the equipment is there. They have never been able to open them all. They have only opened 14 of them, and of the 14 of them, not all of them work from 7 a.m. till 4 p.m., like they’re supposed to. Why? Because they never got the resources they needed to do this from the provincial government. Have no doubt, Speaker, many surgeries, the ones that the government is talking about—hip, knee, cataract surgery—are paid by procedures. That means the hospital gets a certain amount of money to do a certain amount of hip surgery, a certain amount of knee surgery, a certain amount of cataract surgery. Once those numbers are reached, they have no more resources to do anything else, and the surgical suite, the OR, sits empty.

I worked in a hospital for a long time. I can guarantee you that before the pandemic and through the pandemic—come February, March, the money is all spent. You gather the wait-list and you start doing surgery again on April 1. Is it because people don’t need the surgery? No. Is it because we don’t have a wait-list? No. It’s because government after government refused to fund those procedures. All of this can change with the political will. All of this can change by passing the motion that my leader has brought forward. Rather than spend millions and millions of dollars on corporate profits, invest that money in all of the hospitals. The 52 large community hospitals all have OR rooms sitting empty. They all had room to do more surgery, even through the pandemic, and the little bit more money that came—they all have empty surgical suites that could see more people, if only they had a government willing to help all of those people. But no, we have a government bound and determined to use the crisis that they created in our health care system to give private, for-profit, investor-owned corporations the opportunity to make millions upon millions of dollars on the backs of sick people.

Interjection: Shameful.

Have no doubt, Speaker: When you are sick, when you are in need of surgery, you are not an average consumer who will go to—no. You trust the physicians in front of you, and you want the surgery to be done as fast as possible. If the privately owned, for-profit, investor-owned corporations only do the healthy and the wealthy and are able to give you a shortened wait time because—this is not new to Ontario. It has been tried—I had the exact number—I think in 35 OCDE countries before. It always leads to the same thing: The healthy and the wealthy get to the front of the line in the privately owned investor corporation’s surgical suites in the community, and the rest of us wait longer. God forbid you have a mental health or a substance use issue; you’re not welcome in there. God forbid you have a cognitive impairment; you’re not welcome in there. If you are overweight, have diabetes, have COPD, don’t speak English, you’re not welcome in there. You wait in our hospitals.

All of this could change. Give our hospitals the resources you’re about to send to rich investors. Put it in our publicly delivered hospitals. You can do this this afternoon. You can do this today. They are ready, willing and able. Plus, you would make sure that our hospitals continue to have the staff available to be there 24/7, on weekends, on statutory holidays, on evening shifts, on night shifts. People don’t always pick the time when they get sick. They don’t always pick the time when they—God forbid—have a big accident and need to be brought to emerg.

Do you know what happens when you don’t fund hospitals properly and they’re not able to respect their nurses, because they have Bill 124 that they cannot get rid of? Nurses leave. They are human beings just like all of us. They are human beings who care for us. But when you can offer them a Monday-to-Friday, 9-to-5 job—no more night shifts, no more weekends, no more statutory holidays, no more looking for a babysitter in the middle of the night? “Oh, my God, I’m going to take that job.” And then there’s nobody to be there for you in the middle of the night when you take sick. There’s nobody to staff the ER. There’s nobody to staff the different wards.

You can change all of that. Pass this motion. Make sure that we keep our staff, that we respect the people who work in our hospital system, by getting rid of Bill 124 and we don’t bring them to court after it has been already ruled as unconstitutional. Show them a bit of respect, and you will be surprised at what they can do. But more than anything else, send money to our hospitals. Don’t tell Health Sciences North, “You get 600 cataract surgeries this year—that’s it, that’s all,” when we have another 800 people waiting for cataract surgery this year. Don’t tell them, “You can have 160 hip surgeries this year,” when we have a wait-list of 300 people who need hip surgery, when we have ORs that are not open, when we have people willing and able to do those surgeries but no money for Health Sciences North to provide those surgeries.

Change that today. Do the right thing. Show us that you believe in medicare; that you believe that care should be based on need, not on ability to pay; that you believe that, no matter where you live in Ontario—even if, like me, you live in rural, northern Ontario—you are allowed equity of access to our health care system. Do that today by passing this motion.