I’m going to try to bring a slightly different perspective to the debate today when we’re talking about operating rooms.

Many may not know that I was a dental assistant before I was elected. I’ve talked to the dental community, both in Windsor and across the province, and one thing we’re hearing is that kids who rely on the Healthy Smiles program to get treatment—kids with developmental and intellectual disabilities who have to be hospitalized, who have to be put into an operating room and need anesthesia for them to provide the safe procedures—aren’t getting the care because these dentists can’t get OR time, even though those operating rooms are sitting empty with the lights off. And they are telling me what we’re telling this government, what the nurses are telling the government, what other health care workers are telling the government: With Bill 124 hanging over their heads—they’re driving health care workers out of the field. In my area, they’re pushing them into the United States, where they’re paid, where they’re respected. So that’s something I want this government to think about. They’re talking about cataracts and hip surgeries, but there are children in desperate need of dental care who are not getting it because this government will not treat health care workers with respect and properly fund the system.

Speaker, one last thing that I want to say: This government says that privatization—or profitization—of care is innovation. It’s not innovation; it’s the oldest game around. It was only maybe a decade before I was born that universal health care came in. For centuries before that, it was privatized and profitized. It is the oldest game in town and, frankly, a cop-out for this government to say that that is innovation. Innovation is the researchers and the medical professionals who are doing the work to find cures and treatments for diseases. It’s the health care workers who go in short-staffed every day and still figure out how to provide the best care that they possibly can to people.

Speaker, there are no apologies from this side of the House for not trusting the government, when all we have to do is look at what they’ve done with long-term care, where they further privatized and profitized long-term care, where over 5,400 people died because of for-profit care in long-term care. The government’s response to that was to bring in and pass legislation to protect those for-profit operators from being sued by the families who lost loved ones because of this government’s neglect.

My thanks to the member for Oshawa for participating in debate this afternoon and for contributing her comments and remarks about the legislation. I think we have deep differences of perspective on how this bill will impact the people of Ontario.

I believe very firmly that the legislation before this House is going to have an immense impact, in a positive way, by reducing the wait times and ensuring that people in my riding are able to access the care that they expect and deserve when and where they need it.

My question to the member opposite is—I know she obviously supports the work that her former colleague Mr. Jagmeet Singh is doing in Ottawa. I’m just wondering if she would support, if she were a federal MP, the federal expansion of dental health benefits. And if she supports the federal expansion of dental health benefits, does she support the fact that that will be provided through private dentists?