Madam Speaker, before I start, I want to acknowledge that my good seatmate Daisy Wai is doing an incredible job. She deserves a big round of applause.

Madam Speaker, before I present my remarks about the bill, I just want to acknowledge that today is Pink Shirt Day, aimed at showing empathy and understanding towards children facing bullying. I’m wearing pink to stand in solidarity against bullying, with a dream of a world where everyone supports each other.

In my riding of Mississauga–Malton, I want to acknowledge that we have a great organization, the Naseeha youth helpline, that provides a safe space to youngsters facing challenges like bullying in their day to day, and I’m grateful to them for their hard work.

Now over to the amazing bill that I’ll be talking about, Madam Speaker. Before I get into the debate and talk about what this great bill is going to be doing, I want to share with you something that we all in the caucus on this side believe in: that the health care sector is vital to the health and well-being of everyone in Ontario. With the introduction of the Your Health Act, 2023, we’re continuing our journey to bring down wait times in our hospitals and improve our excellent health care system, something we heard in 2018 and something we heard in 2022 again. We will continue to make sure that we will continue to work on this. We can’t wait to break the status quo, as we already know.

Let’s take a look at some of the data. The medium wait time for a specialist appointment in the province of Ontario is 8.8 weeks. The wait time for a CT scan is 5.5 weeks. For having an MRI, it’s 11.5 weeks. Anyone needing cancer surgery has to wait for four weeks. The wait time for radiation therapy is four and a half weeks. It’s 193 days for hip replacement surgery and 209 days for knee replacement surgery. Madam Speaker, when you have pain, you want to get rid of pain. You want to make sure the system is in place to make sure that the system can take care of you.

On the other side, we know we have a labour shortage. We need health care workers. If you really look at what we need—and we talk about this—we have a problem where we know that the people of Ontario are suffering. And when we know there is a shortage of people and the labour shortage is there in the health care sector, the obvious solution is not to keep it as the status quo but to work and break that. That is exactly what this bill is doing.

We don’t need to wait; we need to take action and we need to take this challenge head-on. That is why—again, obviously the other side is talking about what we’ve done, so let’s talk about what we have done. We are on the way to building 30,000 new long-term-care beds by 2029 while growing our health care workforce by 60,000 new nurses and 8,000 new physicians since 2018. We need to fill up our health care workforce and help those with credentials get into jobs faster than ever before.

I’ll give you an example, Madam Speaker. I always talk about it. I am a first-generation immigrant. Before coming, when I was talking to my family and my wife and she was talking about Ontario and Canada—this is the land of opportunities. You want to come here and build a career, and when you have those credentials, when you have experience back home, you want to make sure you continue serving the community with the asset that God has gifted you and you have achieved through your hard work. That is what we’re doing here in this province. We are making sure through this bill, Your Health Act, if passed, that people across Canada, the people who move into different provinces from across the globe who are trained in the health care sector, can begin working the day after they move to Ontario.

I’ll give you a small example. I know a resident from Mississauga–Malton who moved into my riding of Malton with her husband, who is an incredible IT professional. She was working in Alberta as a nurse for over three years. All of a sudden we hear that there is a need for health care professionals. She has all that is required, including the Canadian experience, but she’s in Ontario now, and she has to wait.

What is this bill doing? It’s giving a hope and a dream to those people who have the ability to work and give back to this community. This bill will make sure they will be able to do it.

This game-changing move will help address the labour shortage in our hospitals and health care services. Madam Speaker, as you know, 2022 was a record-breaking year for new nurses in Ontario, with over 12,000 new nurses registered and another 30,000 nurses studying at an Ontario college or university.

Our government is also working with the College of Nurses of Ontario to break down the barriers to train up to 5,000 internationally educated nurses so that they can register and practise in Ontario and give back to the community.

With this new as-of-right rule, Ontario will become the first province in Canada to allow health care workers registered in other provinces and territories to start working in their field immediately. And Madam Speaker, I can guarantee you that when we are going to do this, other provinces are going to follow our lead, and they will do the needful the same way.

Not only this, but we have invested nearly $5 million in the Michener Institute for nurses wanting to upskill to work in critical care areas of hospitals. By spring 2023, close to 600 registered nurses will have completed their upskilling education and will be able and ready to give back.

Our government has also made the most significant investment in expanding medical education in 15 years by adding 160 undergrad and 295 postgrad positions and creating a new medical school, which, as my colleague from Mississauga Centre talked about, is going to be in the region of Peel and is going to serve the whole of Ontario.

Every time we talk about the labour shortage, of course I have to talk about the Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development, a champion for workers who is doing an incredible job.’

Interjections.

Thank you for that.

Madam Speaker, under the leadership of Premier Ford and Minister Monte McNaughton, this government, along with every caucus member on this side, believes in helping people get the skills they need to secure better jobs with bigger paycheques. That is why our government is also investing in upskilling Ontario’s workforce. With a $660-million Skills Development Fund, we are helping develop the skills for the next generation of health care workers.

Projects like the Medical Technology Association of Canada received $900,000 in the second round of the Skills Development Fund to help train workers and develop Ontario’s first virtual clinical immersion program, which will provide state-of-the-art health services for the patient.

Madam Speaker, we are not sitting. We are taking concrete action. We understand the problem and we are breaking the barriers. We are taking bold steps. We are doing the needful to make sure that Ontarians’ health and well-being is our first priority, and we will continue to do that.

Another project, the In Honour of the Ones We Love program, received $2.5 million in the second round of SDF to help the organization’s personal support workers establish new relationships with care providers in southwest Ontario.

Madam Speaker, our unwavering focus stems from our desire to find solutions for the next generation to build a stronger Ontario. On one side, I talked about that we already have a big, huge lineup, and then on the other side, I want to remind all my caucus members that in this province of Ontario, in the next many, many years, as the federal government is going to increase the number of immigrants coming to Canada to 500,000, 300,000 are going to come and build their lives in this beautiful Ontario.

I want to take a moment and welcome them. You are choosing an amazing place; I guarantee you. If you can dream it, with hard work, this is a place where you can achieve it. But this comes with a challenge: When they’re going to come here, like any other human beings, they will need services.

I just want to remind you of some of the data points which my office has put together. Ontario’s population is projected to increase by 37.7% by 2046. And who is going to be enjoying this benefit of welcoming more people and building a better and stronger Ontario? It includes Halton, 56%; Peel—our Peel—is going to grow by 51%; Durham region, 39%. And it’s not only the big suburbs around Toronto. It’s actually going to grow everywhere. The same is true for central Ontario. In Waterloo, there is going to be 55% growth; Wellington, 52%; Dufferin, 51%; Simcoe, 44%; and the list goes on.

Madam Speaker, as Ontario grows, it will need more long-term solutions for health care and other labour shortages, too. That is why this government, under the leadership of Premier Ford, is taking bold steps, making the necessary investments and changes to ensure that people can come to Ontario to find work, especially those in health care.

Not only are we breaking down barriers so qualified people can come and work in their field, we’re also making the required investments to help build a better Ontario. That is why we are making sure that we are increasing health care funding by $14 billion. We have built 3,500 hospital beds across Ontario. We’re getting shovels in the ground for 50 new major hospital projects. We’ve provided operational funding for 49 new MRI machines in hospitals since 2021, and we’re on track to building 30,000 new long-term-care beds by 2029.

We have a bill in front of us which is going to give you the right care in the right place, which will make sure there’s faster access to care and will make sure, at the same time, to be providing and ensuring the hiring of more health care workers right here in Ontario. That is why, Madam Speaker, I’m here to support this crucial bill and I’m looking forward to the rest of my caucus and my friends on the other side. Let’s support and build a better Ontario.