Questions?

I’ll take this opportunity to educate the member opposite about our learn and stay program. This is an innovative program. For the first time in the history of this province, the government is actually paying the full cost of tuition and textbook expenses for nurses who choose to go to school in those far and remote areas. I wish that program was available to me when I was a nursing student, but unfortunately the previous government did not have such foresight. Perhaps if they had, we wouldn’t be in the position we are in today.

However, once the student graduates—we have also expanded this program to allow paramedics and lab technicians in addition to nurses to access the learn and stay program—they actually have to commit to working in that community for at least two years of service. And we’re hoping that this will encourage these practitioners to fall in love with those communities and actually stay.

This is a concrete action that this government has done that no other governments have done in the past.

Speaker, through you to the members opposite: You know, simply—we all know we have a staff crisis in hospitals in Ontario. If for-profit health care clinics result in an exodus of nurses from hospitals, it’s a failure—period, the end. When the government’s own documents admit that Bill 124 contributed to the worsening of the staff crisis in public hospitals, why are we not correcting bad policy first, to ensure families get the public health care they deserve instead of selling it off?

It’s an honour for me to rise today to add the voices of the great people of London North Centre to this incredibly important debate. You see, people in London take their health care very seriously. We have wonderful institutions; we have wonderful education programs that bring people into the health care system.

I want to also thank the member from Nickel Belt for her remarks in clearly stating for this House that the NDP, His Majesty’s official opposition, is the party of Tommy Douglas, and it is the party that brought medicare to Canada and to Ontario. It seems most appropriate that I should begin my remarks with a quotation from Tommy Douglas. It reads, “I felt that no” child “should have to depend either for” their “leg or” their “life upon the ability of” their “parents to raise enough money to bring a first-class surgeon to” their “bedside”—and I could not agree more.

You see, Speaker, over the last number of years, both with this government and the government prior, we have seen an overt and deliberate destruction of medicare, but nothing like we’re seeing in Bill 60. This is taking it to the next level. This was not an election promise; this was not even an election threat by this government. This has been a crisis of Conservative design. This has been wrought by a staged process. And the COVID-19 pandemic has been often used and trotted out in this chamber as a convenient excuse to explain why they’re doing what they’re doing, to justify why they’re doing what they’re doing, to excuse why they’re doing what they’re doing. But nobody believes these lines.

What we’ve seen are cuts, year over year, to the health care system. In the second stage, we’ve seen a weakening of the workers: the people who provide that excellence of care, the people who have held up a system that has been cut and eroded and neglected year over year, leaving that in a situation where the only option is private, independent health facilities where people will profit off someone’s ill health.

Let me state here for the chamber: Publicly funded and publicly delivered health care is not a profit-making business, nor should it ever be.

In terms of the cuts to our system of care that we’ve seen, Ontario’s spending on health care is the lowest among all the provinces, despite the fact that we are the richest province. A solution, an antidote to this would be for this government to properly fund health care, like the other provinces—to not be the last, to not be bringing up the rear, to not be making it over the finish line after every single other province. Ontario could do better—but it’s not under this government and certainly not under the last government.

We also have the lowest number of health care workers per capita in Canada. The solution to that would be things like repealing Bill 124, treating nurses with fairness, treating nurses with respect, letting them have the opportunity of free collective bargaining, which is their charter right. Imagine that: being fair to nurses.

We hear a lot of words, but we don’t see the actions. We hear a lot of words from this government saying how they respect health care workers, and they ought to, but their actions tell an entirely different story, and when actions and words don’t match up, that should make everyone concerned.

We heard, for many years, this talk of hallway medicine, and this was very much a Liberal invention. We saw cuts year after year—not keeping up with inflation and not making sure people were getting the surgeries they needed. I remember, when I was first elected, people and seniors coming to my office, living in pain, waiting years and years for knee replacements and hip replacements, and they told me—and we could clearly see—it was a result of Liberal underfunding. It was a result of them placing arbitrary caps on the number of joint replacement surgeries that could be performed in operating rooms. Surgeons were ready, willing and able to do it. But they chose to let these people languish in pain. Pain changes a person. Pain makes you less than yourself. It affects everyone around you, and not only just that—not just the social, not just the emotional, but also the health impacts. If you’re not moving in the way that you should, if you are overcompensating, then it has a dramatic result on the rest of your body, and so your health gets worse and worse and worse. And that was all on the Liberal watch. But this government, after they took power, did not fix that. They maintained that status quo. They are responsible for that status quo. We hear a lot of talk about them saying the status quo is not working; they have upheld it. They have kept it the exact way it was under the Liberals and made it yet worse.

Back when the Liberals were in power, they would blame situations—they would blame the increasingly older demographic; they would say there’s a complexity of care. They would say that medicine is getting better, people are living longer—and all of these things are true, but those are not things you should blame. Those are wonderful things, but you should fund accordingly. You should make sure that people who have raised our families, built our communities, have the care they deserve when and where they need it—because they deserve it the most.

It’s ironic, too, that they’re actually blaming the medical system, which has helped these people live longer, and then not funding it. It’s a very strange situation.

Recently, the Financial Accountability Officer, an independent officer of this Legislature with whom I’m sure you’re all familiar, released a report showing that this government is going to underspend on health care by $5 billion over the next three years; they’re going to underspend on education by $1.1 billion over the next three years; they’re going to underspend on justice by $0.8 billion over the next three years. They’re going to be hoarding money. They’re going to be hiding money. They probably wouldn’t have admitted this had the officer not mentioned this—almost $20 billion in an unallocated contingency fund, so that it’s not subject to public scrutiny and they can spend it like drunken sailors wherever they wish, but obviously not on education, obviously not on health care. And yet we have their solution in Bill 60. They’ve maintained the status quo of cuts and underfunding and disrespect for workers, and their only solution is privatization.

This is all going according to plan, and that is very much my concern. This government has been responsible, over the last four and a half years, for maintaining a health care system that has been on its knees, and now this government is effectively kicking it in the stomach. It’s really disgraceful that the health care workers who have worked so incredibly hard throughout the pandemic, who have sacrificed, who have kept time away from their families, were living in fear, were absolutely working hour upon hour upon hour to make sure that we were healthy—and then they deliver them Bill 124. COVID-19 was a one-two punch, but this government made it yet worse. It’s almost impossible to think that this government could take a crisis that enveloped the entire world and make it yet worse with Bill 124.

I had the opportunity to travel with the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs across this province, and we heard from multiple delegations across many different industries, with many perspectives. I can tell you, Speaker, that not one delegation supported Bill 124—not one. Nobody said it was a good thing. Nobody was even agnostic. I think the words that are most apt and will always stick with me were that Bill 124 was “demeaning,” Bill 124 was “degrading”—but more than anything else, Bill 124 was “humiliating.” Nurses feel humiliated by this government.

Across all of these delegations, people want nurses and health care workers to be treated fairly. It should be easy. It should be a knee-jerk reaction. Small children understand the concept of fairness; it should not be difficult for this government. Yet this wage restraint, this targeted attack still is on the books. Even though the Supreme Court has struck it down, they still continue to appeal it. They’re wasting money on this ideological battle. It’s ridiculous.

Pay people what they’re worth. Treat them with respect. And be fair.

J’ai une question pour la députée de Mississauga-Centre. J’aimerais dire, premièrement, que c’est un plaisir de servir dans la législature avec elle, avec toute son expérience, parce que c’est très important pour nous.

J’ai déjà posé cette question à une autre députée; j’aimerais poser la même question à la députée de Mississauga-Centre. Dans ma circonscription il y a deux docteurs qui s’appellent Tayfour et Emara. Ils sont bien respectés. Ce sont des médecins qui pratiquent la chirurgie de la cataracte. Le projet de loi devant nous offre la chirurgie de la cataracte avec le D^r Tayfour et le D^r Emara, et les patients paient avec leur carte OHIP et non pas avec une carte de crédit. La députée de Mississauga-Centre soutient-elle cela? Votera-t-elle pour cela?

It’s a very interesting debate considering that—and I think even your side will probably agree to this—over the last four years, you created a crisis in health care. You did it yourself. It was manufactured. There is no doubt about that. Bill 124 is—it really says that—

Interjections.

Interjections.

Why are we funding for-profit clinics instead of adequately paying doctors and nurses, which would help increase surgical capacity in public hospitals? Why is this government still challenging the ruling on Bill 124 and attacking nurses and doctors and health care workers?

Thank you for the question. Our government has launched the largest health care recruiting and training initiative in the province’s history. We’re building on the 12,000 new nurses registered to work in the province last year, and our government is investing in a range of initiatives to attract, train and retain more nurses and get them into the system sooner, including $342 million to add over 5,000 new and upscaled registered nurses and registered practical nurses, as well as 8,000 new personal support workers. On top of that, in October, our government announced we were breaking down registration barriers so more health care professionals trained in other provinces or internationally can practise in Ontario.

We are doing the work. We are outside the status quo. We are making the changes that are necessary in this era of time, not the 15 years of the previous government’s time, and we’re going to do what needs to be done.

Interjection.

Time for a question.

Please ask your question.

And they’ll stay.

And perhaps they’ll stay.

As a result of Bill 124, we heard from multiple delegations and we’ve heard from many different organizations that nurses have left in droves because they feel insulted. For many years, as I’ve said, as the past Liberal government strangled and underfunded the health care system, they have been holding up that system by the virtue of their good nature, by the virtue of their hard work. That’s absolutely wrong. Ten years to go without a raise? It’s unconscionable. It’s an honourable profession. It’s a caring profession. It takes a strong and a capable person—but I don’t think that anyone deserves to be treated the way that this government has. Bill 60 could have taken the opportunity to rectify that, to admit that mistake—it’s not.

We also heard from multiple delegations about the wage disparity between home care, long-term care and acute care within hospital settings. This does nothing to do that—in fact, as I’ll get to in my comments if I have time, it actually makes it yet worse.

In terms of profit-making, no one should look forward to or hope for somebody else to become ill because that will line their pockets. That’s disgraceful. I think we should all be able to agree with that. But this bill opens the door for these profiteers, people who will be doing just that. It’s almost worse than ambulance-chasing. When someone is sick, our health care system pays for that care. These are people who want to skim off the top. When they skim these public dollars off the top to put in their own pockets, that means yet less care. They latch on to the public system, and they’re going to slowly bleed it of resources.

We saw this with home care and long-term care. When privatization was suggested as a model for that, it was touted as the greatest thing since sliced bread. They said, “There’s going to be choice. There is going to be competition, and prices will stay down.” Well, we know that the exact opposite is true. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed what has been going on for many years. The Wettlaufer crisis exposed what has been going on for many years. And yet, this government refuses to treat seniors with respect.

Conservatives and Liberals have always been very comfortable bedfellows. There has long been a Liberal-Conservative consortium when it comes to this for-profit care model.

In 2017, Liberals tried to pass legislation to allow for community health facilities, and guess who supported them? The Conservatives. Of course they did, because they have always been in it together when it comes to wresting public dollars from our health care system into private pockets. Fortunately, this bill died at committee. That was 2017. Here we are, in 2023. Oh, they’re not called “community health facilities”; they’re now called “independent health facilities.” It’s old wine in new bottles, but it’s the same program, isn’t it?

There has been an ideological blind adherence to this for-profit model, and I want to point out in my remaining time some of the myths about private health care that have been put forward, because this government has been relying on some very deep misunderstandings.

Our Premier said, “We just can’t as a province keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result.” Well, “doing the same thing” was underfunding health care and strangling it of resources. Of course, it’s not going to have a different result from the Liberals, but this is the result that he wanted.

Funding health care properly and ensuring health care would be different, ensuring that money was spent on front-line care, ensuring it was spent on those nurses would be different from the status quo. But you’ve maintained the Liberal status quo, so congratulations on that.

Myth number two: Private clinics are needed to clear the backlog. This implies by its very nature that publicly funded surgeries are at full capacity, but we know that hospital hallways are not full of people waiting for a knee replacement or a hip replacement. In fact, there is a complexity of care, but this government won’t fund that care properly.

I also want to point out some concerns that I have with this legislation.

Schedule 2 attempts to deregulate health care settings. It expands the definition of “regulated health professionals” to include those who are not part of a regulatory college. Just when you thought that this government could not attack, insult, degrade, demean and humiliate health care workers more, they’re trying to take away their titles. They’re actually making it so that, according to schedule 2, this definition of “physician” becomes nebulous; this definition of “registered nurse” becomes something different. Does that mean, by this, that anyone can be deemed to be this role within these settings? It will be interesting, because, quite frankly, the oversight isn’t going to be here, because that is something that is also not included properly within Bill 60.

I’m pleased to be able to ask a question of my colleague.

There’s a man in my riding, and I’ve shared his email before before—his name is Don—who had blood that was taken at his doctor’s office. It was sent away. He doesn’t think that they told him about any charge associated with it, but then he got the bill for $30. As he said, “$30 doesn’t seem like much, but it is to me. With groceries and rent taking most of my pension, very little is left. I really thought that this month was finally coming together....

“This is a reason seniors are stopping going to hospitals and seeing their doctors.

“Thanks again....”

What happened to Don actually isn’t legal, if it happened as he remembers. They’re supposed to tell him about these charges.

This is happening already, all over.

So with a bill like this in front of us that opens the door, that doesn’t have a significant and outlined oversight system ready to go with it, what are the risks to folks like Don who will never be able to afford a private surgery?

Question?

We’ve heard some pirate references this afternoon. We’ve heard the term “myth” thrown around a little bit. I think maybe, for those watching at home, for those in the room, for those in the gallery—let’s do a little bit of myth-busting, shall we, Madam Speaker?

There are already 800 independent health clinics that are doing procedures in the province of Ontario—licences extended by the NDP government in the late 1990s, the Conservative government and the subsequent Liberal government. We’re performing roughly—correct me if I’m wrong, colleagues—26,000 procedures at these facilities already.

The member opposite sits beside the member from Waterloo, and so my question to him is—in Waterloo, we have TLC laser institute. They’ve been in partnership with St. Mary’s hospital for the last several years doing these cataract procedures outside of the hospital, with great success. So my question to the member from London North Centre is: Does he believe that the people of Waterloo should have to wait longer for their cataract surgeries to be able to have them performed in hospital, or should they be able to be performed in independent clinics?

They’re just leaving it up to chance.

It has been very clearly stated that there is a limited pool of talented, trained health care workers, that there’s a limited pool of nurses. Many have left the profession, and this opening up of these private, for-profit—predatory, quite frankly—clinics will drain yet more resources from the public system. That also should be a tremendous concern, but yet it seems to be this crisis by design. It seems to be as though that is exactly what the government wants. They want the public system to fail, because they want their insiders, the people who are talking to them in the backrooms, the people who want to skim off the system and want to make money—apparently, this government wants them to have their pockets filled. That’s not fair. Our public health care system is the definition of democracy, it’s the definition of fairness, because it ensures that people are going to get the care they need regardless of their ability to pay. Just like education, it’s a democratizing force, and this is completely undermining it.

I wonder as well, is this an attempt to change the channel from recent news? I can’t be sure.

As I begin to close my remarks, I think it’s important that we recognize that we cannot go backwards in terms of public health care. We can’t sit and watch government after government undermining and strangling—it’s like this government is strangling the health care system and then asking it why it’s not able to breathe. It needs to be funded properly.

Let’s look for solutions. Let’s repeal Bill 124. Let’s have a health care human resources strategy, like has been recommended across the province, to recruit, to retain and to return nurses. Treat them with respect, treat them with fairness, and hopefully they will come back. But that’s on you. You need to listen to Ontarians.

I want to conclude my final remarks by again quoting Tommy Douglas. He stated: “Health services ought not to have a price tag on them, and ... people should be able to get whatever health services they require irrespective of their individual capacity to pay.” I could not agree more, Speaker.

I hope that this government will change course. I hope it will listen to Ontarians, who want to see nurses treated well, and embark upon a comprehensive plan to have a health care human resources strategy to recruit, retain and return nurses and fund the system properly.

Don’t maintain your status quo of cuts. Don’t maintain your status quo of not keeping up with inflation. Take that $20 billion you’re hiding and spend it where people need it the most.

What we have here is a question of oversight. There is no reason to think that these different surgical suites could not be within the hospital’s purview. In London, there are operating rooms which are able to operate at this capacity—but the key difference here, and one that I wish you could understand, is that it’s publicly funded and publicly delivered. Nobody is skimming money off the top and putting it in their pocket. I know that’s what you love, but that’s something that is wrong. It’s care or profit—you stand for profit, we stand for care.

It’s like you didn’t learn anything.

I’d like to thank the member from Oshawa for bringing up that really incredibly important question because I will always state that consent is key. Clearly Don was not provided with the opportunity to give consent.

I think as well about an individual from my riding who recently approached me, and they had said that their pharmacist, who happened to be from a Galen Weston chain—shocking; I know this government loves to support Galen Weston whenever they can—was asking about different medications. They were going through this list and, after about five, 10 minutes—I have to hand it to my constituent; she’s very savvy—she said, “Are you doing a meds check on me?” The pharmacist said, “Oh, well, I was going to tell you that at the end of the call,” and she was going to bill OHIP for that meds check without consent. I think it’s in the neighbourhood of $60, but they were doing that and it’s mercenary. Calling people on the phone, pretending to care, but it’s all about the money, isn’t it, with privatization?

I also wish this government would listen to solutions that have been brought forward in this very chamber, like embarking upon a health care human resources strategy and treating nurses with fairness, repealing Bill 124, levelling the playing field, stopping your ideological battle and your attack on health care workers and just letting them bargain.

Do the right thing. Do the fair thing. I know you have it within you. I’ll keep waiting for it.

We have seen again and again—these historic investments that they want to talk about? They’re talking giving yet more money to P3 infrastructure projects. We need to invest in people in our province. That means giving nurses a raise. You talk about this one-time funding, but let’s let them bargain fairly. Let’s bargain reasonably.

Like I said, young, small children understand the concept of fairness; I just wish it wasn’t so difficult for this government. I know you have it in you. I know you understand what’s fair and what’s unfair. So let’s be fair to nurses. Give up your battle on Bill 124.

But this government, when they first formed, started off without a land recognition in their throne speech, they cancelled the Indigenous curriculum writing sessions and they refused to acknowledge September 30 as a truth and reconciliation provincial holiday.

This is a crisis by design because they understand that if they cut and underfund, people will be so upset and so desperately in need of care that they will accept anything that is offered to them. They won’t acknowledge that somebody is skimming off the top, somebody is making a profit, because people are so desperate for care. That’s all on their watch, leaving people in pain.

The member from Brampton West.

The member from London.

As a nurse, I would just like to set the record straight. When the member opposite said that nurses didn’t get a raise in the last 10 years, well, last year, nurses got a $5,000 retention incentive, which represented a $786-million investment by this government, and they deserved every single penny of that. Prior to that, nurses got two rounds of pandemic pay and they deserved every single penny of that.

I agree with the member opposite that we have a limited pool of talented health care workers, but the rhetoric coming from the opposition is actually scaring them. My question—

It’s so great to see everyone tonight. It’s an interesting debate. It’s a lot nicer in here than it is outside at the moment, so I’m glad to be here and honoured to be here to debate this important legislation about the future of changes to health care.

Madam Speaker, I don’t think anyone would tell you that our health care system is working the way we want it to right now. Emergency rooms are backlogged, causing those in need to wait hours and hours and hours to see a doctor. The backlog in our emergency rooms is causing off-load delays with our ambulances, because when an ambulance arrives at a backlogged emergency room, the paramedic has to stay with their patient. That in turn means that ambulances aren’t out on the road helping those who are calling 911. Of course, when there are no ambulances left, this is called level zero.

Now, the city of Ottawa’s Emergency Preparedness and Protective Services Committee was told last week that there were 1,819 level zero events in Ottawa in 2022. Some 1,800 times last year, the Ottawa paramedics had no ambulances to respond to 911. That’s more than double the number from the previous year. And of course, Madam Speaker, when there are no ambulances in Ottawa to respond to 911 calls in Ottawa, 911 deploys the ambulances from Renfrew; they deploy the ambulances from Kemptville and Arnprior and Hawkesbury and Rockland to service the city of Ottawa. So it’s not just an Ottawa problem; this is an eastern Ontario problem, and it’s caused because of the backlog in our emergency rooms.

We also know, Madam Speaker, that millions of Ontarians don’t have access to a family doctor. This is a problem that’s only getting worse. Some 400,000 more Ontarians didn’t have access to a family doctor last year when compared to when this government took office.

So millions of Ontarians don’t have access to a family doctor. When they go to the emergency room, they end up waiting hours and hours and hours. And when they call for an ambulance, there is a growing likelihood that one won’t be available to respond to them in their time of need. So no, I don’t think any Ontarian would agree that the health care system is working the way they would like it to. The question before us really should be about how to solve these problems. How do we improve and guarantee primary care access and access to a family doctor? We figured out how to guarantee access to schools, but we still haven’t figured out how to guarantee access to family doctors, and that’s a problem.

Now, there is also certainly a problem with surgical backlogs and surgical delays. It doesn’t mean that what the government is proposing is the solution to that problem, though. There are some over here to my right who think operating rooms should run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, like some kind of assembly line. And while I have no doubt that you can get a little more efficiency and capacity out of operating rooms in hospitals, it is not at all clear to me that you can get the amount you need to really address the problem that exists.

The hospital CEOs I’ve spoken to are very open to the idea of moving some elective—at least, non-critical—surgeries out of hospital. For many, if not most Ontarians, what they care about the most is that access is timely, that it’s as close to home as possible, that it is, of course, safe and professional, and that when they leave, they pay with their green health card, not their gold or their platinum credit card. There are some who are ideologically opposed to that entire idea, but ideological entrenchment won’t help us solve the health care crisis we’re facing. Everyone needs to take off their partisan blinders so that we can offer Ontarians the best guaranteed and universally accessible health care services possible.

Now, what I’m worried about in this legislation, Madam Speaker, are the safeguards. Are the safeguards in place to ensure that facilities are safe and professionally operated? Are the safeguards in place to ensure equal access is guaranteed, that Ontarians aren’t asked to pay out of pocket for services that would otherwise be covered by OHIP in some other setting, that there are not pressure tactics employed to receive medically unnecessary but profitable services and procedures? Those are the types of safeguards we need to see, Madam Speaker. Those are the types of questions I hope that this government will answer throughout this process of debating this legislation and the committee hearings that I’m sure will follow. Those are the questions that we’ll be pressing the government to provide answers to.