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.

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.

Meegwetch and thank you to the member for London North Centre. It’s always an honour to be able to speak on behalf of Kiiwetinoong. I know in debate back and forth we talk about myths, and one of the myths I know is the province of Ontario thinks they’re doing reconciliation, but they’re not. When we have 28 years of boil-water advisories in one of the First Nations, it’s a different Ontario. And when you have those basic human rights—access to clean drinking water—it has an impact on the health and the wellness of those people.

One of the things that the member talked about is the crisis of Conservative design. Can you elaborate that, the meaning, that you’re talking about? Meegwetch.

I want to speak of what people expect from their government: that their government should be people-oriented and, at the same, results-oriented. We have shown that in the pandemic that protecting the health and safety of Ontarians was the topmost priority for our government and also, at the same time, results-oriented. We’re not building only hospitals and medical schools; we’re making unprecedented investments in health care. By the way, the first medical school we’re getting in over 100 years, the opposition voted against that medical school.

They can always stand in the House and give lectures on the quality of health care services, but when it comes to action, they will vote against those bills. Will the member opposite and their partners do the right thing and support this bill?

Thank you to the member opposite for his questions. I don’t know if you’ve had a lot of chance to look yet at the legislation but, for example, issuing a licence is one safeguard. You can issue a licence, revoke a licence, suspend a licence, and there are provisions 6 and 7 that deal with that.

Also, section 29—and I’m just responding to what you were talking about, about safeguards being in place. In that section, there are five prohibitions for one of these integrated community health centres: charge and accept a payment for facility costs provided, charge or accept payment of a facility cost unless it was the Minister of Health, charge or accept a payment or other benefit for providing an insured person with preferred access—all of these things are laid out in the legislation.

I think you would agree with me that these are some of the kinds of safeguards we should be looking for in the legislation.

I am sharing my time with the member from Mississauga–Malton.

Thank you to the Minister of Health for introducing the Your Health Act, 2023. We’re moving in the right direction to improve medical care in our province. I am privileged to rise for the second reading of the Your Health Act, 2023, and to speak on behalf of my constituents in Richmond Hill.

The legislation represents a significant step forward for Ontario, building on our government’s commitment to breaking down barriers and ensuring that every Ontarian has access to quality health care and services when and where they need them. We have to provide the right care at the right time.

As I’m sitting here listening to the presentation just now, I feel that there are a lot of misunderstandings. I agree with the member for Eglinton–Lawrence saying that it doesn’t seem that they really read the legislation clearly. There’s a lot of information in here, and they were trying to say something which was totally different.

We’re saying that we are not going to do the status quo. Basically, we have to find the solutions to give the best health care for Ontarians. We are caring for all the patients, the people that need our support in health care.

The Your Health Act, 2023, is a bold and innovative piece of legislation that aims to address the long-standing challenges of our health care system. It recognizes that Ontario’s health care system must be more responsive and flexible to meet the changing needs of our communities, including an aging population and a growing demand for surgeries.

The Your Health Act, 2023, focuses on several key objectives, including making it easier and faster for people to connect to the convenient care closer to home, enhancing quality standards and oversight and protecting the stability of the health care workforce in public hospitals and other health care settings.

One of the most important aspects of the Your Health Act, 2023, is integration of community surgical and diagnostic centres into our health care system. These centres will help reduce wait times and improve patient experiences, allowing people to access the surgeries they need to maintain a high quality of life.

I have a friend who has been calling me and telling me that her mother has been suffering from knee and hip pain, and she has been waiting for three months and still cannot get on to having the surgery that they aim at or are planning to have. Part of that is because of the pandemic and part of that is because the surgeries have been lined up for so long. The same way, I have somebody, a constituent from my riding, also writing to me that she was diagnosed by the family doctor and she’s waiting for the MRI and CT scan. Can you imagine? The MRI and CT scan can really diagnose what she will have and the treatment that she needs. Not only will she be suffering—all her family members have been suffering.

If we would be able to move up all these things faster, not only will they relieve the pain faster, they will have the results of what they need to take care of the problem. Hospitals will also have the room to take care of other surgeries and more severe treatments that we need for our Ontarians.

The Your Health Act, 2023, will also mandate that every community surgical and diagnostic centre must have a process for receiving and responding to the patient complaints. This process will include the documentation of all complaints. That’s why I don’t know why the opposition party is so concerned, because it’s made very clear: If patients are not able to have their complaints addressed through the centre, they will be able to seek help from the Patient Ombudsman.

The act includes community surgical and diagnostic centres under the oversight of Ontario’s Patient Ombudsman, who will report on any patient complaints and will adjust quality and oversight controls as needed to be responsive to these concerns. This will ensure that patients are always heard and their feedback is taken seriously.

Madam Speaker, another critical component of the Your Health Act, 2023, is protecting the stability of doctors, nurses and other health care workers. The act will mandate several components of a proposed centre’s application to protect the stability of health care workers at the public hospitals and other health care settings. This includes the requirement to submit a detailed staffing model, including evidence of its sustainability.

Consistent with the Canada Health Act, the Your Health Act, 2023, will put into place strong measures to ensure that Ontarians will always receive insured services using their OHIP card and never their credit card. These measures mean that all insured services must be provided without extra charge to the patient. Under Premier Ford, this will not happen. We will only pay by the OHIP card and never by the credit card.

The Your Health Act, 2023, will also strengthen protections for personal health information and data. The act will require community surgical and diagnostic centres to implement strong privacy and security protocols to protect patient information. This will help to ensure that patient privacy is respected and that their personal health information is protected from unauthorized access or disclosure.

I might have a lot more to say, but I will leave that with my great member to continue with the following presentation.

Questions?

I’m not sure if I missed something; I don’t think that anything is for sale in this piece of legislation. What I said is that what’s critical is that the safeguards are in place to ensure that the facilities are professionally run, that the professional credentials of those who run them are there, that they are safe and that they are universally accessible. That would be the advice that I would provide to this government if they’re going down this path of outsourcing surgeries outside of hospital: that they are safe, that they are professionally run and guaranteed and that access is universally guaranteed for Ontarians.

Issuing a licence is the first step, and it’s an important first step. But there is much more that goes into ensuring that something is safe and professional and that access is universally guaranteed than simply issuing a licence.

This bill isn’t perfect. There’s lots in it to criticize and lots of questions that need to be answered. We’re committed to asking those questions and trying to get a resolution to that. But take off the partisan blinders.

I’ve been in this House—it’s now my third term. One of the—I don’t want to use the word “traumatizing” lightly—one of the most challenging things that I endured while in this House as a member was sitting across from a Liberal government that sold off Hydro One. And we fought, and I did so much sincere work, and so did my community, and town halls and all of that, and we were so invested in stopping the sale of Hydro One, and it was all for naught, as it turns out.

Now, you can run into Liberals who got booted out of this place or some who might still be here, and they will tell you that maybe it was the wrong path and that train got ahead of them and down that path we went. So here we have a Conservative majority that is hell-bent on privatizing our health care system, selling it off for parts, and I worry that we’re going to see the same thing, that we lose the integrity of our health care system.

So I wonder if the Liberal member would be kind enough to offer perhaps some words of wisdom to the Conservatives about how wrong it is to sell off our public services and to diminish what Ontarians depend on.

I want to follow up on my colleague’s question. Sometimes you make big mistakes, and Hydro One might have been the biggest mistake that I ever saw here, when you sold it off. My good friend Jim Bradley and I have this conversation all the time. He feels that the only reason why he’s not here is because he couldn’t get the Premier at that time, Wynne, to listen to him.

And then Bill 115—the Conservatives are following in your footsteps because they brought in Bill 124. Do you know what happened when that was being done in the Liberal Party? They ended up with a van party, quite frankly—a van caucus.

I think it’s fair and reasonable to ask this question because I think this is one of the biggest mistakes that’s ever been made in Canada, quite frankly, since Tommy Douglas brought it in: Do you think that the Conservatives privatizing what is publicly funded and publicly delivered will end up, like with the Liberal Party, defeating the Conservative government?

Thank you. I will make sure I give all the time back to you.

The member for Mississauga–Malton.