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.

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.

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.

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 to the member opposite for giving us all these questions. The newly proposed Integrated Community Health Services Centres Act will, if passed, protect patient safety through strengthening the quality assurance and oversight of the community surgical and diagnostic centres, ensuring that no centre can refuse an insured service to a patient who chooses not to purchase uninsured upgrades and no patient can pay to receive insured services faster than anyone else.

It also ensures that patients who are not able to have their complaints addressed at the centre can seek help from the Ontario Patient Ombudsman. It will also protect the stability of the health human resources—

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.

Quick question, quick response?

Second reading debate deemed adjourned.

Report continues in volume B.