I recently had the opportunity to attend a fundraising dinner for the Medical Equipment Modernization Opportunity, or MEMO for short, in Thunder Bay.

Since 2004, MEMO has shipped 100 containers to Cuba, El Salvador, Liberia, Nicaragua and Zimbabwe, totalling millions of dollars in equipment and saving countless lives along the way. Every container holds 10 tonnes of medical equipment and supplies that are redundant according to Canadian health standards but remain useful and continue to save lives in developing countries. The organization is completely run by volunteers so that every dollar donated goes entirely to support the work.

I want to recognize Dr. and Mrs. Jerome Harvey, whose dream began 18 years ago while looking outside their kitchen window at the soon-to-be-closed 250-bed Port Arthur General Hospital. He wondered what was going to happen to all the medical equipment left behind in this hospital, as well as the other old hospital to be closed, the 375-bed McKellar hospital.

He discovered that because of Thunder Bay’s isolation, the cost of removing and shipping made the contents of the two old hospitals valueless. Reluctantly, the hospital administration admitted that most of the equipment would be sold to a scrap dealer for $180 a tonne. This led to a meeting with a Cuban doctor and Cuban ministry of health officials that assured him that anything MEMO could send would be helpful, as Cuba had an adequate supply of well-trained doctors but was woefully inadequate in medical equipment and supplies. Thus, MEMO was formed under the auspices of the Evangelical Free Church of Canada.

I commend Dr. Harvey for his initiative and leadership in this venture that is making a difference in the lives of residents in developing countries.

My question is to the Minister of Health. Children’s hospitals are in crisis. At SickKids, care departments are running at 127% to 145% above capacity. And it’s not just SickKids; across Ontario, pediatric hospitals and care units have reached maximum capacity. What is this government’s plan to help children’s hospitals meet the increased demand for care?

Minister, SickKids and hospitals don’t just want to imagine; they want the investments so that they can deal with the very serious issues they’re facing right now.

Yesterday, SickKids began cancelling surgeries to cope with surging demand in its ICUs in its emergency department. SickKids already has a surgery wait-list of more than 3,400 children waiting beyond the clinically acceptable time frame. What is this government’s plan to help children get the surgeries they’re waiting for?

My question is for the Premier. Children’s hospitals across Ontario are facing unprecedented challenges. In Ottawa, CHEO is operating at 113% capacity, while its intensive care unit is at over 180%. CHEO is cancelling surgeries and converting that space for more intensive care need. There are shortages in the lack of children’s pain medications, which is forcing more and more parents to go to the emergency room to seek care for their kids. Under the watch of this government, CHEO has had to cancel appointments and surgeries because of this influx of patients and the lack of sufficient resources to deal with the surge.

They don’t have sufficient resources because of Bill 124. They don’t have sufficient resources because this government is fixated on election gimmicks instead of investing in our health care. The hospitals don’t have sufficient resources because this government doesn’t have their back.

Mr. Speaker, what is this government going to do today to fix the health care crisis in our hospitals, in particular our children’s hospitals?

Despite the level zero crisis we’re facing, neither the word “paramedic” nor the word “ambulance” is mentioned one time—not once—in the fall economic statement. The city of Ottawa is asking for $5 million to strategically position paramedics at hospitals across the city to help with offload delays. Will the government provide the city this funding to reduce level zero events and ensure an ambulance is there to respond to 911 calls?

A month ago, I visited the Holland Bloorview children’s rehab hospital in my riding of Don Valley West. This world-class organization develops treatments and supports and provides specialized care for children with disabilities due to illness or trauma. I asked what they needed from the Ontario government. They said that they have a surgical backlog and need more support to clear it. Now, with children’s hospitals overflowing across the province and surgeries being cancelled, bigger backlogs are building.

The economic outlook says the government is holding on to contingency funds in case of unforeseen risk. While this risk of increased hospitalizations was indeed foreseen and called out by many outside this government, will the Minister of Finance acknowledge that they did not foresee this risk and that now is indeed the time to allocate funds from the contingency, to help get sick kids the procedures that they need?

In the economic and fiscal outlook, the minister states that his government “has always been open and transparent.” I just came from the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs, which, it appears, will now not be reviewing the estimates of the ministry. When presented with an opportunity to reschedule, his colleagues refused to find the time to ensure that the residents of Ontario, and even their own constituents, would get answers about government expenditures.

Does the Minister of Finance agree with his colleagues’ decision to block the review of his ministry’s estimates? And, if not, when would he be willing to meet with the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs to be open and transparent with members of provincial Parliament?

As I’ve mentioned in my previous answers, we were preparing for this fall respiratory challenge in the previous budget that we passed in August. We prepared by anticipating that surge in pediatrics and making sure that hospitals serving both pediatric patients and adults were able to build their capacity. We’ve done that work.

I have to give a shout-out to the clinicians and the hospital leadership, who have worked together to make sure that when they experience a surge in their individual hospital, they work with their neighbouring community hospitals to ensure that patients who can be transferred back to their home community are able to do so.

We’re doing that work. We’re making those investments. We’ve invested in additional surgery backlogs, to ensure that people don’t have to wait an exorbitantly long time for their surgery. There are going to be challenges as we deal with the surge in flu, or in some cases RSV, but we’re working with our hospital leadership to make sure that we give them the support they need.

Thank you to the member for Waterloo for an excellent breakdown—what a breakdown the fall economic statement is, by this Conservative government.

I’d like to ask a question with regard to children being triaged into adult care, hospitals having to turn away sick kids because there’s simply no staff or there’s a staff shortage and they cannot give them the treatment they deserve. How does this fall economic statement address this? I mean, I look at the document and I see that the health expenditures are the same now in the fall as they were in the summer, even though we know the crisis has worsened. Why is this government not paying attention to the calls from panicked parents who are seeing their children turned away from the health care they need at a time when some of these very parents in St. Paul’s don’t have paid sick days or are the very front-line health care workers who are being pushed out of nursing because of Bill 124?