In March of last year, the Conservative government unanimously voted down my bill to create a wage floor for all personal support workers. Instead, they chose to extend the temporary pandemic wage enhancement that only applied to some PSWs. Then they promised that they’d make the $2 top-up permanent. Except, according to a November 1 Global News article, hospital PSWs are still waiting on the permanent wage increase.

My question, Speaker, is: If the Conservative government wants Ontario to believe that they care about workers, why are hospital PSWs waiting more than eight months for a $2 raise?

Let’s go to home care PSWs, because home care PSWs’ employment standards—looking into this: According to the Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development guide for the Employment Standards Act on home care workers, home care PSWs are only entitled to be paid for no more than 12 hours per day. I learned this because a home care provider told me they don’t have to pay more than this. They’re also not entitled to daily or weekly limits on hours of work, daily rest periods; home care PSWs are not entitled to time off between shifts; they’re not entitled to weekly or biweekly rest periods; and home care PSWs are not entitled to eating periods or overtime pay. That’s very serious if you’re talking about how important PSWs are to the Conservative government, Speaker.

My question is: Will the Premier direct the Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development to update the Employment Standards Act so that all home care PSWs are entitled to at least some of the standards of every other worker in Ontario, including overtime pay?

The petition reads: “Petition to Protect Patient Care in Operating Rooms at Hamilton Health Sciences (General, Juravinski, and McMaster sites).

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas patients requiring surgery have complex care needs, some of which are urgent or life-threatening diseases and under anesthetic can become unstable, unpredictable, quickly change or deteriorate; and

“Whereas a scrub nurse is a member of the surgical team who provides a surgeon with instruments while maintaining a sterile environment, acts on and anticipates their requests, prepares medications, assists with retraction of tissue, communicates to circulating registered nurses (RNs) patient care needs, and responds in emergencies; and

“Whereas more health care providers are needed to address the surgical backlog, but surgical patients need a regulated nurse in a scrub nurse role who has the education, training and qualifications of a diploma or degree and a specialized credential in surgical nursing that makes them knowledgeable, expertly skilled and experienced, and anything less puts patient safety at risk; and

“Whereas Hamilton Health Sciences’s new surgical model of care is to replace nurses who perform the scrub nurse role in operating rooms, with unregulated operating room assistants (ORAs); and

“Whereas Hamilton Health Sciences’s actions to replace nurses with unregulated health care providers erodes the standard of care that patients will receive because ORAs cannot respond to patient care needs and they are not accountable to the public for the care they provide; and

“Whereas the Operating Room Nurses Association of Canada (ORNAC) recommends that the scrub nurse role be performed only by nurses; and

“Whereas cutting nursing care in operating rooms means patients can suffer from unnecessary complications or death because of unrecognized care needs, delayed care, miscommunication, or errors;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

“Immediately stop operating room assistants from performing the scrub nurse role at Hamilton Health Sciences;

“Stop any further plans to cut and replace registered nurses within the operation rooms at Hamilton Health Sciences;

“Cease the new surgical model of care that replaces scrub nurses with operating room assistants because it does not adhere to Hamilton Health Sciences’s mission to provide excellent health care to the community it serves.”

I’m proud to sign this petition, and I’ll give it to page Mabel.