I will take one second, as a member of the class of 2006, to welcome back the member from Nepean. Welcome back, sister—courage.

Speaker, since the beginning of this year, Ontario’s ERs have been closed more than 100 times. Those closures are happening in rural areas, places like Chesley. Their ER is closed until the end of November because of a shortage of nurses. Just a few weeks ago, most of Chesley’s residents packed into a meeting to fight for their community hospital. This government has left Ontarians with no credible plan of action to address the crisis in our health care system.

For the Premier: Why has the Minister of Health neglected her duty during this difficult period?

There are consequences when health care isn’t there when people need it. Recently, Eleanor wrote to me about the passing of her daughter, Amelia. Amelia was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer, and she was diagnosed late, with her screening pushed from November to February. By then, her cancer was so advanced, the only thing doctors could do was palliative chemotherapy.

Eleanor is a retired nurse. She knew that Amelia’s diagnosis was likely fatal, but with earlier screening and better access to care, Eleanor believes Amelia would have lived more than the five short months from diagnosis.

Speaker, these are real-life impacts of the government’s inaction on health care. Will the Premier and minister commit to meaningfully invest in our health care workers so there are no more stories like Amelia’s?

In September, a four-year-old child with a broken arm was left waiting more than four days for minor surgery at McMaster Children’s Hospital. These types of delays can have dramatic impacts on growing kids.

Speaker, these tragic stories are driven by staffing shortages that are now commonplace. How much worse does the crisis in our health care system have to get before the minister and the Premier give nurses and front-line health care workers the support that they need?

My question is to the Minister of Health. In August, I asked your government to help SickKids hospital address their staffing shortages, their $45-million funding shortfall and their growing surgery wait-list. SickKids has a surgery wait-list that has over 3,400 children waiting beyond the clinically acceptable time for their necessary surgery, putting their long-term health at risk.

Minister, three months later, the crisis is getting worse. On Thanksgiving weekend, SickKids ICUs were at full capacity. My question is, why is your government failing to help SickKids meet the demand for care?

Minister, this is my question: What is your government going to do—concretely do—to ensure that all departments, including the ER and the ICUs, have the funding to fully staff their departments so that the health care needs of children can be met?

Thank you to the member opposite for the question. As I said before, nothing is more important than protecting the health and well-being of all Ontarians, especially our children. That’s why, as part of our significant investment to address the province’s surgical backlog of $880 million, we also dedicated $6.5 million to pediatric hospitals to support them in the ramp-up of surgeries. We’ve also provided $4.6 million more in funding to hospitals to add nine additional acute-care beds at CHEO and 10 acute-care beds, as well as three ICU beds, at Sick Children’s Hospital.

This government will spare no expense to make sure the people of this province, especially our children, continue to have access to the high-quality care that they need and expect.

And I just want to quote from a Toronto Star article by Megan Ogilvie. Dr. Ronald Cohn, the CEO of Sick Children’s Hospital said that the “hospital will always have capacity for the most critically ill children in the province who need the specialized care” that only Sick Children’s Hospital can offer.

So, according to Dr. Cohn, the resources are there. We’re going to make sure the resources are there because we want to make sure that our children in Ontario and all other Ontarians have the support they need.

I appreciate the question from the member. The member will know, in particular with respect to Bill 7, we had had acute-care facilities across this country for many, many, many years asking that in particular long-term care become a partner in helping to address ALC issues. For many years we could not do that because the investments were not made in long-term care. But that changed in 2018 when the government made significant investments—over $13 billion—in long-term care. We’re doing them across the province, in urban, rural and remote communities.

I was up in Kenora with the Minister of Indigenous Affairs and Northern Development. We were reviewing the potential allocation of a new long-term-care home there.

But at the same time, Bill 7 helps ensure better care for people closer to home. I think that the honourable member would agree that it is in our best interest to work to ensure that people who are in hospital get the best quality of care possible—

Thank you to the member opposite for telling us about Zoe and her mother. As the member opposite knows, we’ve made significant investments to try to clear the surgical backlog across the board as part of our $3.3-billion investment in the hospital sector. We’ve also dedicated $300 million to reduce surgical backlogs, part of the broader investment of $880 million to reduce surgical backlogs, and specifically we’ve made investments at pediatric hospitals like CHEO, as I’ve said before, because nothing is more important than the well-being of our children.

So I’m sorry to hear about Zoe’s wait and certainly we should make sure that Zoe gets care as quickly as possible. But that’s why we’re investing significantly to address the backlog that has come out as a result of COVID and why we’ve also had dedicated funding of $6.5 billion for pediatric hospitals specifically to address these types of concerns.

But as I said before, we’ve provided $4.6 million more in funding for those hospitals to add an additional nine acute-care beds at CHEO and 10 acute-care beds and three ICU beds at SickKids Hospital. Our government, as we work on addressing short-term stressors on the system, continues to advance meaningful reforms to build a more resilient, patient-centred and integrated system, and we really want to make sure that patients like Zoe do not have to wait in the future.

My question is to the Premier. Recently, Sam wrote to me to share that her father, who was admitted to St. Joseph’s Health Centre in my riding, had no room from Monday evening to Friday night. He had to stay in a hallway for four days straight because there was no staffed room available. Sam said that the workers at St. Joe’s were professional and pleasant, but they were short-staffed.

Speaker, front-line staff have been very clear. They have asked the Premier to repeal Bill 124 and urgently recognize the credentials of tens of thousands of internationally trained health care workers. Why does the Premier continue to say no to our health care workers and leave Ontarians in hospital hallways?