My question is to the Minister of Long-Term Care. Last Thursday, the minister introduced legislation in this House that critics have suggested will see seniors discharged from hospitals and moved into long-term-care homes in communities far from their family and friends, and against their will.

We all know how difficult it was during the initial waves of COVID-19 when family could not visit or participate in caring for their loved one in a long-term-care home.

Is the minister doing this, as critics have suggested, and ignoring the lessons of the pandemic and forcing seniors to live alone, isolated from family?

Very specifically, who will the minister be consulting in advance of establishing a regulation? How long will Ontario families wait before the minister delivers the regulations implementing the legislation?

Speaker, the minister has stated that long-term care can be part of the solution to what has been a decades-long challenge in the acute care system. Part of the government’s plan includes elimination of isolation rooms that have been set aside for COVID outbreaks in-home. There are currently a number of homes across the province in outbreak. Will this policy not put these residents at risk? Is the minister declaring victory over COVID at this time when no one else is?

An extra $50 a month isn’t going to get anyone housing in this market, Speaker.

Denise is not alone. Tracey Thompson, who contracted long COVID in March 2020, has recently applied for medical assistance in dying as well. Tracey, who is not even able to get ODSP because long COVID is not recognized by the program, has been clear that her application is exclusively a financial consideration. She wants to live, but she can’t afford to.

Speaker, we have reached a point in Ontario where people are being forced to choose between a quick death before the money runs out and a long, painful, slow death without financial support. Why is the Premier not taking action to address poverty?