As a Canadian, I’m proud to call this country home, and our universal health care system is one of the main reasons. Because of great Canadians like Tommy Douglas, residents use their OHIP card for health care—not their credit card.

But this government seems determined to destroy that system by underfunding it. Ignore and underfund our health care system, watch it buckle under the pressure of COVID, and then say the only solution is to find innovative approaches to fix the mess they created.

Unfortunately, those innovative approaches are really just new ways to give health care services to private corporations, whose main focus is to make more and more profit. But there are more problems with this approach. It’s been proven time and time again that it costs us more.

The Toronto Star reported yesterday that temp nursing agencies are skyrocketing health care costs. In fact, they’re paying as much as $110 an hour to temp agencies. Front-line health care workers like our great nurses at ONA have said this is already a form of privatization. Toronto’s Sunnybrook Hospital has spent $8.2 million this year on temp agencies.

We literally can’t afford to continue down this road. Not only will the quality of our health care suffer; costs will become unsustainable. We must stop all forms of privatization, invest in our public system, repeal Bill 124 and start reminding the world why it’s so great to be a Canadian: It’s our publicly funded health care.

The member for Brampton North here—first day.

It is an honour to rise in this House on behalf of my constituents in Brampton North, and I am humbled by their trust in me to be our voice for our community at Queen’s Park.

Mr. Speaker, please allow me to speak on behalf of my community when I say that Brampton North is simply tired of waiting. We’re tired of waiting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on Highway 410, Bovaird Drive and Sandalwood Parkway. We’re tired of waiting at the Brampton Civic waiting room, where our incredible health care workers strive to keep up with the demands of our growing and aging population.

And quite frankly, we’re tired of the committees and the studies and the working groups. We demand action. We demand a government that gets it done. That is exactly what our Premier and our government are here to do.

We’re getting it done by building a new Peel Memorial Hospital with a full-fledged 24/7 emergency room.

We’re getting it done by building Highway 413, cutting commute times and bringing economic opportunity to our region.

We’re getting it done with the TMU medical school where, for the first time ever, Brampton students will become medical students and eventually become Brampton doctors.

Mr. Speaker, we will get it done for Brampton North.

My question is to the Premier. Records from Ontario Health show 1,400 people died while waiting for surgery last year. That’s a 43% increase compared to pre-pandemic years and a 30% increase over just a year before. When lives hang in the balance, why is the Premier refusing to invest in recruiting, retaining and respecting health care workers?

The staffing crisis is costing people their lives. Why is this government planning to spend money on privatization that will bleed even more staff from our hospitals?

We have a hospital staffing crisis. Privatization would siphon staff out of our hospitals and send them to a for-profit system. Why is this government planning to spend money on privatization that would make the hospital staffing crisis even worse?

Beds don’t equal surgeries, Speaker. A bed without a nurse is just furniture.

At the Ottawa Hospital, we’re seeing the many serious consequences of not having enough nurses. Patients are waiting days to be admitted even though beds are available because there’s no nurse to staff the bed. Surgeries are being cancelled even as patients are entering the operating room because there’s no nurse. And recently, a patient who showed up for chemo was sent home without it because there was no nurse to administer it.

Will the government act swiftly to fill these nursing shortages so that every patient in Ontario gets the care they need?

The Ottawa Hospital is short more than 500 nurses, and this government’s actions to date are a drop in the bucket compared to the scale of the crisis. There are nurses in Ottawa who are working 16-hour shifts, 12 out of 14 days, just to fill nursing shortages. Just imagine trying to provide good care while working that many hours, not to mention the risk of mistakes. No wonder nurses are leaving the profession.

Will the government repeal Bill 124 and address working conditions so that we keep nurses instead of driving them away?

Last week, I had the chance to sit down with nurses from ONA Local 83 and they told me that every day they go to work feeling scared. They wonder, who will I not get to today, and what will the consequences be? It is only a matter of time until the consequences for someone are deadly. This is an unfair burden to put on our hard-working health care heroes and terrifying to patients across Ontario.

Will this government finally listen to nurses and implement the solutions they are calling for, starting with repeal of Bill 124?

Thank you for that question. And by the way, I spoke to Cam Love. What a great CEO—probably one of the best in the province. He assured me as well that they’re going to make sure that they have the proper staffing.

How we’re helping the hospitals across the province is the Learn and Stay program—that we’re going to pay for the tuition of the nurses. We’re going to make sure that they’re taken care of—any expenses they have—as long as they serve in underserved areas.

With Ottawa—I’ve got to tell you, I think the world of Cam Love. He drives an efficient hospital. But, again, as he said, and every other CEO that are feeding us information to help the system—every one of them said the same thing: You can’t stay with the status quo under the Liberals and the NDP that destroyed the system for 15 years, Mr. Speaker. We’re going to continue investing into the hospitals, into nurses.

And, again, I just want to remind people of the numbers: We added 14,500 nurses since 2018. Those are staggering numbers.

Mr. Speaker, we’re going to continue to invest in health care. We’re going to continue making sure that as long as our government’s here, people are going to be using their OHIP card instead of their credit card. But guess what? We can’t do the same, status quo. The status quo has been broken. We’re going to fix it. We’re going to deliver health care in a different fashion through the sector’s advice—not through our government’s advice—through the experts’ advice: the docs, the nurses, anyone involved in taking care of the great health care system that we do have in Ontario.

But this is a broader conversation we need. All Premiers across the provinces and territories all have a common voice, and the common voice is: This is not going to be sustainable—making sure that the feds pay their fair share. You know something? They’re paying 22%. We’re asking for 35%. It will not be sustainable without the federal government stepping up to the plate, making sure that they give us our fair amount to sustain the health care system. This isn’t unique to Ontario. I talk to the Premiers every single day. They’re facing the same problems. They’re facing the same problems down in the US. But we need the federal government to give us our fair share of funding for health care across this country.

My question is to the Premier. It has been months since I approached the government about the serious doctor shortage communities are facing in Algoma–Manitoulin. In Thessalon, the hospital has been trying to recruit permanent physicians since last year. I raised this with the Minister of Health during the last session and presented her with a plan from Huron Shores Family Health Team to create an integrated care model to help recruit and retain new physicians in the area.

I ask the Premier: When will this government start working with northern communities to end physician shortages?

Where is the Premier’s plan to train, recruit and retain physicians in northern Ontario?

That answer is not reassuring to any health care worker or any parents in this province that are seeking child care now so that they can go to work in our health care system. These health care workers share that in Hamilton the hospital where they work is at a breaking point, that the wait times for surgery are well, well above the guidelines from Cancer Care Ontario and that the emergency department is unable to keep up with patient volumes. This is alarming because it’s resulting in more and more code zero ambulance events.

When will this government prevent their failures in one sector, child care, from bleeding over into the health care sector?

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Ontario’s seniors deserve high-quality, patient-centred care and our government is making significant strides toward better meeting the needs of long-term-care residents by hearing directly from them; and;

“Whereas people, including seniors, should have the option to stay in their homes and receive the care they need, if they choose and if it is possible; and

“Whereas home and community care keeps people healthy and at home, where they want to be, and plays an important role in the lives of more than 700,000 families annually; and

“Whereas a strong home and community care sector is key to the government’s plan to end hallway health care and build a connected, patient-centred health care system; and

“Whereas home care supports will prevent unnecessary hospital and long-term-care admissions and will shorten hospital stays; and

“Whereas our government plans to invest up to an additional $1 billion over the next three years to expand home care, improve quality of care, keeping the people of Ontario in the homes that they love longer; and

“Whereas the additional funding is intended to support home care providers, address rising costs and support recruitment and training, as well as expand services; and

“Whereas these types of investments and other developments, such as virtual care options, care at home, can become a choice that seniors, recovering patients and their families make instead of only relying on more traditional venues of care;

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

“To urge all members of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to build on the progress this government has made on building a patient-centred home and community care system.”

I proudly affix my signature to this petition, and I will give it to page Zane.