Travel costs.

The member opposite who asked the question, the member from Nickel Belt, whom I respect a great deal, who has been here for 16 years, knows that not everything is in each bill. We don’t do that. We don’t reiterate all the promises in every bill and discuss everything at once. So it’s kind of a disingenuous question, I think.

Interjection.

We know we have more work to do, but part of what we’re doing here with this bill, with Ontario health teams and with the expansion of interprofessional primary care teams, is making sure that the care is provided within the integrated context of a team so that the PSWs can have better schedules, can be part of a team, can have people to talk to, can talk to the nurse or the doctor or the other care providers and be part of a team and not be isolated. So, it’s not just about the money for the PSWs. That’s part of it for sure and that’s why we raised wages, but it’s also about better work conditions.

Everybody wants to make sure when they need home care that it’s going to be there when they need it. We all want that. I have constituents too who want to make sure it’s there. We want to deliver it for them. That’s what this is about.

It’s always a pleasure to rise in the House. It’s been a fascinating day, Madam Speaker. I came in this morning and went to the front lawn, and there we had a protest for kids with autism. What was interesting about that to me is there were seniors there. They were taking care of their kids and their grandkids because there isn’t enough funding.

And then I come in here—because I like coming to question period; not that I get a lot of questions, but I like coming to question period—and they ended up talking about the Conservative government that was being investigated by the RCMP. I thought that was fascinating, to see that happening right here on the floor.

Then, after lunch—because I had a sandwich at lunch and went and saw the doctors; that was really nice and fascinating talking to them—after 1 o’clock, we have another motion come with residents from Ontario. This is their House. They come here and they’ve got an issue with what you’re doing with a spa at Ontario Place. You know what happens? They cut off debate, which wasn’t fair to the residents, by the way. You know what? There were seniors sitting up there who had a tough time getting down here. They had to take public transit. They had come here thinking that this House was going to listen to them and we didn’t listen to them, and that was wrong today.

And then right after that, the House leader for the Conservatives nodded to the health minister to bring this bill forward. You know what? I found out about it at that very moment, that they want me to stand up here and talk for 20 minutes. I wasn’t sure if it was 20 minutes or an hour; I would have done both. But I wasn’t sure what I had to do.

So I spent that one hour listening to the health minister and listening to the super senior that’s on that side of the House. I listened to him. Then as I was doing that, I’m jotting down some notes here. Then, I decided to say, “Okay, I’ve got to take at, you know, the bill. I’ve got to do all of that within an hour.” They didn’t give me a chance to run upstairs and talk to a stakeholder. “What do you think of this? Do you think this is a good bill? Do you think we can work with the bill? Do you think it’s something we can support?” I couldn’t do that.

If you want a bill to come forward, have that type of debate and have that type of interest in the province of Ontario, what should we have done? I think you should give the official opposition an extra—maybe a couple of days to at least do that, instead of an hour. Think about that.

When I went through the bill and I listened to one of the colleagues on that side—I don’t know the riding so I won’t say her name, because I will get called out if I do that—she talked about how nobody did anything for 25 years. She forgot to mention that in that space of 25 years, Mike Harris was the Premier of Ontario. Then she forgot to mention that the Conservatives were the official opposition for 15 years. So I wasn’t sure if she was talking about the Conservatives or she was talking about the Liberals, because that kind of takes that time frame in.

On home care—I’m going to pick this up, so I want to get this right—Premier Harris at the time brought in the privatization of home care. Now, think about it. Here we are—was it 15 and five?—20 years later, and what are we talking about? We’re talking about home care and why we shouldn’t privatize it. This is what he said—in fairness to the Premier, because I respect the Premier, he got elected by the citizens of Ontario. I don’t know how, but he did. At the end of the day, I respect the fact that he got elected just like I respect everybody out there who got elected. Here’s what he said when he privatized—

Interjections.

Interjections.

I want to be clear, as a critic for long-term care—and I will get into long-term care and that would probably take me an hour just there. I’m going to be very clear: I think the best thing that happens to all of us, including our super senior, is that we should be staying home as long as we can. We absolutely should be.

I’ll do a quick story. It’s a little off my script and I haven’t got into the other notes. I’ll tell you a little story. I’ve said this story before. My wife’s dad got sick. To my wife’s credit, she decided to retire. She was a principal in a school. She decided to retire a year early to take care of her dad, because she didn’t want him to go into a retirement home or a long-term-care home. This was before COVID, by the way, and we know what happened with COVID. That’s a whole different story.

She decided to say, “You know what? My mom and dad were there for me when I needed them,” whether that was in the early part of her first marriage and then my marriage. They were always there for her, so she said, “I’m going to be there for my family.”

Every day, she would go and see her dad, take care of him at breakfast, take care of him at lunch, take care of him at supper and make sure he was getting the right pills. That’s what home care is about: It brings family together.

We live about five, maybe 10 minutes—they’re Italian. I know there are a few Italians here, and one thing about the Italian family that nobody talks about: They love their family, but they also have to like to live within two blocks of each other so you can have spaghetti dinner on the weekend. That’s true.

Interjection.

A few years later, grandma got sick, Rita’s mom. Now, Mr. De Luca has passed away, but he knew at the end of his life how much his daughter loved him and took care of him. Then, grandma got sick. Same thing: My wife was there for as long as they could in home care.

That’s why home care is so important—because they get better care with a loved one. And I’m not saying anything about a PSW or a nurse or anybody, because they love the patients just as much—but the reality is very clear that they’re understaffed, particularly in home care.

When my wife’s mom and dad needed their PSWs, they were wonderful. But do you know what happened? And I’m sure that has happened to all of you. You can agree with me or disagree, and that’s fine, but I think it has happened to all of us. There were times when they needed that care but there was no PSW, because there aren’t enough of them, because that provider didn’t have enough staff. And why don’t we have enough staff? Help me out here. You guys are yelling at me all the time. Yell something out.

Interjections.

One of the innovations introduced by this government was allowing pharmacists to treat minor ailments. I can tell you that the people in Essex county love that innovation introduced by this government. What can the people in Essex county anticipate from this innovation?

Bill 124.

There have been a lot of mistakes that you guys have made, and I’ve stood up and tried to help you out and make it better for you. I’ve given you some suggestions; unfortunately, you don’t always take them.

Bill 124 was a big mistake, particularly in home care, where it was heavily privatized—so was long-term care, and we’ll get into that if I get enough time. What you should have done after you lost in the courts, not once, but twice—you guys, as a caucus, should have gotten together and said, “Let’s not spend any more taxpayer dollars in the courts fighting Bill 124. Why don’t we use that money and reinvest it into our PSWs, into our health care system, and make sure that we have enough staff so that when Mr. De Luca or Mrs. De Luca need somebody, they are there for them?” You chose not to do that, and that was a mistake when it came there.

The same thing happened, as we go through the bill, and I was really fascinated by this, because as a long-term critic—how many remember your government bringing a bill here—I can’t remember the name of the bill, so I won’t say it; I don’t want to get it wrong, in fairness. How many of you guys remember when you brought in a bill so you couldn’t sue long-term care—whether you agree with me or disagree—that were having a lot of our moms and dads, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters die in those facilities? You brought in a bill so they couldn’t be sued, and neither could the government. I thought, with the criticism that you got in that particular bill, you wouldn’t do it again. But when I took a quick look at the bill in the hour that you guys gave me the time to—it says, “27.2. This section outlines the process for amalgamation, including the impacts on property and staff. The rules outlined prevent lawsuits that may arise from amalgamation.” They’re doing it again. So as you amalgamate, you’re protecting the bad actors that are already in our home care. And we know they’re out there. You can’t deny that with me.

And then it goes even further—Madam Speaker, I know you’re really interested in this. I can tell you’re listening really well. I appreciate that.

I ran into this—and I’m glad the labour minister is here, because he can relate to it. We ran into this when they changed over to labour and how they were doing it, and they ended up doing a board that was appointed—the board was appointed with the skilled trades. And there were more corporations and developers on the board than there are workers. So every time there’s a big issue, guess what happens? The workers can vote what they need, what they think the trades need, but—guess what?—they’re outnumbered. It’s very similar, by the way—it’s what happened earlier today. We had a vote here. We had a position. We were outnumbered. You guys voted us down. That’s what happens with these boards.

So I was fascinated, again, in the bill, where it talks about—the boards are going to be appointed, and guess who appoints them? Help me out, colleagues. Does anybody know?

Interjections.

When they came to government agencies and going on all these boards, whether it be the Landlord and Tenant Board, the LCBO, it was always, I would say—and in fairness to your government, because I don’t want you guys looking this all up, it was probably 94%, all right? Maybe 6% weren’t tied to your government. That’s why there is a problem when I read in the bill that you’re going to appoint the board.

Then I go through the rest of it, and so you’ve talked about that. And then, what is causing the biggest problem in home care and in—because I’m the critic for all of it. I’m the critic for home care, retirement homes and long-term care. I’m not going to spend a lot of time on long-term care because we know how bad long-term care was. I will mention it, though, but I may talk about it in a bit.

Here’s the problem, Madam Speaker—and I’m looking straight at you because I know I’m supposed to focus on you all the time. This is the biggest problem we’re facing right now: agency employees.

Again, my understanding—I’m trying not to be too harsh on anybody, but one of the companies that’s owned in the agency employees happens to be Mike Harris’s partner. Do you know today they are bringing agency employees into our retirement homes, our long-term care and even into home care? And do you know what they’re being charged? Help me out over there; I’m sure you guys know. I know the Minister of Agriculture would know, for sure. The Labour Minister will know because he’s supporting Bill 124. It’s $150 an hour. That’s what they’re charging that retirement home or that long-term-care home.

Just two weeks ago, I believe it was in Ottawa—I might be wrong, it might have been in Windsor; it was one of those things—they laid off six employees because they couldn’t afford to pay them because they were paying all their money to agency employees. I’m saying to your government—and to the labour minister; I’m glad he’s here—why are we using agency employees? Why not take those dollars, and it’s in the millions, and reinvest it back into health care, education, autism programs? Why are we making a corporation rich at the expense of health care?

Publicly funded, publicly delivered: We shouldn’t be giving that kind of money in the millions of dollars to an agency employee. That, to me, is a really big problem. How many over there agree with me? Put your hands up.

It bothers me that—we can fix it. When you’re talking about a bill—and listen, I’ve got the bill here. Just so you guys know, with the help—I’ve got to mention that when you ask me to do something within an hour, I have to rely on my staff as well to help write these speeches. So I want to say to my staff Josh and Quinn and Shannon, thanks for everything that they do. I’m sure you guys have staff, but I’m not really reading a lot off what they did for me. I want to say to them thanks very much—because that, again, is wrong when you do that, when you ask people to do a bill within 20 minutes or an hour.

I’ve only got four minutes left, and I think, in fairness—

Interjections.

If you want to fix home care, get rid of the privatization. Premier Harris said about the care that it will be better, it will be faster and it will be cheaper, and none of that happened. And do you know who—can I say this quickly? I’ve only got a couple of minutes. Do you know who privatized long-term care? Does anybody know on that side? Help me out. Anybody on this side?

Government side, come to order.

I heard the member state several times that he only had an hour to prepare for tonight’s debate. He actually said that four times; I was keeping track. He said he only had an hour. He didn’t realize this was going to be debated. I feel sorry about that; the guy only had an hour to prepare his remarks for tonight. But as a matter of fact, this bill was actually introduced to the Legislature on October 4, which means he had 12 days to prepare for today’s comments.

So my question to the member is: Does he always leave his homework to the last minute?

The water.

It was Mike Harris. Do you know what Mike Harris said about long-term care? “Care will be better, it will be faster and it will be cheaper.” So it’s not like we don’t have examples over a long period of time—and I’m talking years—where we can say, “Okay, we made a mistake.”

The government has admitted three or four times in the last year that they made a mistake on different bills, so why can’t you say you made a mistake here and we’re going to make sure that there’s no privatization anymore in home care? Because this bill opens it up even further. Say there’s going to be no privatization in long-term care—where, by the way, of that 6,000 who have passed away in long-term care, approximately 78% died in facilities that were for-profit. They died because they didn’t have the staffing—

Everything that we can do here, guys, we can fix. If you care about seniors—and I’m not going to tell you, standing up here—I don’t know if the party gets mad at you when I say something like this, but at the end of the day, I think we all care about our moms, our dads, our aunts, our uncles, and our brothers and sisters. What we don’t agree on is how we get there to make sure that when they’re in their senior years, they can live with respect and dignity, and enjoy their lives by maybe getting a little bit of exercise.

The reason why I mentioned Ontario Place today: Do you know one of the places where you can take your mom and dad who are in your home? You can take them to Ontario Place. Go look at the water. Go look at the trees, and hopefully—again, I’m telling your government—don’t cut the trees down at Ontario Place. Don’t build a spa. Leave it the way it is.

Interjection: You don’t want us to build anything.

But at the end of the day, think about what we could do. We could actually invest in Ontario Place. We could make sure it’s a place where seniors can go, so when they’re in home care, they can hop in a car and go with their moms and their dads and their brothers and their aunts and their uncles and their kids and their grandkids. That’s what we should be doing.

I’m going to finish by saying, on long-term care and home care—and I’ll apologize to Josh and Quinn that I didn’t get to their speech, but I’ll save it for another time—that we can fix this. I’m looking over there at a couple of the older guys who are here. There are some young guys here, but there are a couple of old guys there probably around my age. We have an obligation to make sure that if there’s going to be home care, that they have the staffing; that those staff are provided with real wages, real benefits and pensions; that they’re unionized. And then, we should do the same thing for home care—

Interjections.

To your point, you talked about last June? Let’s talk about last June. You got a majority government with 18% of those that chose to vote in the province of Ontario. I’m going to tell you: You know what? You don’t know this, I don’t think—

Interjections.

You know, I’ve been elected four times in the Niagara Falls riding. Do you know why? Because I supported long-term care, because I supported the hospitals, because I supported two-way GO all the way to Niagara. But do you know what else? The people in Niagara Falls didn’t vote 18% for me. They voted 50% because I do my job in Niagara Falls. Thank you very much.

Interjections.

Thank you.

Interjections.

Questions?

Questions?

Thank you to my colleague for his comments. Some of the other opposition members are saying that when we have votes in this place, it’s against democracy, but Speaker, that’s the great thing about democracy. We have elections and we had a great majority elected last June and we exercise that majority in votes in this place, and we can have these debates like we’re having today.

The member from Niagara Falls mentions that we know that people want home care faster and closer to their homes, and I know the member also, as he has mentioned ad nauseum, is a critic for long-term care. When the member opposite had the opportunity to vote for long-term care, what did he do? My colleagues, what did he do? He voted no. When the member opposite had an opportunity to vote for $1 billion over three years for home care, what did he do? He voted no. When he had an opportunity to bring that money forward in the last budget, what did he do? He voted no, Speaker.

Can the member for Niagara Falls please stand in his place and tell us: Does he support this great piece of legislation?

Harris.

I think health care has been on the chopping block for decades. Conservative governments love privatizing public services because then they can actually make profits off of our public services. We have examples of that. Mike Harris privatized home care. His wife has an agency called Nurse Next Door—cha-ching—making profits off of home care. Mike Harris privatized long-term care: cha-ching. He’s sitting on Chartwell’s board.

What does this government do? A member alluded to Bill 218, and I remember it very clearly. It was called the Supporting Ontario’s Recovery and Municipal Elections Act and there were three things to that bill: ranked ballots; letting long-term-care operators—privatization, mostly—off the hook for being responsible for atrocities with our seniors; and then also—they used this as a guise—volunteers, like coaches and things, could not be sued during COVID. And they locked that in.

So I want to know, how can we really trust what this government is going to do under this bill and hold people accountable when they don’t deliver home care under a privatized system in this province?

If you’re going to say no, do it with that nice moustache.

It’s always a pleasure to be able to rise in the Legislature and to be able to have a few comments. I wish that I could answer the previous member’s questions about their abuse of legislative powers here in this Legislature that actually forced this bill on the member quicker than should have happened, and that’s what I believe the member was referring to, as we had an opposition day motion planned today talking about Ontario Place, but they shut down debate and forced us into this next bill.

My question to the member is about the privatization of our nursing system in the province and what that does to the profits that this government is dishing out to these nursing providers through third parties.

Thank you to the member from Niagara Falls for his interesting comments. I listened to him throughout his speech, and I noticed that he didn’t really talk much about the bill and not much about home care. Maybe that’s because he didn’t have a lot of time to prepare, even though he is a long-term critic—seemed more like long-winded critic, if you ask me.

But anyway, seniors, as I said, are entitled to dignity. We want to keep them in their homes as long as possible, but surely, the constituents of your riding, the riding of Niagara Falls, also have the same need that we’ve heard from others for fast and reliable access to home and community care. So I just want to say that this bill is a major step toward providing that kind of care to seniors in Niagara Falls and everywhere else.

Would the member be voting in favour of helping his constituents access home care in their community faster by voting for this bill?

I was wondering if my colleague from Niagara Falls could explain to me why the government, after one year, has refused to do anything about health care temporary staffing agencies and is perfectly prepared to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more than we need to to access the nurses, PSWs and other health care professionals that people need?

I want to thank the member from Niagara Falls. I’d like to say that he was warming you up for me, but he’s just a really hard act to follow. And I’m glad he’s got a lot of wind, and it’s good wind. I like the passion that he expresses his views with. He obviously cares a great deal.

So we’ll get into why I think this bill is the wrong thing to do, because it’s starting to take, again, away more of the local component in health care. But what is the problem you’re trying to solve? The problem the government is purportedly trying to solve is that we’ve got a problem in home care, and they’re right.

But why do we have a problem in home care? Well, is it because we don’t have the right agency? It might be because 2.2 million Ontarians don’t have a family doctor. Do you know how hard it is to get home care if you don’t have a family doctor or a nurse practitioner? It’s virtually impossible to find a way in. Even through an emergency department, it’s virtually impossible.

The government, well, they’re not really seized with this problem because, over the last five years, they have not added one brand new nurse-practitioner-led primary care clinic in this province—not since 2018.

What’s happening in my riding of Ottawa South is, because there’s this desperate need for primary care—which you need to get into home care—people are paying subscription fees. The Premier promised—like he did with the greenbelt—no one is ever going to have to use their credit card; they’re only going to have to use their OHIP card. Well, tell that to families in my riding who are having to pay $60 a month just to get access to a nurse practitioner. That’s a problem. And the solution to the primary care crisis is, “Let’s have the Wild West and if people have to pay, well, we just won’t worry about that. We won’t worry about that because they’re getting what they need,” instead of actually thinking about how they’re going to solve that problem, how they’re going to get everybody working to the top of their scope and working together.

But the OMA is here today. What’s their top ask? Primary care. Because they know. They know that people can’t get access to care that they need, like home care, unless they have a primary health care practitioner.

So we’re debating this new organization when, in actual fact, the underlying causes of what’s creating this problem right now aren’t being addressed. We’re not talking about how we get 2.2 million Ontarians a primary care provider. We’re not talking about that today. Although, if we don’t solve that, it doesn’t matter what you create, you’re not going to fix the problem.

What’s the second problem? Anybody guess? We don’t have enough people. Why don’t we have enough people? My colleague from Niagara Falls says, “Well, Bill 124 is a good start.” Right? You say to nurses and other health care workers and PSWs who have bargaining rights, “You don’t have bargaining rights, but if you’re over here, you do.” It’s a matter of—it’s not just money; it’s respect.

We talked about heroes and how important they were to us, but when it came to their wages? Not so much. Really, to be fair, not so much. They have a right to feel that way.

Then the question that I asked the member from Niagara Falls is that now we’ve got this challenge where we’ve allowed temporary health care staffing agencies to—another case of the Wild West—expand incredibly, and we’re spending two and three times what we need to spend on a nurse or a PSW or another health care professional. The government said, a year ago, “We’re going to do something about that.” And you know what they’ve done? The square root of nothing, zippo.

There’s a long-term-care group of homes out by Kitchener. They usually spent $300,000 a year, in all their homes, on temporary nurses. Do you know what they spent in the last fiscal year? Three million dollars. And you know what? That extra $2.7 million didn’t get anybody an extra hour of care.

So why are we doing it? Why is the government allowing temporary staffing agencies to be out there like the Wild West on the public dime? I thought you guys were really good at watching that. Obviously not.

I am concerned about what’s going to happen here when we further take away the local component of health care.

The problem is, you’re not addressing the underlying root: 2.2 million Ontarians don’t have access to primary care, and when you don’t have access to primary care, you can’t get into home care. It just doesn’t work. There’s no way in.

Interjection.

There’s a fundamental misunderstanding of how people get into the home care system. I have been, through four family members, through home care, through long-term care, through retirement homes, so I know how it works. And it’s not going to work if you don’t have a family doc or nurse practitioner. So unless you get serious about solving that problem and stop saying, “You know, it’s okay for people to pull out their credit cards because they can access primary care that way”—which is against what the Premier said, which is not really a surprise, given all the things that we’ve seen recently.

Lastly, you’ve got to solve the staffing problem. If you were creating an agency to hire people and pay them decent wages and manage them and manage the health care system, I would say “great.” That’s not what you’re doing here. You’re creating another agency to hire another agency—which is what we’re doing right now—to bring people in and pay a premium on top of what we normally pay so that agency can make some money. How is that going to get home care to Mrs. Smith in my riding? I don’t think it is. She needs a family doc. She needs to make sure there can be somebody there in her home, and you’re not doing anything about that with this bill.

Thank you very much, and I’ll turn the floor over to my colleague.

I don’t think you can ever trust not only the government; I don’t think you can trust some of the private corporations that are running the retirement homes and long-term care. Until they get into a position where it’s about care, and not profit; it’s about the residents, and not profit; it’s about our grandparents and our aunts and our uncles and our brothers and sisters, not about profit, I don’t think you can ever trust them.

And as far as the government goes, as we saw with the greenbelt fiasco, I think they’ve broken the trust of the residents of the province of Ontario on that particular issue. And do you know who enjoys the greenbelt? Anybody know? It’s seniors. They love to be out in the open space and go for walks on the trails and all that kind of stuff, as they want to plow it and get rid of it. I know you’re bringing up a bill, but—

And I’m going to tell you—I’m going to say it again. I’m going to say it until I’m blue in the face, or until I’m long-winded, I think is what I was accused of. At my age, I’m just glad I’ve got wind. I’ll just leave it at that. I’m just saying.

I think get rid of Bill 124. I think that’s fair. That’s reasonable. You’ve been told enough. You lost in the courts four, five, six—I don’t know how many times you lost in the court. You’re spending taxpayers’ money on lawyers—wrong thing to do. That’s the one thing that we could do to fix those two issues.

Get rid of the agency employees. Why we have agency nurses makes absolutely no sense to me, at $150 an hour—

Thank you. Questions?