It gives me great honour to present the following petition entitled “Health Care: Not for Sale.” It reads:

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Ontarians should get health care based on need—not the size of your wallet;

“Whereas Premier ... Ford and Health Minister ... Jones say they’re planning to privatize parts of health care;

“Whereas privatization will bleed nurses, doctors and PSWs out of our public hospitals, making the health care crisis worse;

“Whereas privatization always ends with patients getting a bill;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to immediately stop all plans to privatize Ontario’s health care system, and fix the crisis in health care by:

“—repealing Bill 124 and recruiting, retaining, and respecting doctors, nurses and PSWs with better working conditions;

“—licensing tens of thousands of internationally educated nurses and other health care professionals already in Ontario, who wait years and pay thousands to have their credentials certified;

“—10 employer-paid sick days;

“—making education and training free or low-cost for nurses, doctors, and other health care professionals;

“—incentivizing doctors and nurses to choose to live and work in northern Ontario;

“—funding hospitals to have enough nurses on every shift, on every ward.”

I fully support this petition, will affix my signature and deliver it with page EJ to the Clerks.

It was interesting listening to the Minister of Health. I certainly agree with her that the demand for home care is increasing, and the number of people who are not getting the home care they need in Ontario is also increasing, exponentially. Does the minister agree that a lot of this has to do with how health care providers cannot recruit and retain a stable workforce? Because PSWs who work for home care cannot pay their rent and feed their kids. Does the minister agree that if we were to give PSWs permanent, full-time jobs with good pay, benefits, sick days, a bit of a pension plan, the 500 PSWs in my community that are not working could go back to doing what they love to do, what they want to do? Is any of this in the bill, to fix our broken home care system?

Home care is such a key part of the health care system, and where governments past—I’m looking right now at what former Premier Mike Harris did. He went into full private delivery of home care. He said it would make it better, faster, cheaper. None of this, of course, came true.

Our home care system is broken right now. There is no question that it’s broken. We have a labour shortage within that arena; there’s inconsistent care for seniors; and this bill will essentially create an arm’s-length agency to oversee home care, with the board of director members appointed by the government. This is also somewhat problematic, given the appointments that this government has made in the past.

How will this bill prevent private companies from taking over public home care services without governance, without any public accountability structure and without public interest protections?

Well, I would respectfully say, absolutely, we are expanding the health care workforce. Does the member opposite, who voted against the Learn and Stay program that actually ensures we pay tuition and books for health care workers who are being trained in the province of Ontario—to then use that and practise in areas of highest need—that is the question. As we build our health care workforce, is the member opposite for or against that? Because her voting record would suggest that she is against that.

We need to make sure that we expand the program. The member opposite’s suggestion would actually lead to a shrinking of home care providers and home care access in the province of Ontario. I can’t believe there is anyone in this chamber who believes that we need to shrink home care in the province of Ontario. We need to expand it, which is exactly what we’re doing with this legislation.

The back-office support will be a key piece of this legislation to allow organizations that wish to provide in community the ability to do that and make it consistent, so that we don’t have these examples of “in Ottawa, I get three hours; in Orangeville, I get an hour.” That piece will be able to be consistent when we bring it together under one organization.

My question is for the Minister of Health. I know in my riding we have an unusually large demographic of the retired and seniors. I know that this government has committed $1 billion over three years to enhancing our home care experience.

In her comments today, the minister mentioned an increase of $128 million over the next three years to the Ontario health teams and I’m wondering if she can just explain further to the House how this will impact home care for our residents.

One of the things that you can tell Cindy is, in fact, we’ve done the work on stabilizing the health care workforce. It is absolutely important that whether that PSW is working in a hospital setting or in a home care setting or in a long-term-care home, there is a much more consistent approach in terms of remuneration. We’ve done that, and that has been very welcomed in the sector.

But if we want to talk about affordability, perhaps the member opposite could explain to her constituent Cindy why she supported the carbon tax, in fact making her job that much more expensive as she moves using a vehicle, moving from patient’s to patient’s home. Those are the types of affordability pieces that the member opposite and the party opposite don’t want to talk about. There is a cause and effect when you support the carbon tax that was put on by the federal government, which we oppose, and now we’re seeing the outcome, which is, of course, higher tax, higher inflation.

I want to talk about an example of what happened in the long-term-care system, because the Ontario health teams now, as was pointed out, oversee that.

This is a CBC article from October 5, 2023, and I’m going to read:

“Less than a year after the province heralded its opening as a safe option for seniors, a new long-term care home in Owen Sound ... has been forced to close its doors to new admissions due to serious problems found during inspections.

“The province’s Ministry of Long-Term Care issued a cease of admissions order to Southbridge Owen Sound on Aug. 16 due to ‘significant instances of non-compliance,’ a spokesperson for the Minister of Long-Term Care said. Inspection reports show those issues include residents wandering away from their rooms or the facility altogether, as well as a report of a resident lying in a room with urine on the floor left with no way to call for help.”

How do we trust that this government is going to get health care right if they can’t even get long-term care right?

Thank you so much to the member for Nickel Belt for those remarks. I don’t think there’s a person in the House who understands our health care system better than the member for Nickel Belt. The government would do well to listen to her.

I’ve been speaking with organizations in Ottawa West–Nepean that are providing not-for-profit home care and community care services—Carefor, the Olde Forge Community Resource Centre, Jewish Family Services, Meals on Wheels—and all of them are struggling so much due to the underfunding of these home care and community care services by this government. They are struggling because, yes, the government promised additional funding but then hasn’t delivered it, so they are bleeding money every single month, waiting for this money to actually flow. They are losing staff every month because they can no longer compete with other sectors. The staff feel like they are being asked to do the impossible, to fill in the gaps of the social safety net this government has broadened.

My question to the member from Nickel Belt is why should anybody trust this government’s changes on home care and community care when they’ve done such a bad job managing the system to date?

Kind of in line with what the member from Mississauga Centre just said, we know that our home care system fails more people than it helps every single day. There’s more of a wait-list to get the home care you need and more missed appointments than in any other parts of the health care system put together. We know how to fix this.

How do you fix this? You make the PSW job a good career. You give them a permanent, full-time job with good pay, benefits, sick days, a pension plan—

My question is to the member from Ottawa South. I enjoyed listening to his remarks, but I found it kind of rich, considering he was the PA to health under the former Liberal government—

Speaker, our government is also making $30 million available for front-line primary care with nurse practitioners and family health teams, and I know that that has been very well received in my riding. Will the member from Ottawa South finally get on board and help us improve the mess he left?