This petition is entitled “Support Bill 21, the Till Death Do Us Part Act.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas there are 38,000 people on the wait-list for long-term care; and

“Whereas the median wait time for a long-term-care bed has risen from 99 days in 2011-12 to 171 days in 2020-21; and

“Whereas according to Home Care Ontario, the cost of a hospital bed is $842 a day, while the cost of a long-term-care bed is $126 a day; and

“Whereas couples should have the right to live together as they age; and

“Whereas Ontario seniors have worked hard to build this province and deserve dignity in care; and

“Whereas Bill 21 amends the Residents’ Bill of Rights in the Fixing Long-Term Care Act to provide the resident with the right upon admission to continue to live with their spouse or partner;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to direct the Minister of Long-Term Care to pass Bill 21 and provide seniors with the right to live together as they age.”

Of course, it’s my pleasure to affix my signature and pass this petition along to Caesar.

This petition is entitled, “To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario: Help Fund Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.

“Whereas the Canada Health Act requires provinces to fund medically necessary treatment for Canadians; and

“Whereas a growing number of people in Ontario suffering from Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) have to seek out-of-country treatment at their own expense because doctors in Ontario don’t have the knowledge or skills to understand EDS symptoms and perform the required delicate and complicated surgeries; and

“Whereas those EDS victims who can’t afford the expensive treatment outside of Ontario are forced to suffer a deteriorating existence and risk irreversible tissue and nerve damage; and

“Whereas EDS victims suffer severe dislocations, chronic pain, blackouts, nausea, migraines, lost vision, tremors, bowel and bladder issues, heart problems, mobility issues, digestive disorders, severe fatigue and many others resulting in little or very poor quality of life; and

“Whereas despite Ontario Ministry of Health claims that there are neurosurgeon doctors in Ontario, who can perform surgeries on EDS patients, when surgery is recommended, the Ontario referring physicians fail to identify any Ontario neurosurgeon willing or able to see and treat the patient;

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

“Require the Minister of Health to provide funding to hire at least one neurosurgeon who can and will perform neurosurgeries on EDS patients with equivalent or identical skills to the international EDS neurosurgeon specialists, including funding for a state-of-the-art operating room with diagnostic equipment for treatments for EDS patients; and meet the Canada Health Act’s requirement to afford equal access to medical treatment for patients, regardless of their ability to pay for out-of-country services.”

I affix my signature on this petition and hand it over to Danté.

I have a petition.

“Ontario Should Say No to Federal Gun Confiscation.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas the federal government is banning a large number of firearms legally owned by private citizens; and

“Whereas the federal government has introduced legislation for a buyback/confiscation of the banned firearms and wants provincial law enforcement agencies to execute said confiscation; and

“Whereas participating in this buyback/confiscation will take law enforcement personnel off the streets; and

“Whereas the governments of provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick and the Yukon territory have said they won’t allow provincial resources to be used for the federal gun confiscation;

“We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to inform the federal government that Ontario won’t provide funding for police agencies to execute the gun buyback/confiscation and take police off the streets to execute his gun control measures.”

I fully support this petition. I will affix my signature and send it to the Clerks’ table with page Gurkaram.

The petition is entitled “Let’s Fix the Northern Health Travel Grant.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas people in the north are not getting the same access to health care because of the high cost of travel and accommodations;

“Whereas by refusing to raise the Northern Health Travel Grant (NHTG) rates, the Ford government is putting a massive burden on northern Ontarians who are already struggling with inflation and price gouging;

“Whereas gas prices continue to rise above $2 a litre in many parts of northern Ontario;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to strike a committee with a mandate to fix and improve the NHTG;

“This NHTG advisory committee would bring together health care providers in the north, as well as recipients of the ... grant to make recommendations to the Minister of Health that would improve access to health care in northern Ontario through reimbursement of travel costs.”

I agree with this petition, will affix my signature and hand it to Sachkaur.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas the use of replacement workers undermines workers’ collective power, unnecessarily prolongs labour disputes, and removes the essential power that the withdrawal of labour is supposed to give workers to help end a dispute, that is, the ability to apply economic pressure;

“Whereas the use of scab labour contributes to higher-conflict picket lines, jeopardizes workplace safety, destabilizes normalized labour relations between workers and their employers and removes the employer incentive to negotiate and settle” a fair collective agreement; and

“Whereas strong and fair anti-scab legislation will help lead to shorter labour disputes, safer workplaces, and less hostile picket lines;

“Whereas similar legislation has been introduced in” BC “and Quebec with no increases to the number of strike or lockout days;

“Whereas Ontario had anti-scab legislation under an NDP government, that was unfortunately ripped away from workers by the Harris Conservatives;

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

“To prohibit employers from using replacement labour for the duration of any legal strike or lockout;

“To prohibit employers from using both external and internal replacement workers;

“To include significant financial penalties for employers who defy the anti-scab legislation; and

“To support Ontario’s workers and pass anti-scab labour legislation, like the Ontario NDP Bill 90, Anti-Scab Labour Act, 2023.”

I agree with the petition and I’ll sign my name.

Speaker, before I dig into the official opposition’s motion today and why it has become so imperative that the Premier disclose the contents of his personal phone and email accounts to the Information and Privacy Commissioner, I would first like to talk about leadership and the responsibility that leaders have to rise in the most difficult of moments.

A few months ago, I had the great opportunity to be present at the swearing in of new Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler, with thanks to my colleague MPP Mamakwa. Needless to say, it was very moving. With everything going on around us, whether it’s at home here in Ontario and Canada or abroad, I’ve been thinking a lot about what leadership really means. Grand Chief Fiddler talked about the privilege of leadership, of listening, of always learning from your successes and your mistakes, and why he chose to step up during a very challenging time for the 49 nations that make up NAN.

Madam Speaker, Ontario is in a similarly challenging time. I have tried time and again to use my position and resources as the leader of the official opposition to bring to this government’s attention how deeply people are struggling outside of the silos of Queen’s Park, and my entire NDP caucus team does this every single day.

This moment we are living in demands that the people Ontarians elected, who were chosen to represent their voice in this place, rise and show true leadership—to put aside partisanship, greed, rigging the system to benefit insiders, and lead the way toward prosperity. I think this has just been asking for too much from this government. This order is way too tall for this Premier.

That’s why time and again this government has shown flagrant disregard for the people of this province. Instead of using their power to deliver on meaningful solutions and relief for Ontarians at a time when they are financially squeezed, stressed, worried and weighed down by the high cost of housing and rent, mortgages, groceries, gas, the people of this province have been dealt a Premier and a government who are all too preoccupied with rigging the system to benefit their insider friends. And when they’re not busy making backroom deals that don’t look or smell right to anyone, they’re all too busy lurching from scandal to scandal, losing cabinet ministers, spinning stories when they get caught. This is how this government is leading our province.

Ontario is in a huge period of transition. When the people of this province need the government and the people they have elected to step up and show capital-L leadership, what we have instead is a government that’s under criminal investigation by the RCMP.

Speaker, let me lay down exactly why the official opposition NDP is calling on the Premier to cease his access-to-information appeal and disclose the contents of his personal phone and email accounts to the Information and Privacy Commissioner.

The first example I want to bring up is the greenbelt grab. This has become one of the biggest scandals in the history of this province—bigger even than the gas plant scandal that the Liberals served us during their time. What the government has been involved in for the past year, a scandal of their own making, has cost this province so much time, so much effort and, yes, taxpayers’ money. Virtually everyone—experts, municipalities, First Nations, the government’s own housing task force—told the Premier and his government that pursuing the greenbelt was bad policy, that there was enough land available to develop without having to touch the greenbelt or expand urban boundaries, that the housing crisis is just not about a lack of land. And yet, despite so many voices of opposition, this government single-mindedly, unilaterally pushed forward for the greenbelt to be opened up, and it was ostensibly to build luxury urban sprawl—away from built-up towns and cities, away from jobs and services, away from transit. It’s hard not to wonder, who was this all to the benefit of? It was certainly not the people of this province.

In many ways, this government’s actions have made the housing crisis worse because these real estate games that they’ve been playing, this land speculation, have only further helped home prices to go up and up and up, and Ontario is not a single step closer to building the homes we need in this province. In fact, housing starts are actually trending downwards in the province of Ontario.

The Premier can’t explain why he ignored his own task force, why he ignored every single voice, and we are now nowhere closer to solving the housing crisis—again, a very real housing crisis in this province. More than five years in government, and they have nothing to show. Thousands in tax dollars have been wasted in the wrongful pursuit of parts of the province that were never meant for homes—thousands of dollars and people’s time and effort that could have been meaningfully spent in following the recommendations of the government’s own housing affordability task force. This government’s scandal, this corruption, has set Ontario back years on building the homes that our province so desperately needs.

Speaker, we know these schemes go beyond the greenbelt. I’ve visited the greenbelt issue here, but I’m going to take it a bit beyond that. Even a criminal investigation of the dealings around the greenbelt hasn’t stopped this government. The Premier continues to show us who he really is: someone who puts the interests of a very few of his well-connected insiders above everybody else, and everyone else in Ontario suffers because of it.

I want to talk for a minute about municipal zoning orders. The greenbelt grab made it clear that this government’s schemes run way deeper than we first thought. The greenbelt was a very small glimpse into this government’s troubling pattern of preferential treatment for well-connected land speculators. Ontarians are onside with the official opposition, and they have questions about how far and how deep this pattern extends to other decisions. Does it also include urban boundaries and this government’s frequent use of MZOs? The government says they are now going to reverse course on those urban boundary expansions that came out of nowhere, but let me be clear and, in the words of our critic and caucus chair, MPP Burch, tell you that is the very least the government could be doing, the absolute bare minimum. They finally find themselves without a choice, backed into a corner, because it’s just such bad policy. It makes no sense—so why? What is the government’s motivation?

Well, to Ontarians, I would say that the Ontario NDP are committed to answering those questions and bringing ethics and transparency back to Queen’s Park.

Interjections.

If I may, I’d like to take a moment to quote some of my colleagues here, Speaker—because they say it so well.

The member for Hamilton West–Ancaster–Dundas—I’m going to quote that member. “These forced urban boundaries are the other half of” the Premier’s “greenbelt scheme that benefited wealthy land speculators. I call on” the Premier “to do the right thing and respect the decision of our Hamilton council and community by cancelling this plan.” Well said.

The member for Ottawa West–Nepean said, “Ottawa’s city council has asked the new housing minister to review” the Premier’s “plan—but” the Premier “can’t be bothered to listen.” But “the Ontario NDP are listening and are committed to getting to the bottom of what happened and reversing these forced expansions.” Well said.

The member for Waterloo, somebody I love to quote, says as follows—I’m going to quote her again: “It seems that” the Premier “doesn’t trust our cities to do their jobs. We’re already losing 319 acres of farmland a day in the province of Ontario, and” this government’s “forced expansion will make it worse. After the backlash to his greenbelt scandal, he should think twice.” Strong words from the member from Waterloo.

Madam Speaker, I agree with every single word they said.

This government’s forceful boundary expansions must be investigated. Who’s benefiting? We know that the availability of land is not the issue. A few developers or land speculators out there right now might seem to be the luckiest ones in the whole world, getting an inside scoop on which land to buy right before it’s being added to the urban boundary. Given the Auditor General’s findings regarding the greenbelt, we think it’s absolutely essential that this case of lucky insiders cashing in is also investigated.

One of the properties that the province included in the urban boundary expansion was a 37-hectare farm at 1177 Watters Road, Ottawa, purchased in August 2021 for $12.7 million. All five directors of 1177 Watters Developments Ltd., the company that owns the property at 1177 Watters Road, donated a combined $12,315 to the Ontario Conservatives in 2021 and 2022. This property had been excluded by the city of Ottawa from its official plan due to the provincial government’s own policy to protect valuable farmland, and still, this government chose to include it, raising even more questions.

I want to quote, again, my colleague the MPP for Ottawa West–Nepean right here: “Questions of integrity aside, this decision will cost Ottawa taxpayers for years. The price of building the necessary infrastructure to develop these lands could fall in the billions—a tall price to pay for development that Ottawa’s city staff determined unnecessary in our fight against the housing crisis.”

These expansions are absolutely unacceptable. Municipalities and Ontarians are seriously concerned, and they want and deserve answers. So the official opposition was very pleased to see that the Auditor General will launch an audit into the way this government selects and approves MZOs in this province. I welcome the eventual report that is going to shine a light on this process.

Now I want to talk about the boys’ trip to Las Vegas. I wish our evidence of this government schemes wasn’t as long as it is, but here we are.

On October 18, we, the official opposition NDP, submitted a request to the Integrity Commissioner, asking him to investigate what exactly happened on that boys’ trip to Las Vegas that, unfortunately, has become quite well known to the people of this province—a trip that the member for Mississauga East–Cooksville, the former Conservative Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery, took with two of the Premier’s top advisers: his principal secretary and his housing policy director. And guess who was also along for the ride? A land speculator who stood to benefit from the greenbelt grab. The member’s story on what happened in Las Vegas has changed many, many times. First, he told the Integrity Commissioner that he’d only been there once since he was elected—turns out, it was at least twice. But worse, this government wants us to believe that it was a total coincidence that one of their MPPs and two of the Premier’s closest advisers all provided the wrong dates to the Integrity Commissioner and only corrected the record once media reported evidence to the contrary.

This was a trip apparently paid for entirely in cash. I’ve got to tell you, most people, including myself, didn’t even know that you could still buy expensive airline tickets in cash anymore.

This whole Vegas trip raises so many questions. What were three high-ranking government members doing in Las Vegas with a land speculator? Why were they getting massages together? What else happened in Vegas? And if there’s nothing to hide—this is the important piece—then why did they provide inaccurate information to the Auditor General at that point?

From where I’m standing, none of this looks right, and we know that it doesn’t look right to Ontarians either. We are determined, on this side of the House, to get people the answers and the truth that they deserve.

Once again, let me remind members across the aisle, people out there are very frustrated right now. They are frustrated with the growing cost of living and a government that isn’t doing a thing about it—a government that has brought back a cash-for-access culture in this province. But our promise to the people of this province remains: Step by step, we’re going to put an end to it.

I want to get to a fourth point, which is that while Ontarians, again, are struggling to put food on the table, this government has decided to prioritize building a luxury spa in downtown Toronto.

Madam Speaker, the official opposition has tried to bring this government’s attention to what’s happening outside Queen’s Park several times now. Let me say it again: Ontarians are struggling. They’re lining up at food banks. Even people with two or three jobs—we see this all the time—full-time jobs, are waiting in line at food banks. They’re making meal choices depending on what they’re able to get from the 50% section. The thing is that this is the new normal for so many people in this province.

In these very tough financial times, what we have is a Premier and a government who are busy trying to get a luxury spa built on public land in downtown Toronto. Why? The Premier has called his plan for Ontario Place a “bold vision.” Those are his words, not mine. But the fact of the matter is there is absolutely nothing bold about this plan at all. It is not bold to build a luxury spa that will be used by almost nobody in this province. People are barely able to make rent in this province. Does this Premier really think that they are able to afford luxury massages? Maybe they do—I don’t know. We’ll just leave that to their cabinet ministers, to go get them in Las Vegas, maybe. His plans for Ontario Place just show how absolutely terrible and out of touch this government is from the people of this province. They are living in the twilight zone. The plan is arrogant, it ignores the interests of Ontarians, and it blatantly disrespects the taxpayer.

The official opposition is committed to bringing transparency back to Queen’s Park. We’re determined to uncover just how deep this government’s corruption runs. That’s why—just like we did with the greenbelt, just like we’re doing to investigate who’s benefiting from those MZOs that have proliferated under this government—the official opposition NDP has supported the call for the provincial Auditor General to conduct a “compliance investigation and value-for-money audit” of this government’s plans for Ontario Place. The Auditor General is going to be very busy.

We also submitted a freedom-of-information request to Infrastructure Ontario to get answers for Ontarians—answers and transparency that this government has been denying the people of this province. I can tell you that the Ontario NDP, your official opposition, have obtained documents from Infrastructure Ontario that contain mounting evidence of a rigged process for the Ontario Place redevelopment—a process that ultimately saw this public parkland handed over to Therme. These documents include a parking study from Infrastructure Ontario from January 2021 that mentions Therme and its half-billion-dollar parking garage nearly two years before the public even knew about it. That was also before an election, as I recall. They didn’t talk about it there. It suggests, by the way, that the Premier gifted a publicly funded half-billion-dollar parking garage to Therme and hid it from the public for nearly two years. That’s half a billion dollars of Ontarians’ money being spent on an elite luxury spa while people were pleading for investment in our emergency rooms and our schools.

The greenbelt looked bad from the start, and so does this one. This government is just putting its hands in one deal after another deal. If the Premier has nothing to hide, then why won’t they give us more details on the rushed and secretive deal that this government has cut with Therme, a private European luxury spa company?

We the Ontario NDP are committed to making sure that this land is publicly accessible, not just today but in perpetuity.

We’ve learned through recent media reports—that’s right, Speaker; through the media, but not this government—that the Minister of Infrastructure was informed by Carmine Nigro, the chair of Ontario Place Corp.—of course, we all know, a very good friend of the Premier and a big donor of the Conservative Party, who also got appointed to the head of LCBO. He was informing the government that the site had 2.8 million visitors in 2022 and turned a record profit. Why is it that the minister never shared these numbers with the public? Why did she instead choose to keep Ontarians in the dark and insist that Ontario Place is not enjoyed by anyone, when all the evidence shows the opposite?

The people of this province are being kept in the dark about what this deal is costing them, and let me tell you, that number keeps growing. Initial estimates put taxpayers on the hook for $650 million for the parking garage and for site preparation. We are now seeing that that is a low estimate, as it appears that taxpayers are going to be on the hook for the upgraded water and sewer systems to fill this private luxury spa’s pools and to treat their sewage water.

Commercial property in downtown Toronto sells for approximately $200 per buildable square foot. With 700,000 square feet, that means the West Island at Ontario Place is worth—are you ready?—$1.4 billion. Not only is this government handing over that prime public parkland to an Austrian luxury spa corporation for free, but they’re also giving this corporation that other hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money that I talked about.

So, as the official opposition, we want this project and its secretive deal cancelled.

My next point is, like so many of this government’s undertakings, whether we’re talking about the greenbelt or Ontario Place, the resurrection of Highway 413, too, begs the question of who is benefiting from this deal. It’s not a deal that will do one bit to make Ontarians’ life better or easier. Studies on Highway 413 show that it will only reduce travel time by up to 60 seconds. Then why did this government go to such immense lengths to speed up development, especially after the project was axed? Once again, we find ourselves asking the question: Who stands to benefit if it’s built? Thanks to a deep investigation by the Toronto Star, we know the people who stand to benefit all have some relationship to the Conservative Party—either they’ve worked with the government previously or they’re big donors to the party. The Star’s investigation found that eight of Ontario’s most powerful land developers owned thousands of acres of prime real estate near the proposed route of the controversial Highway 413. Four of the developers are connected to the Premier’s government through party officials and former Conservative politicians—now acting, by the way, as registered lobbyists. What do you know?

According to the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, if built, Highway 413 will raze 2,000 acres of farmland, cut across 85 waterways, and pave nearly 400 acres of protected greenbelt land in Vaughan. It would also disrupt 220 wetlands and the habitats of 10 species at risk.

These are issues that Ontarians really care about. As I travel around the province, I am always struck by that. Ontarians care about this. They care about their food security. They care about the future of farming. They care about species at risk. They care about wetlands.

One of the developers, John Di Poce, was the head of the Ontario PC Party’s fundraising arm for several years, and three other developers—worked on the member for York–Simcoe’s 2018 Conservative leadership campaign, as a government lobbyist. As the former Minister of Transportation, that member played a key role in the decisions about the 413 highway.

Another of the developers, Michael DeGasperis, hosted the Premier and the education minister in a private luxury suite at the BB&T Center in Miami to watch a Florida Panthers NHL game in December 2018—coincidence?

Ms. Stiles has moved opposition day motion number 3.

I return to the member.

You can’t make this up.

When I left off the debate, I was talking about the fact that we have a home care industry that works really well for private executives seeking to take money—like the billion dollars proposed by Bill 135—and channel it into investors and private profit. The studies that I’m familiar with have shown that we lose up to 30% of every dollar the province invests in home care in for-profit companies and the dividends they pay to shareholders and the fantastic salaries they lavish on their executives.

I was talking about Linda Knight at CarePartners, someone who has been in this building a lot, lobbying politicians—the $140 million that her company enjoys in contracts.

I want to talk about this from the more important side of the home care spectrum, from the standpoint of personal support workers who work for Linda Knight and CarePartners. I want to quote Dyana Forshner-Juby, who spoke to a reporter three years ago. This is what she had to say, “I’m just sad that I’ve done [care work] for my whole career. My whole career has been taking care of people and trying to uphold a certain standard of care. And to come to this stage, so close to being able to retire and of course, I’m retiring with nothing. I got nothing. There’s no pension plan. And I’m sitting here with a toothache because I don’t have dental coverage, and I’m like, I take my whole life to take care of people. And nobody’s taking care of me.” That is home care, sadly, in the province of Ontario.

The folks on the front lines who are directly delivering the care to persons with disabilities and seniors are getting the shaft by Linda Knight. They’re being told, “Come work for me and enjoy a career” in the glossy brochures. When Dyana shows up for work, she shows up without dental coverage, without a pension plan and without travel being covered, and she goes from client to client. In what province do we treat care workers this way? I’ll tell you what kind of province, Speaker: It’s the kind of province that over the last two decades has seen Conservative and Liberal governments take this critical industry, home care, and hand it over as a gift to the private sector, hand it over as a gift to Linda Knight and CarePartners.

The people who suffer when we line the profits of home care executives are the workers like Dyana. They are also the patients—patients like Mike McLean. Mike McLean, who, back home, had to receive—wait for it—palliative care not from the Bayshore worker assigned to him as he tried to die with dignity in his own home, but he had to receive palliative care from his daughter, who happens to be a nurse, because more often than not, PSWs working for Bayshore were double-booked and they couldn’t show up.

Can you imagine, Speaker, a situation in which the McLean family does what they’re supposed to do, gets on the roster, files for at-home PSW care for palliative care—a very difficult situation that I’m sure some of us in this House have had to deal with—people aren’t showing up, and the daughter of the family, who happens to have medical expertise, is filling the gap? Filling the gap—why? I submit, for our debate on Bill 135, she’s filling the gap so Bayshore can make profits at the expense of the Ontario public, at the expense of the Ontario taxpayer.

It is shameful that we aren’t—I can’t even remember; I’m looking at my colleagues here for some help. How many times have we debated home care in different pieces of legislation in the last five years? At least three or four. Not once has the government proposed taking home care out of the for-profit hands of Bayshore, of ParaMed, of CarePartners so that the McLean family wouldn’t have to rely on their daughter to administer palliative care to her father in his last days.

Speaker, I was at the social policy committee in the last iteration of Parliament, and the CEO of Bayshore deputed to the committee. I asked that gentleman, “Can we see all of the contracts that you currently have with the Ministry of Health? Can we scrutinize how much Bayshore spends on administrative costs, on management compensation, dividends to shareholders? The Auditor General has seen some of those reports, and she has told us that we’re losing up to 30% of every dollar Ontario is investing in home care in frivolous administrative costs, executive compensation and dividends to shareholders.” That gentleman told me in the course of that meeting, “Oh, MPP Harden, yes, I would be happy to give you some of those records.” We followed up once, we followed up twice, we followed up three times, through the Chair of the committee, to Bayshore. We heard the sound of one hand clapping—not a single document released, not a single effort made on behalf of this discredited corporation, in my opinion. And I am talking about the leadership here. I’m not talking about the hard-working PSWs and community care nurses who are doing their best to provide the care that we deserve here in Ontario. I’m talking about the greedy, pocket-stuffing executives we have been subsidizing in this province for far too long.

Frankly, I am embarrassed that we are debating home care again in this province and there’s no proposal from the government to do what great countries like the country of Denmark have done, which is to take home care out of private, for-profit companies and to make sure that there is an immediate care coordinator available to every single family in that country; that they can sign folks up; that people are never double-booked as PSWs or care attendants; that the people providing the care have decent pensions, have decent benefits; that being a personal support worker, being a community nurse, is a desirable occupation.

Do you know, Speaker, I was saying to the member for Niagara Falls before we started debate—I don’t think he would mind me sharing this with the House—that I had a private conversation with the former mayor of Ottawa, Jim Watson. We were at one of the many events the city runs to celebrate achievers in our community, like the city of Ottawa awards. And every time the mayor does this, they bring out the colour guard, the marching band for the police and the fire and the paramedics. It’s always a really wonderful bagpiping ceremony. It adds a certain air of professionalism. I said to the mayor at the time, given what we had been through in the pandemic, “There should be a personal support worker colour guard. They should be as honourable and celebrated a profession as those other first responders”—because every personal support worker I know in the city of Ottawa, that’s how they think of themselves often. They are first responders. They are the ones who look in on people. They sometime find people who have fallen and hurt themselves. They often go into homes in dangerous situations, where people have behaviours—they may be living with dementia. They may not want to lash out and hurt a PSW—but it might just be a function of the job.

I would love to see the province of Ontario devote a lot of attention to not just talking about all the awful situations in which PSW members have found themselves, because that scares people out of the occupation, but I would like to see us promote it, to say that a PSW, a community nurse—these are critical occupations, and we need people going into colleges, we need people going into universities, we need people choosing that as their path.

A government that I, personally, would love to be part of is a government that did exactly what the country of Denmark has done: create a systematic home care system, funded by the public, accountable to the public—all disclosures are made available to the public—where the workers were proud of their work, and seniors and persons with disabilities got to live in their homes for as long as they chose. They got to choose the moment, if they wanted to, when they would require 24/7 frailty care—high-acuity care. But that’s not the situation right now. We have situations in which persons with disabilities and seniors are choosing to go into private, often for-profit long-term care with shoddy records—not on the workers’ side, but again, on the management side, and how money is squandered for private profit. They are choosing to be admitted into these institutions because they can’t afford home care or there’s no home care available.

I’m going to round this out by saying this again to my friends in government: If we are serious about home care—because I think it actually is one of the critical industries of our province—we have to stop treating it like the neglected cousin of health care.

We have to go on a mass recruiting drive in high schools right now to say, “Being a personal support worker and a community nurse is an honourable profession. You are going to be giving people dignity. You’re going to help people get out in their community.”

We have to partner with culturally appropriate care, so if a senior is coming from a particular community—the Chinese community, Muslim community, Jewish community, whatever that community may be—they have home care that is culturally appropriate for them.

And finally, please, can we stop lining the pockets of Linda Knight, of Bayshore, of CarePartners, of these companies that somehow managed to seize control of the home care industry, from the time that we had an NDP government in this province and we cared about that?

We have to retile the doors—retile the doors. Inside the house will be all the people who want to care for our loved ones, people who need the care—and the public prepared to pay for it. People on the outside, if we have our way, will be all the gougers, the profiteers, the people who should have never been there in the first place.

Further debate? Further debate?

MPP Stiles has moved opposition day motion number 3. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

All those in favour of the motion will please say “aye.”

All those opposed to the motion will please say “nay.”

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

Call in the members. There will be a 10-minute bell.

The division bells rang from 1408 to 1418.

MPP Stiles has moved opposition day number 3. All those in favour of the motion will please rise one at a time and be recognized by the Clerk.

Motion negatived.

Resuming the debate adjourned on October 23, 2023, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 135, An Act to amend the Connecting Care Act, 2019 with respect to home and community care services and health governance and to make related amendments to other Acts / Projet de loi 135, Loi modifiant la Loi de 2019 pour des soins interconnectés en ce qui concerne les services de soins à domicile et en milieu communautaire et la gouvernance de la santé et apportant des modifications connexes à d’autres lois.

The ayes are 30; the nays are 55.

I know; it’s shocking.

And yet, here’s yet another chance for this government to step up and do the right thing. Will they finally show true leadership and pass this motion? Will the members of this government caucus stand up for transparency, for accountability, for integrity? Will they have the guts to stand up to the Premier and stop cowering before him?

Really, I’ve got to tell you, he’s not so scary. We stand up to him every day; you should be able to as well.

It’s time to stand up and do what your Premier won’t: Bring things out into the open, shed some light, clear your good names and pass this motion.

Thanks to the member for your comments on this home care bill.

He is quite right; we’ve been debating the model of home care in the province of Ontario since I came here 11 years ago. The Liberals, before the Conservatives, were dead set on regarding home care as a business.

There is a commercial quality to the services. It is not an extension of the health care system. And the people who are working within that broken home care system are continually disenfranchised, and they are mostly women. And they are mostly—in Waterloo region and across the province—racialized women. And they do not have a voice, even when they’re fighting for more hours so that their clients can get a bath or be fed with some dignity, or so that they can just sit in a moment of compassion with their senior.

My question to the member is, what do you think is actually driving another piece of legislation which doesn’t solve the home care problem in the province of Ontario?

The member spoke about culturally competent care, so I just want to remind the member that this is the government that, for the first time in the history of Ontario, is building culturally sensitive homes. We have the Canadian Coptic Centre developing a home in Mississauga. We have the Muslim Welfare Centre, who are building a Muslim long-term-care home—Guru Nanak Long-Term Care Centre in Brampton. And I could go on probably for an hour listing all the culturally sensitive homes that we are building.

Further to that, we have trained over 16,000 PSWs through the accelerated program—that we have invested in their education. So PSWs are a respected part of our health care system.

Why does the member opposite keep voting no for all the investments that we are making into long-term care, into home care and into educating more PSWs in our health care system?

I’m happy to ask a question of my colleague on his thoughtful remarks.

I’ve got an email here from Cindy, a PSW in my community. Some of what she said is, “I make top wage of 22.50 after 10 years and we are struggling. With inflation we are having to go to food banks or get second jobs.... We actually hold people’s lives in our hands and enable people to live and die in their own homes but can’t afford to eat or live in our own home.... We deserve to be treated with respect for the jobs we do because without us how” do “your parents, grandparents or even yourselves live alone if they need care. Something needs to be done now!! We need a living wage to continue in this profession and to be treated with respect period.”

She also flagged for me that she sees that there is “a waiting list for PSW service in home care in our area of 491 people. That is only going to get worse as we are treated as second-class health care workers.”

I was wondering, where in this bill is there something for me to share with Cindy that is positive about her circumstances and her future in this profession?

I take what my friend has said to heart. I think people do want to live at home. They want to be at home. They don’t want to be in hospitals. A number of persons with disabilities and seniors I’ve spoken to don’t want to be admitted into long-term care. That is a personal choice they’ve made.

But what you’ve said and what the government has introduced to date has not done anything about the fact that we are losing 30% on the dollar of every—there’s a billion dollars contemplated with this bill, as I understand it. We are losing a third of every dollar we’re spending because we’re lining the pockets of the for-profit companies. So all the good work that you’re going to do to take those thousand people and bring them back home into the community—if they can’t get a care worker to show up on time, if those care workers are double-booked, if their travel isn’t covered, if they’re not making decent salaries, if they have no pensions and no benefits, then I believe your bill is set up to fail.

What I’m going to do just to punctuate the point for my friend from Oshawa is to say this: Can you imagine an Ontario where there was an agreed-upon minimum standard of compensation for all PSWs? The government, through Ontario Health, could do it right now. That is what Denmark does. There is one standard of pay, one standard of benefits, one standard of travel being covered. Can you imagine that?

I can tell you, for any lawyer working for this government right now—you better believe there’s a minimum standard that they expect to be paid. Any deputy minister? Oh, there’s a minimum standard of what they expect to be paid. And they work hard. Why can’t we do the same for PSWs? Why do we have to watch them be gouged by greedy companies that have been ripping off the public purse for too long? That, I believe, my friend, is what’s hurting Cindy, and we need a government that’s going to stop that and stop it right now.

What I would say to all of those homes that are being built that are culturally appropriate homes—I want the workers who are going to work in those buildings to know that they have the right to join a union. We had SEIU Healthcare in this building not long ago. They should sign up to SEIU Healthcare, because right now there’s no government that’s willing to guarantee a standard of living and wages.

The member is a nurse, and I respect the work that she has done in the province of Ontario. The member benefited from that work done by the associations representing her profession.

I want to see PSWs valued more and paid more. That is the missing piece, honestly. Back to my friend: We can build homes. Homes and beds are great infrastructure. But what makes them come alive are the people who work in them. So that is the thing we need a government to do. And if this government isn’t prepared to do it, believe me, in 2026, there will be a government prepared to pass laws to ensure PSWs are paid appropriately, their travel is covered, they have pensions and benefits just like all of us in this building.

Questions?

Thank you to the member opposite for your remarks.

I do have a point I want to speak to. Ontario Health, as you may or you may not know, launched the Let’s Go Home program across all 15 OHTs in the west region, and this is to support the avoidance of ALC. This program coordinates seamless discharge from the hospital and emergency department diversion for those who are at greatest risk. Since this program launched, in fact, in the fourth quarter, more than 1,000 people have been supported. So my question to the member is, can you see how programs such as this are being supported through Bill 135 and would be welcomed in your community?

To the member opposite: You did mention earlier, and you are correct—our government is investing $1 billion over three years to expand and improve home care services. This is going to be across the province. That’s $100 million for community service. I will note that was part of our 2022 budget, which the member opposite voted against.

Also, budget 2023 accelerated investments to bring home care funding in 2023-24 up to $569 million, which, again, the member opposite voted against.

My question to the member opposite: Can you see how making the delivery system more streamlined, which this bill is going to do, will assist in delivering programs?

Home care services in Ontario address the needs of people of all ages, including children and youth with medically complex needs, the frail elderly and other seniors, people with physical disabilities, people with chronic diseases, and people who require health care services on a short- or long-term basis to live safely in their home and community.

With an aging population that is living longer, home and community care is going to be an increasingly important component of our health care system. It is critical that our system has the most effective structure, policies and approaches in place to ensure Ontarians have access to better and more convenient home and community care.

As outlined by the Deputy Premier and Minister of Health, the gradual transition of home care into Ontario health teams is a fundamental part of the work to improve the home care experience for patients and families, and improve how providers collaborate to provide care.

Alors que notre gouvernement continue de moderniser les services de soins à domicile et en milieu communautaire, y compris la planification de la transition des services de soins à domicile vers les équipes santé Ontario, nous avons écouté attentivement et avons travaillé en étroite collaboration avec les organismes prestataires de services, le personnel des services de soins à domicile, les patients et leurs familles, ainsi qu’avec d’autres partenaires du système afin de garantir l’existence d’une base solide de soin plus étroitement intégrée aux autres composantes du système de santé et qui est fondée sur le principe central des soins axés sur le patient. Une partie essentielle du travail continu en vue d’une approche moderne et centrée sur le patient des services de soins à domicile est la continuité des soins aux patients tout au long de ce processus. Il est essentiel d’éviter toute interruption pour les patients et leurs familles.

Ontario health teams are already transforming how people access care in their communities. And the province has engaged in thoughtful planning and preparation to ensure stable home care delivery is maintained while improvements to care are made and the gradual transition to Ontario health teams takes place—because the only thing better than having care close to home is having care in your home.

The proposed Convenient Care at Home Act is the latest legislation designed to improve home care. Significant progress has already been made to modernize the home care sector to achieve better patient outcomes through system integration and help ensure the sustainability of our publicly funded health care system for future generations.

In 2020, our government introduced the Connecting People to Home and Community Care Act, which established a new framework for home and community care under the Connecting Care Act. This new legislative framework, complete with the accompanying home and community care regulations, took effect in 2022. This legislative framework was an initial step designed to facilitate the delivery of home care by Ontario health teams and enable new models of care, including changes to care coordination.

The Connecting People to Home and Community Care Act ushered in a new, flexible and modern framework for home and community care. This new framework enables the provision of home care services by Ontario health teams, as well as more flexible, efficient and responsive care coordination and service delivery by contracted service provider organizations.

Le nouveau cadre législatif et réglementaire des soins à domicile et en milieu communautaire établi par la loi sur les soins de santé a jeté les bases de service de soins à domicile intégrés, réactifs et innovants—qui sera maintenant davantage développé par la proposition de la Loi sur la prestation commode de soins à domicile.

L’une des premières étapes en vertu de la législation proposée consisterait à regrouper les 14 organismes de soutien aux soins à domicile en une seule organisation, appelée Santé à domicile Ontario, qui serait chargée de coordonner l’ensemble des services de soins à domicile dans la province au moyen des équipes santé Ontario, relevant de Santé Ontario. Santé à domicile Ontario serait un guichet unique qui fournirait aux personnes des plans de soins à domicile faciles à comprendre, leur permettant de connaître les soins qu’elles recevront et quand, avant de rentrer chez elles depuis l’hôpital.

La création d’une organisation unique permettrait de relever les défis systématiques liés à la prestation des soins à domicile. Au lieu de politiques et de processus différents, ou de systèmes de technologie de l’information distincts, une organisation unique pourrait réduire les fonctions et l’administration redondantes et soutiendrait l’efficacité du système et permettrait de généraliser les meilleures pratiques.

Ontario Health would fund and oversee both the new organization and Ontario health teams, helping to ensure strategic direction is aligned. Ontario Health would also be able to align funding and oversight of home and community care with other health system organizations and sectors.

Ontario Health has significant experience with integrating our health care system. Ontario Health has already integrated 22 former health agencies and organizations, such as Cancer Care Ontario, eHealth Ontario, Health Quality Ontario and others into a single organization, bringing together the expertise and experience of these former agencies to support a more connected, high-quality health care system. Ontario Health has worked with the Ministry of Health to achieve more than $300 million in ongoing, annualized savings to reinvest back into direct patient care.

Ontario Health is also implementing the province’s Digital First for Health Strategy, which provides employment for and administrative support of the Office of the Patient Ombudsman; supports the Mental Health and Addictions Centre of Excellence, which is helping to implement the Roadmap to Wellness, the province’s mental health and addictions strategy; and continues to support the government’s supply chain centralization efforts.

Ontario Health is enabling supply chain excellence across the health sector, including supporting home care by making significant progress in leading new provincial procurements for home care medical equipment and supplies and related services which are critical to delivering patient care. For years, there has been significant variation across the province, and this was identified as an opportunity for improvement.

Ontario Health and the Home and Community Care Support Services organizations have worked closely together to plan for implementation of these new contracts for medical equipment and supplies. This work will bring significant value for Ontario, improve the provider experience, and simplify and standardize key processes that focus on patient care.

Ontario Health has also enhanced the provincial formulary for advanced wound care products and developed the first-ever provincial formulary for home care products, which will be made available to all patients irrespective of where they are in the province, improving the quality and equity of patient care.

Le ministère a écouté attentivement et a travaillé en étroite collaboration avec les organismes prestataires de services, le personnel des soins à domicile et en milieu communautaire et d’autres partenaires du système, ainsi que les patients et leurs familles, et continuera à collaborer avec les partenaires du système tout au long de ce processus.

Au fur et à mesure de la transition vers les équipes santé Ontario, les patients et les aidants continueront à accéder aux services de soins à domicile et en milieu communautaire de la même manière et par l’intermédiaire des mêmes contacts qu’ils ont appris à connaître et en qui ils ont confiance.

Speaker, Ontario’s Home and Community Care Support Services organizations, which would transition to a single agency under Ontario Health, have also been engaging in collaborative efforts to support more connected home care, including supporting Ontario health teams. For example, Home and Community Care Support Services Central East is supporting the Durham Ontario Health Team leading project, which will deliver an integrated system of care for the residents of the downtown Oshawa neighbourhood. The residents of this area have higher rates of chronic conditions and a higher utilization of emergency, community and social services when compared to the regional average. Through the downtown Oshawa neighbourhood integrated model of care, patients will be able to access care from various providers on-site at a mid-rise apartment building that is also home to a significant amount of seniors facing socio-economic challenges.

Providers on-site will include care coordinators, community paramedicine providers, Lakeridge Health mental health services, Community Care Durham, and contracted service provider organizations. Care may also be accessed through self-referrals and primary care referrals, and the patient pathway is based on the principle of “no wrong door” to services.

In Central East, a multidisciplinary mobile emergency diversion team has also been established, composed of rapid response nurses, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, nurse practitioners and community paramedicine providers. The team assists with immediate patient care needs such as IV medication administration, wound care, and home safety assessments until contracted home care services can be secured. This temporary and urgent hands-on care is allowing patients to be discharged from the hospital, and it also prevents a return trip to the emergency department. The multidisciplinary mobile emergency diversion team was first piloted in the Peterborough area and helped to divert 92 emergency department visits within 120 days.

In North Simcoe Muskoka, a stroke care coordinator role has been developed to improve the transition from hospital to home and provide ongoing care for people who have experienced a stroke. Based out of the Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre and supported by the Central East Stroke Network, the program has helped increase the number of stroke patients admitted to the home and community care support services stroke pathway and supported admissions to the pathway from all area hospitals. Benefits include warm hand-offs of patients who are transitioned from hospital to the community, a reduction in hospital readmissions for stroke patients, and improved integration between home care and outpatient programs.

In Central West, the hospital-to-home direct nursing service supports palliative patients through regular check-ins and symptom monitoring from a dedicated team of nurses. These nurses assess patients and can provide appropriate patient care, which helps to avoid an emergency or acute-care intervention. The hospital-to-home nurse completes weekly clinical assessments of the patient, their symptoms and the situation in the home, and provides education and resources to support the patient and their family so the patient can remain safely in their own home.

Home and Community Care Support Services South West has also implemented palliative care initiatives such as providing specialized education in palliative care, which is enabling patients to have access to nurses with more specialized skills in palliative care and supporting more patient- and family-centred end-of-life care in their place of choice: their home.

To address gaps in home care, the ministry engages extensively with key partners to expand more equitable access to services. The ministry provides up to $14.8 million in funding directly to First Nations communities to deliver front-line home care services such as nursing, personal support and therapy. An additional investment of $4.2 million is provided to urban Indigenous organizations to deliver culturally appropriate home care to Indigenous people in urban areas throughout Ontario.

To be more inclusive of all Indigenous patients, communities and organizations, a new category of Indigenous services has been added to the suite of services that comprise home and community care. Traditional healing services and Indigenous cultural support services fall under this category of services. These broader, more inclusive services will support more equitable access to culturally appropriate services for all Indigenous patients.

Already, new models of home care delivery are being implemented to enable a more integrated experience for clients and their families. The Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario is now responsible for home care delivery, building stronger links between home care and the people who care for children at the hospital. Through a model of care called @home, a number of hospitals and health care partners are working together to provide eligible patients and their families with an integrated approach to transitioning patients home from the hospital.

Most patients enrolled in @home programs have been seniors at significant risk for re-hospitalization. Patients receive care for up to 16 weeks, after which many transition to home and community care support services for ongoing health care and personal supports. Care coordinators from home and community care support services central have already supported the safe transition of hundreds of patients through recently established at-home programs from five hospitals: Humber River, Mackenzie Health, Markham-Stouffville, North York General and Southlake.

Once patients are safely at home, home care providers continue to work together to meet the individual patient’s needs, often with one or more services such as nursing, personal support, restorative and rehabilitation services, and medical equipment and supplies. This connected patient-centred model of care has optimized patient recovery while also helping to support hospital capacity by ensuring the hospital beds are available for those who need them the most.

On top of all of this, last year we announced over $1 billion to expand access to home care services over the next three years, which will benefit nearly 700,000 families who rely on home care by expanding home care services while recruiting and training more home care workers. In addition, the government announced an additional $548.5 million investment in home care over three years that is in addition to the $1-billion investment previously mentioned. This will help prevent unnecessary hospital and long-term-care admissions and shorten hospital stays. Most importantly, it will provide Ontarians with the choice to stay in their home longer, close to loved ones.

We are seeing more and more examples of the benefits of connected and integrated care, including through the province’s community paramedicine initiative, where providers who are trained as paramedics work alongside home care and primary care providers to give people living with chronic health conditions additional support to live at home more independently. Speaker, home care is an important connector in our health care system, enabling—