Yes. So these PSWs have to travel—let’s say there’s a patient in Smooth Rock, so she’ll go to Smooth Rock Falls, and then she has to go to Mattice, and then she has to come back to another community. But because she’s paid so much an hour, she has to cut down, because the distance is too far to do on the same day, on the same shift. Guess what happens? This patient who has been diagnosed—and they say, “No, you’re entitled to these services. You’re entitled to have two baths a week, so you’re going to have an hour of service a day.” Guess what happens to an hour a day? It’s down to 15 minutes.

I’ll talk to you more about this example. It’s right here—and this is one couple in Mattice. They used to receive one hour twice per week. Now they are only getting 15 minutes per visit. This is not enough time to even bathe the patient, let alone help with their medication and tend to their other needs. There is no time for conversation. It feels like they don’t matter and they are just there for the money. The wife is also aging and can no longer do any heavy lifting and is limited in how she can bend and move. She would be willing to pay for more care, but there’s nobody available.

Nobody available—well, do you think privatizing the system will get more services up north? I’ve got a reality: They will go where the money is, where the people are, the population. And who pays for this? It will be, again, my constituents, my colleagues’ constituents, everybody up north’s constituents. That’s the reality we’re facing.

People are coming in. They’re finding out what the work is. They leave faster than they came in. These non-profit organizations—by the way, their budget has been frozen for years—would love to pay more, would love to try to retain them, would love to give them benefits.

And let’s not forget what you guys have done: Remember Bill 124? Oh, you really helped us there. Comme ils disent en bon français : « un bon coup de pied dans le derrière », monsieur le Président. Et je pèse mes paroles là-dessus. Je n’use pas les vrais termes qu’on use en français. Il y a un terme qu’on use en français qui n’est peut-être pas trop parlementaire. Je peux vous dire que je pèse mes paroles quand je dis ça, là.

Mais la réalité est vraie : vous avez tué notre système. Vous avez tué notre système dans le Nord. Il faut de l’aide dans le Nord parce qu’on a de la misère à avoir—on peut les développer, mais ils ne viendront pas travailler chez nous. Ils vont aller travailler pour les agences à 115 $ ou à 55 $ ou 65 $, pas à 20-quelque-chose piastres de l’heure. Puis qu’ils sont obligés d’aller rencontrer un patient et de dire : « écoute, monsieur, aujourd’hui tu as une heure—je ne peux pas te donner ton bain parce que je n’ai que 15 minutes à te donner »? Pas fort.

Quand je vous entends dire qu’on va uniformiser notre système—“we’ll make this system a lot better. We will make sure that everybody gets their service”—every time, you bring all the service and want to consolidate, like you said, do you know who pays the price? Northern Ontario pays the price, because then small communities compete with bigger cities, and guess who loses? Small communities, every time. And then you go north on that, even north, you pay encore more. They pay even more.

Fait que, quand je vous entends dire que vous allez uniformiser et que vous allez privatiser et que : « non, on ne privatise pas; on veut améliorer le système »—on l’a déjà vu ce bateau-là passer. On la connaît, la toune. Et la toune, c’est que l’on sait qu’il va y avoir une perte de services encore et que ça va nous coûter plus cher. Ce n’est pas moi qui le dit, là; c’est votre système.

On a eu des fermetures. On a passé proche à des fermetures. Il y a des hôpitaux—écoute, l’hôpital de par chez nous à Smooth Rock Falls a de la misère à faire le « payroll » pour quelques mois. Trois ou quatre semaines passées, vous avez été obligés de leur faire une avance jusqu’au mois de janvier. Ça ne règle pas le problème. Au mois de janvier, le problème va être là encore. Ils ont un million-quelque-chose de déficit à cause des agences que vous avez créées, la privatisation, et vous dites : « Mautadit, c’est beau cette affaire-là. Ça marche comme dans l’eau—comme dans l’eau bénite. » Ça fonctionne tellement bien que nos hôpitaux ont de la misère à y arriver maintenant, qu’on a de la misère à faire le « payroll » et qu’on a vu, en Ontario, des urgences fermées. Puis, on dit que le système va bien—qu’il va bien, le système. Je ne sais pas sur quelle planète vous vivez ou dans quelle province vous vivez. Chez nous, ce n’est pas de même que ça marche.

J’ai un de mes collègues qui vous a parlé du Danemark. Il y a des systèmes qui existent. On n’a pas besoin de réinventer la roue, on n’a qu’à aller voir où ça fonctionne. À la place de donner des millions de dollars dans les poches de vos amis, donnez-les donc aux personnes qui en ont besoin.

Vous nous accusez de voter contre vos projets de loi—parce qu’on sait lire, nous autres aussi. We know how to read. You accuse us of not voting for those—because we know where the money is going to go, because we lived it with the Harris government. On l’a vécu. On la connaît, la toune. On le sait. We know what’s going to happen, and we’ll always vote against it, because the people who need the services—this is where the money should go, not lining the pockets of your friends and these big corporations. That’s not where it should go. And I don’t think this is what you were elected for either, but you do it anyways.

Je vais vous donner un autre exemple. I’ll give you another example. His name was Miguel. Now, it was autism, but I’ll just use that example. Their family had to move to Cochrane to get some services, even though they weren’t sure—because he was a young adult and he finished school. But the mother was burnt-out. The family was burnt-out. They were even thinking—when the family is at that point that they’re thinking of bringing their son to the emergency just because they can’t handle it anymore, the system is failing. The system is failing, and this bill will not fix that.

Convenient care? You have to realize that, back home, there is no subsidized housing; there is no housing for people like Miguel or somebody that needs help. There are hardly any services. Some of them are overbooked; it takes three years to get in. That’s the reality we live day to day. And I will repeat again, if you go up north, it’s even worse. It’s even worse. So on Highway 11, if we are having that much difficulty, I can just imagine other communities up north, how they’re struggling.

But they had to move. They sold their house, moved to Cochrane, got a job—or tried to get a job—because they were hoping to get better service for their son.

What’s wrong with this picture? What’s wrong with this picture is that we should put the money where it’s needed, not the other way around. But it seems that it falls on deaf ears.

I said that in the north, families are already struggling as our demands are high, yet our access to proper service is continuously plummeting. Just before I go on again, think about this travel grant: Because we have so much land, we’ve asked how many times just to re-evaluate, because that doesn’t even reflect the services. Do you think these people that need the services to go see their doctors and everything shouldn’t be compensated for that, because we don’t have the doctors and we don’t have the services? I’ve got a community up north of 5,000 people; 3,500 community members don’t have a family doctor. That’s our lives up north. Some communities are worse off.

But to get back to this, they cannot retain workers due to poor wages, and I’ve spoken about that. These people went through some hard times during COVID. PSWs went through some hard times. They were there. They were giving services to the people who needed them. And yet, we didn’t want to move on Bill 124, even though we know it’s unconstitutional. Ce n’est pas constitutionnel. On sait que le projet de loi 124 est anticonstitutionnel, mais on continue à dépenser l’argent des contribuables. Pourquoi, eux autres? « Parce qu’on est mieux que toutes les autres décisions qui sont prises à la cour suprême de l’Ontario. On a eu des décisions de la Cour suprême, mais nous autres, on est mieux, on connaît mieux, on sait mieux. On est un gouvernement pour le monde »—for the people. Bill 124 is not for the people. Ce n’est pas quand tu gèles leurs salaires—dans les temps les plus difficiles, quand on passait une pandémie, qu’on vient geler leurs salaires.

Lack of replacement workers in the north: Families have been completely skipped for their weekly home visit as agencies could not find a replacement when a worker called in sick or could not make it on time. Can you imagine only getting one, two baths per week, and your worker does not show up? That means no bath for the entire week. I don’t know what you feel, but how would you feel if you could not get your bath? Comment vous vous sentiriez, vous autres? Un à deux bains par semaine, ce n’est pas gros, là. Mais ça, c’est une réalité continuelle. J’en ai parlé en Chambre drette dans mes débuts quand j’ai été élu. Pour une, ça faisait un mois qu’elle n’avait pas eu un bain à cause du manque de service. Se faire laver à la mitaine, comme qu’on dit en français—washing with a handcloth is not a bath.

Then, we’re saying, “No, we’re going to unify the system. It works so good there right now.” We’re hearing this government speak: “Everything is good.” Not back home. I’m not inventing these things; these are my constituents’ stories. You think unifying is going to fix this? It won’t, because too much money is going—exactly what my colleague has spoken to—to put more money in these big, big corporations, your friends. And that’s okay? It’s not okay. This is why we keep voting against your bills—

I listened intently to the member’s statement. I do understand the geography of northern Ontario. My aunt was actually a PSW in northern Ontario. She has now since retired. I do thank all the PSWs for their work out there. It’s not an easy job, and we appreciate when they look after our loved ones.

Sometimes travelling in southern Ontario is even more difficult than travelling in northern Ontario, so you have to think of PSWs in the downtown area trying to get around. As we know, sometimes it takes us a long time to get from here to the Gardiner. But in the past, opposition, you really have voted against our government’s proposals to make health care delivery quicker, more reliable for our constituents. It doesn’t matter where you live.

I’m just wondering if the member can explain why your party thinks it’s better that their constituents should have to wait to access health care that they need.

In my riding, in Essex, we have lots of people entering the career of PSW because of the steps taken by this government, and the member opposite made reference to the number of PSWs available in the marketplace and available to deliver the services required. I can tell you that I went to Anderson College and talked to the trainees there and they were very happy to have received free tuition and free books from this government to get their training, to get more PSWs. I know that that program is being taken up very well by the people in the riding of Essex.

My question to the member is, is she aware of how many people in her riding are benefiting from the remarkable program introduced by this government to pay the tuition and pay the books for PSWs entering that profession?