Speaker, unbelievable, isn’t it? The NDP support the Liberals when they do nothing for long-term care; they do absolutely nothing. We see the holes in the system throughout a difficult time of the pandemic, and then it’s this Premier, this government who comes around and says we’re finally going to invest into our seniors, not just with record capital and building beds but into improving the inspectorate—in fact, $72 million over three years to double the number of the inspectors to actually have one inspector for two every two homes in this province, Speaker.

But we go further. We say we’re not just going to have reactive inspections; we’re going to have proactive ones. We’re going to hit a goal of 2025 of having one proactive inspection per home per year. The numbers that the CBC article quotes are aligned with our framework of getting to that goal, Speaker.

Interjections.

Interjections.

Interjections.

Interjections.

My question is to the Premier. In October 2021, the Premier made a promise to the people of Ontario. The Premier promised he would double the number of long-term-care inspectors so we would have one inspector for every two homes in the province. But last week, CBC reported that although there are 624 long-term-care homes in the province, there are only 234 inspectors currently working. That means this government is 78 inspectors short.

Speaker, why did the Premier choose to break another promise to the people of Ontario and once again fail our seniors?

One thing we can always count on with this government is breaking promises. The Ombudsman revealed there were no long-term-care inspectors—zero—for seven weeks in the spring of 2020. Think about seniors who suffered in long-term care, and let’s talk about the number of seniors who had died in long-term care. Close to 6,000 seniors have died in long-term care. Think about the families that will never be the same again.

Speaker, how many more seniors need to die in long-term care before this government holds for-profit long-term care accountable and has the number of inspections that we need to protect our seniors every single day in the province of Ontario?