I have a petition entitled “Health Care: Not for Sale.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

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

“Whereas Premier Doug Ford and Health Minister Sylvia 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 further 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 pay and 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 important petition. I will add my name to the thousands that have already signed it, and I will pass it to page Eoife to take to the table.

There are so many things missing from this. Our finance critic said very clearly that this bill or this fall economic statement clearly misses the moment. You have identified some of the things that we all are seeing in this moment, in all of our communities: People living in tents and under bridges in our communities, people not being able to access any kind of affordable housing.

This 200% increase in food bank usage in Hamilton, and all of our communities—and I find it so ironic that this fall economic statement doesn’t mention the word “affordability” once. There’s actually nothing in here that concretely will provide relief for people when it comes to their bills.

They don’t talk about increases to ODSP, which are some of the people living in the deepest poverty. I mean, we’ve identified here what’s missing. Can you add to this what’s missing for people in your community that could use support from this government right now?