Good morning, Speaker, and good morning, colleagues. I’d like us to welcome Sue Graham-Nutter, who is the chair of AdvantAge Ontario and the CEO of the Rekai Centres in Toronto Centre, very respected long-term-care homes in our community.

If I’m not mistaken, I think I see Nikki Porter up there from Epilepsy Ottawa—I do not. Well, you look a lot like Nikki, and God love you, Nikki, if you’re watching. Welcome to all the guests here at Queen’s Park.

I would like to welcome the Architectural Conservancy of Canada. I had the privilege of meeting with some Hamilton folks this morning. Welcome to the Legislature, Stan Nowak and Shannon Kyles.

I’d like to give a special shout-out and say thank you to my old intern Olivia Collver, who is spending her last week with us before she moves to the government side. Thank you so much, Olivia.

I want to introduce Jeff Mole, a constituent of Aurora–Oak Ridges–Richmond Hill, to the House. Thank you for joining us.

Good morning, Speaker. More than two million people in Ontario don’t have a family doctor. The College of Family Physicians is projecting that by 2026, a quarter of Ontarians will be without a family doctor.

Doctors across the province have been raising the alarm about the physician shortage, but we have heard nothing from this government about help on the horizon. There is no plan to incentivize family doctors to stay in their practices or any sign of administrative support to ease their burden.

HealthForceOntario data is showing us that in Toronto we are missing 305 family doctors; Ottawa needs 171; Barrie and Muskoka, 118; and Hamilton is short 114 doctors. So my question is to the Premier: How can you ensure continuous care is going to be available for Ontarians when thousands of people are losing their doctors every year?

It is now my pleasure to ask our group of pages to assemble for their introductions.

I would ask the members to please join me in welcoming this group of legislative pages: from the riding of Mississauga East–Cooksville, Ella Ali; from the riding of Newmarket–Aurora, Skye Baker; from the riding of Davenport, Matias Biderman; from the riding of Toronto–Danforth, Abigail Hart; from the riding of Spadina–Fort York, Jeremy Kinnear; from the riding of Scarborough–Agincourt, Winifred Lin; from the riding of Willowdale, Niklas Low; from the riding of Don Valley North, Isaac Luo; from the riding of Richmond Hill, Colin Niu; from the riding of Hamilton East–Stoney Creek, Mesapé Nsong; from the riding of Hamilton Centre, Pharoah Opoku-Warner; from the riding of Brampton Centre, Sarah Salman; from the riding of Markham–Stouffville, Mercy Samouel; from the riding of Mississauga–Streetsville, Seyona Shetty; from the riding of Brampton West, Paras Sodhi; from the riding of Whitby, Ellen Sun; from the riding of Mississauga–Erin Mills, James Teng; from the riding of Ajax, Anushga Trivedi; from the riding of Beaches–East York, Charles Wells; and, lastly, from the riding of Aurora–Oak Ridges–Richmond Hill, Max Wen.

Once again, please join me in welcoming our pages.

Applause.

I would like to welcome all the representatives of the ALS Society of Canada here in the House. I particularly want to give a shout-out to Kris Noakes from my riding, who is with the ALS Society. She’s also the mother of Fallon Noakes, who was recently a page here in this Legislature. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

Stop the clock.

Members will please take their seats. Order. Order.

Restart the clock. Supplementary question?

Minister of Health.

Minister of Health.

Well, Mr. Speaker, what if I told you there’s a place that over 10,000 doctors have registered in the last five years? What if I told you there’s an investment of $110 million to connect 300,000 more patients to primary care teams, that will lead to 78 new and expanded teams, that will connect 98% of a population to a primary care doc? What if I told you, Mr. Speaker, $50 billion, and 50 new locations are either getting a new hospital or an expanded hospital? Mr. Speaker, what if I told you there are 80,000 registered nurses here in Ontario that didn’t exist five and a half years ago? Mr. Speaker, this place is called Ontario, and we’re going to continue building Ontario’s health care team.

Interjections.

Speaker, I know they spent millions of taxpayer dollars on those ads, so they want to get their money’s worth, but what if I told you there is a province where two million Ontarians cannot find a family doctor and we have a Premier who is not doing his job?

We are very proud to be joined in the House today by steelworkers from the great city of Sault Ste. Marie. They’re here to ask for help after 10,000 patients were notified that they’re going to lose primary medical care at the Group Health Centre. The centre was founded by steelworkers. They agreed to payroll deductions to build it and to support workers and their families, and it came with an agreement that they would receive health care for the rest of their lives. Now, with those physicians retiring or resigning, there is no one to replace them. That’s the reality in the province of Ontario: There is no plan for the founding members or the historical commitment made to them.

So I want to ask the Premier, what is this government doing right now to address the urgent crisis in primary care in Sault Ste. Marie?

In total, more than a quarter of the population of Sault Ste. Marie is slated to lose access to primary care. That’s unacceptable to me, and it should be unacceptable to this Premier. Speaker, the official opposition NDP is joining steelworkers and retirees in the call for an immediate strategy to recruit and deploy primary care doctors and health care professionals to Sault Ste. Marie and to other communities in northern Ontario deeply impacted.

To the Premier: When will this government commit to the recruitment and retention strategy for health care workers in northern Ontario?

Interjections.

Speaker, the steelworkers of the Soo understand the need to protect health care today and into the future. That’s why they have suggested immediate solutions that will continue to pay off for years and years to come and include a plan to support internationally trained doctors to practise in this province. They’ve called for an expert panel as well that’s going to help expedite the training and mentoring that’s needed to bring doctors to communities like Sault Ste. Marie.

Speaker, these solutions could be implemented immediately. They could have been implemented yesterday if this government had the political will to do so.

To the Premier: Will he stop making excuses and act now to urgently bring doctors to Sault Ste. Marie?

Interjections.

If these patients in Sault Ste. Marie lose access to their primary care doctors, they’re going to be forced to rely on those increasingly crowded emergency rooms for their basic needs. The closest emergency room outside of Sault Ste. Marie is four hours away. We heard today of somebody who waited 15 hours recently who also has lost their doctor.

Access to primary care should not depend on where we live. Across the province, I am hearing from countless, countless Ontarians who are worried about losing access to health care as well. For doctors, it’s not just about staff or office spaces, it’s also about housing and transportation and access to other services. It’s impossible for hospitals and clinics to recruit health care workers when there’s no accessible housing or transportation—

Interjection.

Interjections.

The primary care expansion that the Premier just mentioned, those 78 expansions and new—two of them are happening Sault Ste. Marie. We are committed to making sure the people of Sault Ste. Marie and across Ontario have access to primary care, and that is exactly why we have invested $110 million in expanding 78 primary care teams. Now, I contrast that to a previous Liberal government who actually cut residency positions in the province of Ontario. If they had not cut those residency positions, we would have upwards of 300 physicians practising in the province of Ontario today.

But we won’t stop there. We will continue to work with Sault Ste. Marie, with primary care practitioners, with nurse practitioner-led clinics, to make sure that access is there in community.

The member from Sault Ste. Marie has been working actively with his community to make sure that these patients are getting access. That work started immediately. I don’t know where the NDP have been. I can tell you since 2018, when we formed government, that work has been expanding. We will continue to be there for the people of Sault Ste. Marie and everyone in Ontario who wants access to a primary care physician.

We now have, for the first time in the province of Ontario, as-of-right rules that mean if you want to practise in Ontario, you can do that without the red tape of the practice-ready physicians. It’s concrete changes that we are making that we are seeing the impact of in our communities. Name me the last time we have expanded multidisciplinary teams by 78 in the province of Ontario. It’s historic.

Those are changes that are going to make a difference in communities like Chapleau, like Sault Ste. Marie, like Timmins, like Sudbury, like Innisfil, like Woodstock. These are communities that are getting expansions, that desperately want access to primary care. We’re giving it to them through an investment of $110 million.

I think it’s important to put some numbers and facts on the table, Speaker. In the province of Ontario, every single year we have 150,000 cataract and minor surgeries happening. Over the course of two years, where the member opposite is talking about 13 complaints, we in fact had 300,000 minor eye surgeries and cataract surgeries in the province of Ontario.

Those are real people. Those are real people who are now talking and reading books to their grandchildren, who are now volunteering back in their communities, who are now back in their cars driving around. We have people who are impacted when we make decisions to expand surgical and diagnostic centres in the province of Ontario. In fact, in the last year, one single announcement that the Premier made in January of 2023 led to 17,000 additional people getting access to cataract and minor eye surgeries. Those are the facts.

I want to highlight again the expansions that we are making in northern Ontario that will directly impact communities: Moosonee and area getting a brand new community Weeneebayko Area Health Authority team; Porcupine; Kapuskasing; Sudbury; Burk’s Falls; Timmins; Chapleau; Wawa; Powassan. We have communities in northern Ontario that need action from our government and we have given it with the announcement of 78 expansions of primary care teams in the province of Ontario. We will always be there with our partners to make sure that we assist, but these expansions are something that I very much hope that you and your party will support when we put it in our budget.

Again, what if I told you, Mr. Speaker, that there is an area—

Interjections.

I’m wondering about the health care that is at an all-time high right now, at $81 billion. We’ve spent over $21 billion more in the last five years than the—

I want to use my last supplementary to ask about another emerging health care issue. This government’s privatization-for-profit scheme is leaving patients across this province frustrated and very, very deeply worried about being charged for medically necessary services.

The Minister of Health has stood there and said that they are expanding private cataract surgeries, but we have more reports today that dozens of patients are being overbilled and charged for additional lenses and services that they did not ask for. This is exactly what we warned about: Patients being told they will only have to use their health card are just being handed a bill for thousands of dollars after their treatment.

The minister’s response has been incredibly disappointing. She recognized this practice as a violation of the commitment-to-medicare act, but has not offered, to this date, any solutions to protect patients.

I’m going to ask the minister, and I don’t want to hear that these patients consented to it, because it’s clear that patients were misled by this clinic. Minister, when will you enforce your own regulations and stop companies profiting off the backs of patients?

Interjections.

The Leader of the Opposition will please take her seat. The member for Sault Ste. Marie will come to order. The member for Kitchener–Conestoga will come to order.

Interjections.

The Premier can respond.

Interjection.

The final supplementary: once again, the Leader of the Opposition.

The Minister of Health.

Deputy Premier and Minister of Health.

The supplementary question? The member for Nickel Belt.

My question is for the Minister of Long-Term Care. Every senior in Ontario deserves access to quality care and quality of life both now and into the future. But many families, like those in my riding of Newmarket–Aurora, are concerned about the safety and well-being of their loved ones in long-term-care homes. While our province already has the toughest inspection and enforcement program in Canada, we must take further action to improve compliance and provide comfort and certainty to residents and their families.

Speaker, can the minister please tell the House what our government is doing to strengthen oversight and resident safety in long-term-care homes?

The member addresses some very valid concerns for her constituents, because it goes beyond just building long-term-care homes, which this government is doing to a record level. It goes beyond just health human resources, which this government is doing to record levels once again. It’s about the safety of those in long-term-care homes. That’s why, since I was appointed five and a half months ago, we have been working tirelessly to ensure that that is the number one priority within the long-term-care setting.

Supported by an investment of $72.3 million, I announced last month the formation of Ontario’s first dedicated long-term-care investigative unit. The new 10-member unit will go after the worst offenders in the long-term-care system, and I want to be very clear, Speaker: I hope that they never have to be used. These investigators have the authority to add more accountability to address the most serious forms of non-compliance so Ontarians can be sure that their loved ones are safe.

I’ll repeat it in this Legislature once again: Our seniors took care of us. It is our turn to take care of them.

In another shameful milestone for this government, Sudbury now has a private for-profit nurse practitioner-led clinic charging money to patients for each and every visit. The nurse practitioner said, and I will quote her words, “Had the Capreol clinic received funding to hire a permanent position, I would have likely stayed there.”

Speaker, I have hand-delivered modest funding proposals from the Capreol Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinic to the Minister of Health numerous times since 2021. We have underemployed nurse practitioners in northern Ontario that would love to care for us in the public system, but this government is bent into private clinics only, forcing them to go to the private sector.

When will the Capreol Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinic get the money they have been asking for since 2021?