I enjoyed listening to my colleague the member from Sudbury.

I do want to remind the member from Essex that from 2013 to 2018, this province led the G7 in jobs and growth, and we were in the top three for foreign direct investment for those five years as well, so we can throw that stuff back and forth.

The reality is that the Working for Workers Four Act isn’t working that hard for workers. There are good things in it, but they are watered down. One of the things I think we have to grapple with in here, as the member mentioned, is the fact that the nature of work is changing. We’re now having a second class of employees who are employee contractors. It’s not just going to happen with delivery people. They’re traditional jobs. They’re the same jobs. They’re not new jobs. It’s going to happen all across our economy, so we actually have to watch how corporations are treating people who will be doing this work for them. It’s just starting now.

But the question that’s really on my mind this morning is: How often did the member from Sudbury get sent home from school?

Most people listen to their doctors. People trust their advice and do what they are told that they need to do. That said, that is not happening when it comes to this government and sound medical advice. This government hasn’t been listening to doctors, which is why we are here today debating a practical solution proposed by the Ontario NDP to help more doctors to see more patients.

The lines for walk-in clinics start well before they open and wrap around buildings. People need care, but they can’t find it. Nicole in Oshawa has a family doctor in Scarborough, but she can’t get off that roster to free up space for a local patient, because then she won’t have a doctor. Frank moved here from out of province and hops from clinic to clinic to get important prescriptions renewed. Newcomers and new neighbours try to figure out waiting rooms without English or a primary care provider. Folks need access to medical care, and they need family doctors.

The Oshawa Clinic is moving to Whitby imminently, and we don’t know what will become of their patients if they can’t travel and follow them.

Some 2.3 million Ontarians do not have a family doctor. The NDP has a solution that will get people access to the doctors we have today by freeing them up to see additional patients. Doctors are tied up with paperwork and are unable to see as many patients as they otherwise could if they had support with the workload. We have listened to our doctors, and we’re proposing that the province hire staff support to free up family doctors, and we’re proposing that the province hire staff soon. We could take an additional estimated two million more patients—the doctors can handle up to two million additional patients if we did something now. This still won’t solve all the ills of the system. We need more doctors in the system and more doctors to go into family medicine. We still need family doctors in communities where there aren’t any. But where there are doctors, we want them to be able to work to their full capacity.

Hire staff support to handle the paperwork, so doctors can handle the patient work. There is no time to waste, because as we know, an ounce of prevention is a worth a pound of cure. We want a healthier system so we can have healthier communities. We need to do something today to support the family doctors of tomorrow.

Today, we can support this motion to ensure more patients have access to the doctors we currently have. This motion is just what the doctor ordered, and I hope this government will follow good advice.