The short answer is, we have and we will. We will continue to rebuild our health care system to make sure that people are not languishing on wait-lists.

When we made a small change in cataract surgeries, expanding in four different communities, we now have 17,000 Ontarians who are back at work, back with their families, back in their communities, reading to their children. Those are the kinds of quantitative changes that are making a difference, that are impacting the lives of Ontarians, and I think at 4 o’clock, you will see additional exciting news coming from the Minister of Finance.

What people want, Speaker, is to remove themselves from those wait-lists and actually get the critical surgery that they need. This is what those investments are doing. This is how we are rebuilding a health care system that, frankly, had been ignored for far too long from the Liberal and the NDP parties of Ontario. We will make that rebuilding. We will continue to make those investments, and we will continue to get it done in the province of Ontario.

That’s the type of innovation that we are going to encourage. That’s the type of innovation that we are seeing coming forward from hospital leaders, from physicians, from surgeons across Ontario, who say, “I have a better way. We know we can improve the system, and I’m going to embrace that change. We are going to embrace that change.”

If the NDP want to sit on the sidelines and continue to say no, that’s fine, but we’re going to get it done in the province of Ontario.

Minister of Health.

I remind the members to make their comments through the Chair.

The supplementary question.

Minister of Health.

The next question.

Government House leader.

Once again, I’ll ask the members to make their comments through the Chair.

The Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

The next question.

We want innovation too. We just want it in the public health care system, not something that you have to pay for through your credit card.

Speaker, everybody in this province should have access to a family doctor, period. But under the Conservatives, 2.3 million people in Ontario do not. And that number is expected to rise to 4.4 million—that’s a quarter of Ontario’s population—by 2026. That means more people without regular checkups, more people missing a chance for early diagnosis or just putting up with pain and discomfort.

Instead of dealing with this, this government said no to our proposal to fund health teams and shared administrative support to get more people in front of a doctor.

So my question to the Premier is, will we see a change in approach in today’s budget or will it just offer more of the same?

I want to know if this is how the Premier sees the future of this province. Is it going to be like Netflix for health care? Are we going to have to subscribe to have basic health care needs met?

Speaker, people deserve to get health care that’s close to home and available when they need it. Instead, they are seeing their rural emergency rooms close; 600,000 women can’t get mammograms. It is not the reality in Ontario anymore.

The Liberals opened the door to privatization of health care in this province. We watched it, we saw what was happening and we fought it. But this Conservative government is doubling down and throwing the doors wide open.

So Ontarians want to know: Today, in this budget, is it going to be more of the same or can they count on this government to protect their public, not-for-profit health care system in the province of Ontario?

Interjections.

I remember visiting Osgoode Care Centre in that member’s riding and listening to the seniors, the operators, the hard-working front-line health care workers, and they’re saying the same thing: that cost has gone up a lot, and that’s affecting how they give care to our seniors.

Let’s give another example. In Barrie, the municipality has informed me that it must create a 13% contingency fund due to rising costs. In Sault Ste. Marie, building costs have gone up by $20 million in just four years. It’s in every corner of this province that we are seeing costs explode, thanks to this Liberal carbon tax, which is about to go up again in a time of high inflation and such economic uncertainty. It’s why our government introduced the construction funding subsidy: to help the sector, under the leadership of the great former Minister of Long-Term Care.

But, Speaker, we call on the Liberals who are here in this Legislature to call their federal counterparts and say, “This is not the right thing to do. This is not fair on the backs of seniors.” Our seniors took care of us; we need to take care of them. Let’s get rid of this unfair tax.

It’s not just one tax either, is it, Speaker? It is a tax on the tax. The HST is taken on top of the carbon tax. They’re literally taxing a tax. This is a tax on a tax that is a tax on business, on consumers and on care for our most vulnerable seniors in long-term care. It is a tax on everyone. It is a tax that is unfair.

Once again, we call on the Liberals to do the reasonable thing: Call the Prime Minister and tell him this is not a fair tax on our seniors. Let’s get rid of this tax.