I, too, would like to present a petition today to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario calling on this Conservative government to reopen the emergency department at Minden hospital. It was closed without any public consultation. Communities need emergency rooms. If there was a life-threatening event, residents of Minden would have to travel over 20 minutes. Sometimes—it can take longer in the winter, and they do not have a local emergency room.

This petition here is signed by residents not only of Minden but residents from across Ontario, because we all understand the importance of having an emergency room in our communities.

I will affix my signature to it and join the calls from the people of Ontario to ask the government to immediately reopen the Minden emergency department.

The Ontario Works rate has been frozen for over two decades. For Ontario Disability Support Program, it has only increased by 3%, Speaker. It’s time to double the social assistance rates. I support this petition and will affix my signature to it.

I am giving a petition that now has a total of 38,620 signatures on it. It’s about the Minden hospital that close to a year ago—their emergency was closed without any notification. We’re asking to reopen it immediately and have the health minister use the power that is given to her under the Public Hospitals Act to immediately reopen this hospital and to save lives in that community.

I’ll sign my name to the petition.

It is my pleasure to join the voices of nearly 40,000 people calling on this government to reverse the decision by the board of directors at the Haliburton Highlands Health Services, where they, without any consultation with the community, closed down the Minden hospital ER. As we’ve heard from my colleagues, as we’ve heard from the people who have signed the petition, the people who are here today, this deeply impacts their community, to be forcing them to travel—it could be 20 minutes or more, depending on the weather—outside of their community when they have an urgent situation.

We know that if there is a case of cardiac arrest or other instances of medical emergencies, every second counts when it comes to saving lives. We know that because of underfunding of the publicly funded, publicly delivered, not-for-profit health care system, we have seen many cases across the province where hospitals in different communities are shutting down emergency departments. It is absolutely shameful that that is happening in this province, risking people’s lives.

I join those 40,000 people who are calling on the Minister of Health to use her powers to reopen the Minden ER and to properly fund public health care in this province.