I would like to thank Nicole Lafrenière from Garson in my riding for these petitions: “Neurological Movement Disorder Clinic in Sudbury.”

Basically, the people have signed this petition because the rate of neurological movement disorders in northern Ontario is the highest in all of our province. It’s actually the highest of many provinces in our country. There are specialized neurological movement disorder clinics that exist in Ontario, but none of them are located in northern Ontario, where the people that have signed their signature come from.

They recognize that in northeastern Ontario, it is Sudbury that is the health care hub for services. So they are asking for such a clinic to be set up in Sudbury so that the many, many patients in northeastern Ontario that have a neurological movement disorder do not have to travel to southern Ontario to gain care, but the care would be available in Sudbury—easier to get to.

I fully support the petition—I would love to have a neurological movement disorder clinic in Sudbury—and I would ask my page Sophie to bring it to the Clerks.

Comme vous savez, monsieur le Président, dans le nord de l’Ontario, nous avons droit à des subventions pour voyager vers le sud de l’Ontario lorsque les soins ne sont pas disponibles. Ça nous permet d’être remboursés pour les hôtels, pour le millage, des choses comme ça. Malheureusement, les fonds qui nous sont disponibles n’ont pas été mis à jour depuis très longtemps. Maintenant, le gouvernement l’a changé : on aura le droit à 175 $ par nuit, plutôt que 100 $ par nuit, et un petit peu plus pour le millage. Mais ça reste quand même que plusieurs, plusieurs familles, surtout des familles avec de jeunes enfants, ne sont pas capables de se rendre à Toronto pour les soins dont ils ont besoin.

Un médecin, un pédiatre de Sault Ste. Marie, est venu me voir pour me parler d’un couple. Le bébé risque de perdre la vue s’ils ne sont pas capables de l’emmener à Toronto et les parents n’ont pas d’argent pour l’emmener à Toronto. On aimerait que le programme soit changé pour que les familles dans le besoin aient droit à des fonds avant le voyage, pas avoir besoin d’attendre le remboursement.

Je suis en faveur de cette pétition. Je vais la signer et je demande à Charlise de l’amener à la table des greffiers.

Presently, we have over 2,700 people in Ontario—that was as of Monday. It could have changed; it changes every week. But as of Monday we had 2,037 people on the wait-list for an organ transplant in Ontario. Unfortunately, every three days one of those 2,037 people will die because there are no organs available to help them.

You know, Speaker, that organ and tissue donation can save up to eight people’s lives and help the lives of 75 more.

If you ask Ontarians, over 90% of us want to be organ donors, but unfortunately only 36% of us have registered. So what the petition wants to do and what the people that have signed the petition want to do is to go to a presumed consent, exactly the same as what Nova Scotia has done in their province, which would make more organs available for people who want to be an organ donor. There would be plenty of opportunity to opt out, all the way to the time of death, where someone from your family will have to guarantee that, yes, you wanted to be an organ donor. For the 2,037 people waiting, that would be a life-changing change.

I fully support this petition, will affix my name to it and ask a very patient page to bring it to the table.

You will remember, Speaker, that in the 1980s, 30,000 Canadians were infected by HIV or hepatitis, and over 8,000 of them died because of a tainted blood transfusion. The royal commission was set in place, led by Justice Krever, and he made recommendations to protect the integrity of our blood production and collection.

Recommendation number 2 of the Krever inquiry was that donors of blood and plasma should not be paid for their donations. In British Columbia and Quebec, they have forbidden the Canadian Blood Services to pay for plasma. Unfortunately, the present government is allowing pay-for-plasma clinics to set up shop in Ontario.

We have lived through what it means when we cannot trust the blood transfusion. We don’t want to live through that again. So those people have signed a petition to make sure that Ontario adopts a voluntary blood donation act to forbid the privatization of blood products collection and the payment for a donation of blood or plasma.

I fully support this petition, Speaker, will affix my name to it and ask Charlise to bring it to the Clerk.

We all know that there is a shortage of PSWs in every part of our health care system. Whether you look at home care, at long-term care—even hospital care, primary care—we have shortages. The reason for that is that our PSWs are often overworked, underpaid and underappreciated, leading to many of them leaving the profession. The lack of PSWs, especially in long-term care and in our home care system, leaves patients to have to go without and the family having to step in.

What they want is they want to make PSW a good job. They want PSWs to be paid a fair wage, to have sick days, pension, benefits, to have vacation days, to have full-time jobs—permanent full-time jobs. I can tell you, Speaker, that when my hospital, Health Sciences North, posts one PSW position, they have hundreds of people apply. Yet the long-term-care homes, the home care cannot recruit and retain PSWs. Why? Because they don’t offer good jobs. A PSW working home care cannot pay the rent and feed their kids. They have to go someplace else, although they are very, very good at what they do. So they want to change this, to make PSW a career that you can raise your family on and make good wages on.

I think this is a good idea. I fully support this petition, will affix my name to it and ask my good page Charlise to bring it to the Clerk.