I want to wish the hundreds of thousands of nurses in Ontario a happy Nursing Week, including nurse Dianne Martin, CEO of WeRPN, and Karen McKay-Eden, VP of ONA. They are here today because our health care system is in disarray, with no relief in sight.

Patients, from sick babies to people needing palliative care, face long wait times in emergency rooms and overcrowded hospitals.

Minister, it does not have to be that way. This is not the new normal. BC is implementing mandatory nurse-to-patient ratios.

Will the minister commit to improving patient outcomes and nurse retention, and bring nurse-to-patient ratios in Ontario?

Let me tell you, Speaker, the state of California implemented nurse-to-patient ratios 25 years ago, and the numbers speak for themselves: better patient outcomes and less nurses burning out—two challenges that this Minister of Health and Premier continue to ignore as they rush forward with the for-profit delivery of our health care system.

It doesn’t have to be that way. If the government is interested at all in improving Ontario’s health care system, there’s a very easy first step they can do: Put in place nurse-to-patient ratios. Will the minister do it?

Interjections.

Yesterday, when the Premier, Minister Dunlop and I were at TMU to celebrate and mark the beginning of Nursing Week, I spoke to a nurse who trained and graduated under Bob Rae’s NDP government. Do you know what she told me? She told me that only three nurses in her graduating class stayed in Ontario, because there were no jobs. The NDP government was actually firing nurses.

I now look at the Liberal government of the day. Your previous leader, Kathleen Wynne, admitted and acknowledged in her exit interview with TVO that she wished she had invested more in the health care system.

Well, we’re doing it. We’re getting it done. We’re training more nurses. We’re retaining more nurses. We’re bringing international nurses to Ontario, who want to be here. We have two years running of historic highs of internationally trained clinicians licensing in the province of Ontario. We’re getting it done.

Last week, I was with Minister Piccini and I sat down with nursing students who are participating in an extern program. They told me how that extern program that was brought in under Premier Ford has made them more confident, has made them a better nurse. That’s the kind of initiatives we will continue—

The bill is quite simple. It mandates the maximum number of patients that a nurse could care for. The ratio would be:

—one to one for critical care patients on ventilators;

—two patients to one nurse for critical care patients not on ventilators or people needing very high mental health care;

—three patients to one nurse for specialized care;

—four patients to one nurse for palliative care; and

—five patients to one nurse for rehabilitation care, except on night shift, where it would be seven patients to one nurse for rehab on night shift.

It’s as simple as that. It needs to be done.

Mr. Dowie moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill 193, An Act to amend the Provincial Parks and Conservation Reserves Act, 2006 / Projet de loi 193, Loi modifiant la Loi de 2006 sur les parcs provinciaux et les réserves de conservation.