You’re very patient with me, Speaker. Thank you.

I would like to thank Robert Morin, who is from Chelmsford in my riding, for these petitions. The petitions are called “911 Everywhere in Ontario.”

Speaker, we all know that when we face an emergency, what you do is you dial 911 for help. Help is available in northern Ontario. We do have police officers. We do have ambulances. We do have fire departments. What we don’t have is 911. You have to memorize a 1-800 number. There are many of them through my riding—three of them that I have memorized; another that I don’t know, but I have them written in my car. Nobody knows that.

Usually, they find out that 911 is not available when they dial 911. They’ve just been at the scene of an accident or trauma. They dial 911, and you get, “This number is not in service. Please try your call again.” So you dial 911 again, and it’s not. Then, you dial 0. And the lady at the other end says, “No, no, you have to dial 911,” but 911 is not available.

We are the only province that does not have 911 everywhere. It has to change.

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