I know, right? It’s quite something.

That was the first introduction of the omnibus bill. These omnibus bills are very problematic, because you can actually have some good things in them, but then you always have a poison pill and so we obviously have to vote against it. They actually were referenced during those 1996-97 years as bully bills.

It’s funny, because Alvin Curling stood in his place in this House—

Interjection.

I want to actually thank Steve Paikin for posting that, because I find that sort of stuff interesting.

Our own Peter Kormos also was successful in, I believe, doing 21 hours of a filibuster at the time. Of course, we can’t do that now; if we did, we would be here all the time, I have to tell you, because the legislation—including even this latest Bill 185, this so-called “build more housing, cutting red tape” bill, which is going to create so many problems for our municipalities across this province.

I’m going to circle back to health care.

During the pre-budget consultations, we heard from so many organizations, and the language that they were using, I personally have never heard before. They said, “We’ve hit the wall. We are well past the tipping point. There is a tsunami of broken people in our communities. We do not have the medical staff to take care of them.” On the mental health file, never have I seen the anxiety around the lack of mental health resources to be so profound.

In our northern and rural communities, these problems are highlighted, I would have to say. We still, obviously, are fighting for culturally appropriate health care so that people have a connection with their doctor. But in northern communities, it is very dire.

I want to thank our northern members, including our amazing health critic from Nickel Belt, who has been just tracking the money—because it doesn’t matter all of the press releases that you quote; when you start believing your own press releases that you wrote, this is a problem. But at the end of the day, it really does matter where the money is going. And of course, the figure that’s contained within the budget also includes the compensation for Bill 124.

You’re very proud of saying, “This is a historic amount of historic funding.” I’ve never heard the word “historic” used in such an unhistoric way—and incorrectly, I might add.

Where we are right now is a standoff with doctors in Ontario—and where we are right now is, we have a Minister of Health who is not concerned, she says, about the diminished supply of doctors. This is a very dangerous standoff, I just want to say. We’ve seen this play out, actually, even in our education system, where the out-migration of teachers from that sector has been—I would say, obviously, we’ve never seen that many teachers—usually teachers are moving into the system with great enthusiasm, because it’s a calling; teaching is a calling, to be an educator. But now, even following this debate and listening to the minister really diminish those concerns that exist in the system, and then not acknowledge the impact of the learning and working conditions of our classrooms and how that is impacting people staying or leaving the field—this is basic common sense: If your work experience is dreadful, if you aren’t able to actually meet the needs of your complex students in your classroom because of underfunding, because of a lack of human resources, that is going to impact whether or not you stay in the profession. This is not a complicated concept here.

This is an article from Allison Jones from the Canadian Press: “Arbitration with province’s doctors over compensation in dire shape”—and this is the Ontario Medical Association. Listen to some of these things that the minister has actually said. I’ll set the stage for you:

“Recruitment and retention of doctors in Ontario is ‘not a major concern,’ the Ministry of Health suggests in arguments it is making in arbitration with the Ontario Medical Association over physician compensation.

“The argument from the province comes as the OMA, which represents Ontario’s doctors, has repeatedly warned that more than two million residents don’t have a family doctor and thousands of physician jobs are going unfilled.”

This reminds me of that Pink Floyd lyric; you know the one—I always listen to Pink Floyd. Nobody believes that, but this is it—“Did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?” That’s pretty relevant, eh? I mean, Pink Floyd is amazing, I have to say. But literally, you’ve called these people heroes, and yet when you sit down with them in arbitration, the conversation becomes less respectful, I would say.

“But the talks are going so poorly that an arbitrator is now being asked to determine compensation levels for the first year while the two sides work on the 2025-2028 period”—so they’re pushing this down the line. There are no solutions here, because there’s no respect, and you’re not going to get to a stabilized place with doctors in Ontario if you do not respect those doctors.

It goes on to say, “Things are in such dire shape that that’s the fastest way to get money out the door to stabilize family doctors’ practices”—by pushing it down to 2025-28. And this is coming from Dr. David Barber, the chair of OMA’s section on general and family practice.

In between, in these articles, there’s old titles, and one of these titles says, “Want More Family Doctors in Ontario? Pay Them Better” and “Can’t Find a Family Doctor? It Might Be Because They’re Busy Doing Other Specialties”—you know where they’re going? They’re going to the private sector, because this government has said, “Listen, it’s the Wild West out there right now, and we’re really friendly towards these medical businesses versus public health care.” It’s very clear where the resources and the talent are going.

So David Barber, who is the chair of OMA section on general and family practice:

“The government’s arguments in its arbitration brief are unlikely to improve relations, he said.... It’s really quite insulting.”

How can this government, after all of this time, after seeing what happened in the education system, after seeing what happened to the nurses, not acknowledge that doctors will walk? They will go to other sectors. They will go to other provinces. If we have 2.2 million Ontarians right now who do not have a family doctor, in five years we’re going to have 4.6 million Ontarians that do not have a family doctor.

Why I should have to explain that family doctors are the gatekeepers to the entire medical system—that is the way our system is designed. You don’t want more people going to the emergency room to access basic medical health care when those hospitals, those acute care centres, are already overrun, in a state of chaos and in a state of crisis—and also running a deficit. There is a cost to not dealing with doctors in a respectful manner, and this cost is increasing costs in other parts of the system, instead of just having a respectful dialogue around arbitration.

Barber goes on to say, “The numbers are one thing, right, but ... the government’s approach here is their briefing essentially says there’s nothing wrong. I get there’s posturing, but this is actually quite dangerous posturing on the side of the government.”

This is coming from the Ontario Medical Association, calling your rhetoric on the state of medical care, the state of doctors in Ontario—they are calling your actions as a government dangerous. And it’s dangerous for so many reasons.

“The average physician income adjustments compared favourably with other settlements where retention and recruitment is not a major concern,” the ministry wrote. And this is a direct quote: “We will illustrate that there is no concern of a diminished supply of physicians. Across Canada, Ontario has the best record in attracting medical graduates to train in Ontario. Further, Ontario has enjoyed a growth in physicians that far outstrips population growth.”

This is what the government is saying at the Ontario Medical Association arbitration. Can you believe this? Can you believe that the government has one in four people in a few years who is not going to have a doctor, and the Minister of Health is saying, “There is nothing to see here. There is no concern.”

In order to address a problem, you need to at least acknowledge that the problem exists. In Kingston recently, there was a lineup of 200 to 300 people just trying to access urgent care. In Kitchener-Waterloo, 70,000 people do not have a doctor—between 60,000 and 70,000 people. And this is with the chamber of commerce working 100%, every single day, trying to recruit more medical professionals into our region. Because—I shouldn’t have to explain this—when you have access to medical facilities and when you have access to really great schools, this social infrastructure draws investment into our communities. They are dependent upon each other.

So this rhetoric that’s coming from the Ministry of Health during what most people would acknowledge, especially if you don’t have a family doctor, is a crisis, is such a dangerous game, and it feels like a bit of a game from the Minister of Health.

I’ll just tell you an example of how it impacts people. It’s certainly impacting the people in Minden, right? People aren’t going to buy a house in Minden if they don’t have access to an emergency room. I want my parents, Allan and Sheila, to move from Peterborough to come to Waterloo. They can’t move because they can’t find a doctor. This also impacts quality of life.

You know, you don’t see this in the commercials that the taxpayers pay for: “It’s all happening here.” Yes, it’s all happening here: 2.2 million Ontarians don’t have a family doctor. That’s not something that the government wants to acknowledge or even pay attention to, it seems like, because, according to the Minister of Health, this is not of great concern to her. I’m telling you right now, this is a huge concern for the people of this province, and for very good reasons.

Ontario right now is short more than 2,000 doctors—2,000 doctors, right? Sure, start a medical school. That’s great. It takes almost 10 years from beginning to end to become a doctor in Ontario. Very few doctors want to go into family medicine anymore. They are looking where the money is.

The government has sort of carved off a whole market share on eyes, on hips. So you’ve created a whole new market for for-profit health care. You have created a very competitive sector where, if you’ve got the money, you can get to the front of the line. When the Premier once said, “You’ll never have to use your credit card”—this is factually incorrect. People are using their credit card to access health care in Ontario. In fact, we continue to bring stories to the floor of this Legislature because we believe truly in maintaining what we have left, anyway, of the universal health care system, and it shouldn’t depend on how much money you make, especially with a growing population—the demographics in this province, more and more seniors on fixed incomes. Them going to access health care and getting a bill is very stressful. We hear about it all the time in our office in Waterloo.

So this is where we are. Our health critic says the government needs to work with doctors to address the issues that are driving physicians out of family medicine. Amen. That’s exactly what needs to happen. “Over two million people don’t have a doctor.... Instead of trying to solve this problem, the government wants to ignore it.” We agree with the Ontario Medical Association that this is a very dangerous game to be playing on health care.

It is interesting; I have actually never seen this before, but the Ontario Union of Family Physicians have started a petition to call on the minister to resign. I’ve never seen doctors become this political, ever, in Ontario, so that is historic. I guess I can say that. That’s the correct use of the word “historic.” This is what they say: The Ontario Physician Services Agreement—they entered into arbitration between the Ontario Medical Association and the Ministry of Health, and then they go on to say:

“We have now learned through the publicly released details of the ... arbitration briefs that the government has no intentions on taking appropriate steps to address the family medicine crisis in Ontario. In fact, the Minister of Health ... response to the worsening crisis in family medicine is to outright deny there is any crisis at all. Her comments state ‘there is no concern of a diminished supply of physicians’ and that ‘retention and recruitment is not a major concern.’ This is a slap in the face to Ontarians, particularly to the 2.3 million in Ontario who do not have access to a family doctor and for those who have recently or will soon lose their family doctor due to inadequate funding and increasing administrative burden. The Ontario College of Family Physicians projects that by the year 2026, one in four Ontarians will not have a family doctor.”

You can avert this crisis, but you need to get back to the table and you need to be more respectful. They go on to say that “these comments are insensitive and dangerous. They also signal that the Ontario government has abandoned addressing the health care needs of Ontarians and is akin to denying to recognize Ontarians’ basic right to access universal health care.” So they are calling for the immediate resignation of the Ontario health minister. “Our current health care system is simply unacceptable. Ontario deserve better.” We agree, 100%, and until you redesign the system, doctors are key to accessing the health care system in Ontario, full stop.

I do want to move on just very quickly to education, because we did have a really painful debate, I have to say. To listen to such a—we’re so far apart on the education file. It’s like you’ve never stepped foot in a public school; you’ve never talked to a parent whose child has special needs and has had to be sent home because the staff are not there. When we talked about special education staff having to wear protective equipment like Kevlar, you laughed. Every year since 2018, I have to say, it’s like death by a thousand cuts.

I also want to point out that traditional conservatives acknowledge that inflation pressures are real. Inflationary pressures are not fictional. The FAO has clearly outlined the gap in really addressing the costs of education in the education file. But boy, you know, as someone who got involved in politics because of education, I will always show up for education, because it is always worth fighting for. People have said that it is the great equalizer. I have to say, I fully, 100%, agree with that.

The fact that the Minister of Education, earlier today, would not acknowledge that learning conditions and environments are working conditions—when we talk about educators—teachers were not mentioned in the budget bill, by the way. Whatever increase is in there is really allocated for Bill 124 costs, so you created a problem and now you have to pay more for the problem. You also created more problems because of Bill 124, and that was the out-migration of staff.

I fully support what our leader said during this debate when she said students in Ontario “deserve better than basics.” They deserve all of our attention and all of our energy and strategic investment in ensuring that children in the public education system can reach their potential. But when you see how many people—there are huge concerns around the number of non-teachers working in classrooms. These numbers have skyrocketed under the leadership of this minister. That’s nothing to be proud of, I must say. Schools can’t find enough supply teachers, so they’re using non-teachers to be in those classrooms.

In the Waterloo Catholic District School Board, about five years ago, it was maybe 100 times a month, very random, over the course of those 30 days. Now that number is 899 non-teaching staff in those classrooms. That’s nine times more since that point.

In the Waterloo public, it was 600 days a month over the winter to use non-teachers in the classroom, and on average it’s about 200 to 300 days a month now when no teacher was available. And I think that this is the key piece here, that educators—I call them educators because they are educators. I don’t call them union bosses and insult them to their face. That’s actually not good for morale, I just want to say.

There’s that Pink Floyd, Another Brick in the Wall: “We don’t need no education”—