In regard to veterinarians who provide veterinary medicine, we all know they have a wide range of clients; they serve pet owners and livestock owners. So in your opinion, how will this legislation, if passed, benefit animal owners across Ontario?

Thank you for sharing your story about your dog. We all enjoy our pets, and this is an important bill for that reason.

On the weekend, I had the pleasure of joining the Pet Valu-Lions Foundation dog guide walk to raise money for dog guides across Ontario. It was in Dundas. As you would know, these dogs provide—there are vision dogs, there are hearing ear dogs, there are dogs that support families with autism and seizure response. These are families who are very vulnerable, and I did hear that even some of the dogs, if they have certain nutrition requirements, they can’t keep them with the home because the families are vulnerable and they’re struggling with maintaining their income levels.

My question to you is, these dogs will need veterinarian support, and we had a question earlier about one of the problems is that we don’t have enough opportunity for not-for-profit veterinarian options. Can you speak to how we might able do that in the province?

Thank you very much for that question. I do want to mention that this week in the province of Ontario we are celebrating accessibility awareness week, so thank you for bringing this important issue to light.

For that specific question, I believe it is out of scope for this legislation, but certainly that’s something we could further consult on and look at in the future.

This particular bill will help because it will include a list of authorized activities that describe the specific activities that make up the practice of veterinary medicine. It also recognizes that veterinary care is delivered by a team and acknowledges the roles of both veterinarians and technicians in the delivery of veterinary care.

Questions?

Part VIII of schedule 1 of this legislation deals with the investigation and resolutions within the College of Veterinarians, including their powers and duties. Back in 2016, I met directly with the college to discuss a horrible situation in Niagara where the vet was abusing animals in his clinic, an issue that the college was aware of, including having video evidence. However, they could not respond quickly enough. They were unable to issue an interim suspension or release information because a judgment was issued. All the while, people in Niagara were bringing their pets to the vet.

How does this legislation help in addressing this issue and do you think it will ensure issues like this don’t happen again to people’s pets in Ontario?

I recognize the member from Mushkegowuk–James Bay on a point of order.

Ms. Thompson has moved third reading of Bill 171, An Act to enact the Veterinary Professionals Act, 2024 and amend or repeal various acts. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? I declare the motion carried.

Be it resolved that the bill do now pass and be entitled as in the motion.

Third reading agreed to.

The House adjourned at 1550.

I listened intently to the five minutes that the member from Guelph had to speak on that. I’m just curious whether or not he had considered doing a petition on this, because there was a petition that was 18 and a half minutes long on this piece of legislation. Perhaps the member from Guelph could have had a longer period of time to discuss all the great things that this bill is coming out with.

It’s an honour to rise today and speak in support of Bill 171, Enhancing Professional Care for Animals Act.

Speaker, it’s an important act to modernize. We know there’s a shortage of veterinary services in the province of Ontario, and this act takes an important step of addressing that shortage, partly by modernizing the regulatory framework for veterinarians, but most importantly, modernizing the regulatory framework for registered veterinary technicians. I think it’s important to expand the scope of practice for vet technicians to better enable them to relieve the burden on veterinarians and to offer more team-based veterinary care in the province of Ontario. I’ve been a big advocate for team-based care for people, and we certainly need team-based care for animals as well, and this act takes an important step to helping us achieve that.

I want to take a few moments to talk about some ways that I believe we need to address the shortage of veterinarians in the province of Ontario. Right now, we’re not even graduating enough veterinarians to cover the number of veterinarians that are retiring. And the government made some important steps to address this problem by expanding the number of veterinary placements through a partnership between the University of Guelph and Lakehead University, increasing the number of vets by 20 each and every year over the next number of years. This is an important step in the right direction, especially when we live in a world where it’s harder to get into vet school than it is to get into med school—

But we are lucky in the province of Ontario that, at the University of Guelph, we have the number one ranked veterinary school in Canada, the number three ranked veterinary school in all of North America and one of the top 10 veterinary schools in the entire world. We have the capacity in this province to address the shortage of veterinarians in Ontario with a high-class university like the University of Guelph.

And so, I’m going to make a quick comment to my friends on the other side of the aisle. We’ve made important steps in helping the University of Guelph expand veterinary services. I’m going to ask you to even do more. Let’s provide even more funding to the Ontario Veterinary College at the University of Guelph so we can expand the number of veterinary placements there so we can continue to graduate veterinarians to serve the people of this province and ensure that our animals are well cared for. I’m happy to work across all party lines to help make that happen, Speaker.

We know there’s a shortage of veterinarians in Ontario, and this is an important step in addressing it, like I’ve said. We can go even further by supporting the University of Guelph and expanding the number of places at the OVC.

So I’m always happy to read petitions supporting especially the Ontario Veterinary College at the University of Guelph and will continue to say to members of all political stripes in this Legislature that I am ready, willing and able to work with you to expand the number of veterinarian placements at the OVC, because we have a shortage of veterinarians in the province of Ontario and we have the top-ranked university in the province willing to fill that shortage.

I want to welcome the students from Thomas Fiddler Memorial High School in Sandy Lake First Nation in Kiiwetinoong. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

To the member for Guelph, we had a question earlier where we wanted to be assured that the college would enforce issues of animal abuse. My colleague from Niagara Falls talked about a terrible case in St. Catharines. The corollary to this bill is the PAWS Act, if you ask me. I know that I had an instance in my riding—the dog’s name was Merlin, who was abused. It took a very long time for residents to get an answer or to get some action on that.

One of the things that’s really concerning is that the number of charges that have been laid under the PAWS Act has dropped—a shocking drop, a significant drop in the charges. Would you share my concern that we’ve changed the protecting animal welfare system but that we don’t have the resources and the budget in place to make sure that we have enough inspectors and enough investigations happening so we can actually continue to make sure that animals are safe in this province?

Thank you very much for that question. I think we have to acknowledge that, in every profession, there is a small percentage of bad actors, and I think the situation you spoke to shows that.

But that is why this legislation is extremely important, because it streamlines the complaints and resolution process, including addressing investigations of professional misconduct, where a member’s fitness to practice is impaired and suspected incompetent. And so, now, also the veterinary technicians will have a college to which they will report, and so there will be a clear mechanism to report misconduct.

Of course, we are also putting fines: $25,000 for an individual on the first offence and $50,000 for the second or subsequent offence. And so, we are holding people who intentionally want to harm animals accountable, and this legislation will be doing that.

Good afternoon, Madam Speaker. There’s no further business.