SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Ontario Assembly

43rd Parl. 1st Sess.
May 28, 2024 09:00AM
  • May/28/24 10:20:00 a.m.

Recently, I attended a seniors’ tea in Ottawa West–Nepean, with over 200 seniors in attendance, and as I made my way around the room chatting with people, I heard the same thing over and over again: “Can you please get the Premier to fix our health care system?”

It was the same at the General Burns community fun day on Saturday as hundreds of residents stopped by my tent. Person after person told me, “Our health care system is broken. What can we do to get the government to actually care?”

But while Ottawa residents are desperate for action, the health minister says that there is no recruitment and retention problem for family doctors; this at a moment when 2.3 million people in Ontario have no family doctor, and every week, my office hears from constituents who are about to lose their family doctor or have already lost their family doctor.

The Premier has also fought in court for two years against your right to know how many nurses and personal support workers we are short in Ontario, saying it would be “economically damaging” to share this information, even as they don’t care how damaging it is to your health.

The government is also paying more to private, for-profit clinics to perform the same surgeries that are being provided for less in our public hospitals, meaning that taxpayer dollars are going to fund profits instead of increasing the number of surgeries, even though our public hospitals have the capacity to do more.

I agree with my constituents. It’s time for the government to stop playing games with our health care system and get to work on fixing it so that you get the health care you deserve.

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  • May/28/24 11:30:00 a.m.

The member for Ottawa South, come to order.

I’ll remind the members to make their comments through the Chair.

The supplementary question.

I’ll remind members that they need to make their comments through the Chair.

Interjections.

The next question. Start the clock.

Interjections.

Restart the clock. Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.

The next question.

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