I have a petition here entitled “Prioritize Public Health: Keep Our Community” Public Health Ontario “Labs Open.” This was signed by thousands and thousands of people across the province. Their concern is that this government is closing local public health labs in Timmins, Sault Ste. Marie, Hamilton, Peterborough, Kingston and Orillia. They want to ensure that we invest in public health infrastructure by keeping these labs open.

We certainly must have learned from COVID how important it is that we are able to do timely and quick testing when it comes to public health emergencies.

This petition says that these public health labs are critical and that the government’s plan to privatize and/or close them is unwise, and we certainly agree with that.

I’m going to add my name to those of all of these concerned citizens who have taken the time to sign this, and I’m going to give it to page Hosanna to take to the table.

As you will have heard, Speaker, in the House, Ontario currently has about 2.4 million Ontarians who do not have access to a family physician or primary care, and we know that puts their health at an imminent risk, and we know that primary care helps keep patients out of emergency rooms.

We want to encourage the government to do everything they can to address, to fix this doctor shortage. Certainly, we would like to see the government have a strategy to increase the number of staff support for primary care providers, so they can spend their time treating patients instead of doing paperwork.

I agree, again, that this doctor shortage should be a major concern of this province. I think our health care minister said it’s not a major concern; I disagree, and the people who signed this disagree.

I’m going to add my name to this and give it to page Ethan to take to the table.

I think we all need to understand the importance of our conservation lands that protect us from flooding and that clean our water. The government’s changes that would allow not only development on this land but the sale of conservation lands, which threatens endangered species and certainly their habitat—these changes are not helpful when we’re facing climate change. They will increase our risk of flood, fires and droughts in our province, and this is a major concern for people across the province. Once they hear that our conservation authority lands are at risk, they certainly are prepared to sign it, as they have done here. I agree that we need to protect conservation lands in this province.

I’m going to add my name to the signatures and send it to the table with page Hosanna.