I rise to support our motion to free up doctors from their administrative burdens. It’s an important opportunity.

In the north, where I live, accessing primary health care, or accessing any health care whatsoever, is often a challenge—we are at about 45,000 people in Thunder Bay who don’t have access to primary health care.

We know that the Ontario Medical Association named administrative support as one of their key asks, so we think that needs to happen.

Now, nurse practitioners: I want to talk a little bit about that, because the NDP actually started them, and they’ve been a fantastic model of team-based work. The problem is, there aren’t enough positions for nurse practitioners, and they’re leaving the province, they’re going to the United States, or, in some cases, they’re joining for-profit clinics, which is exactly what has happened in Thunder Bay. The moment Bill 60 dropped, we got a for-profit clinic. It started at $100, now it’s $200, now it’s $400 a year.

I’ve just heard from health care teams in the region, and they’re saying they’re much worse off than they were two years ago. The OMA also notes that patients in the north experience persistent inequities in the care they receive and in their health outcomes.

Then we have the Northern Health Travel Grant, which this government voted against. All we were asking for was a review, and yet the member from Kenora, the member from Thunder Bay–Atikokan, along with the rest of the government, voted against it. Where’s the money? Well, we know that the cataract clinic in Kingston is getting 56% more than public clinics for the same work.

I’d just like to close by reading something here. Krystal Shapland said that she was initially seeing a nurse practitioner but had to stop once the practice started charging fees higher than she could afford. She now has been diagnosed with cancer and is only able to go to walk-in clinics because she can’t afford to pay for the for-profit clinic that’s now available. She says she believes the government is deliberately underfunding primary care and feels all but the healthiest patients will become casualties of a failing primary care system.

To close, I don’t know that everybody knows, but the ask from health services across the province was $700 million; the government gave out $90 million. There’s a lot of money that’s going into private health care. If it wasn’t going there, it could be going to support publicly funded primary health care that we need right now.

This petition is entitled “Stop Ford’s Health Care Privatization Plan.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Ontarians should get health care based on need—not the size of your wallet;

“Whereas Premier Doug Ford and Health Minister Sylvia Jones say they’re planning to privatize parts of health care;

“Whereas privatization will bleed nurses, doctors and PSWs out of our public hospitals, making the health care crisis worse;

“Whereas privatization always ends with patients getting a bill;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to immediately stop all plans to further privatize Ontario’s health care system, and fix the crisis in health care by:

“—repealing Bill 124 and recruiting, retaining and respecting doctors, nurses and PSWs with better pay and better working conditions;

“—licensing tens of thousands of internationally educated nurses and other health care professionals already in Ontario, who wait years and pay thousands to have their credentials certified;

“—making education and training free or low-cost for nurses, doctors and other health care professionals;

“—incentivizing doctors and nurses to choose to live and work in northern Ontario;

“—funding hospitals to have enough nurses on every shift, on every ward.”

I fully support this petition, and will sign it and give it to Margo.

The Ford government is opening the doors to for-profit corporations that are, first and foremost, in the business of making money for their shareholders. They will do this by encouraging people to pay extra to jump the queue. They will generate profits by trying to convince people they should pay for unnecessary tests.

I’d like to take a moment to revisit when long-term care was turned into a profit-driven business. When the Harris Conservative government sold off long-term care, they promised that all would be well for seniors and people with disabilities living in these homes, but that was far from reality, and it is still far from reality. Profits in long-term care are made by skimping on staffing, supplies, the quality of food, and poor hygiene standards. We saw the results during the pandemic, when members of the Armed Forces reported the appalling conditions that led to so many deaths. And the profits are scooped up through a particular packet of taxpayer funding that does not have to be accounted for. Will wonders never cease? Guess what? Instant profits at the expense of care for residents of long-term care, provided by our government out of taxpayer dollars—immediately go into the profits of long-term-care corporations and doesn’t have to be accounted for. It doesn’t have to be returned if it’s not spent on care.

Let me be clear: There’s no problem with grouping certain kinds of surgeries together for efficiencies within the public system. But there’s nothing in Bill 60 that requires the regulation of private clinics. The shiny new clinics will look nice on the outside, but like American health corporations, their singular goal will be to make money quickly. Frankly, that is never a good situation for the well-being of any society—when profits are more important than care.

As the government shifts surgeries to for-profit clinics, health care workers tell us public operating rooms are under capacity and sit empty largely due to underfunding and lack of staff. We know why there’s a lack of staff: Bill 124. What is now being recognized as “nurse abuse syndrome,” a form of PTSD, is the result of nurses being disrespected, underpaid, overworked and burnt out—the effects of Bill 124.

New nursing graduates are leaving after two years and some are even quitting after their very first placements, when they see the extreme workload first-hand along with how badly nurses are treated. Many nurses are also leaving to work for private agencies because they can work fewer hours and be better paid. It makes sense. In fact, I heard this past week from our local rehabilitation hospital that, regretfully, they are completely dependent on nursing agencies now, even though they cost three to four times as much as staff nurses, because so many nurses have left the field in frustration and despair. There would be no market for these nursing agencies if nurses weren’t being pushed out of the profession by this government’s unconstitutional wage repression bill.

Speaker, our motion today calls for the government to stop the dangerous road they are going down and to utilize our existing operating rooms by paying staff properly and bringing staff back so that Ontarians can receive the universally accessible, safe, quality care they need and deserve.