Given the destructive effects of Bill 124, it is no surprise that senior health care workers have left their hospital positions and that even new nurses are being drawn into the nursing agency vortex—a situation that is pushing almost every hospital in Thunder Bay–Superior North into massive debt.

What is the government doing to attract nurses back into full-time positions and stop the flood of health care dollars going to shareholder profits?

When will the government address the wage gap identified in the Hay report and bring nurse practitioner wages up to levels appropriate to their skills and responsibilities?

In the Thunder Bay regional hospital, because of Bill 124, the wages of people who sterilize medical equipment have fallen so far below inflation that these workers have to take on additional part-time jobs just to survive. In their words, “We sure went from heroes to zeros in a hurry.”

Will the government ensure that these workers earn a wage that reflects their important contributions to our public health care?

My question is to the Premier. This government spouts a lot of numbers about the thousands of new health care professionals they hired during their last term, but there is—

Interjections.

As I said, this government spouts a lot of numbers about the thousands of new health care professionals they hired during their last term, but there is no evidence whatsoever that any of these new professionals exist. They are nowhere to be seen in Thunder Bay–Superior North, and given the staffing crisis gripping every single health care setting in the province, they’re nowhere to be seen anywhere else.

Is your refusal to negotiate a fair wage with existing health care workers, thus sending them out of the profession in droves, part of your long-term plan to privatize health care, ultimately leading to low-waged and precarious work for all health care workers once you have destroyed the existing workforce?

The $5,000 bonus given to nurses but not other health care workers not only did not represent a permanent wage increase, it continues to cause division and resentment amongst all those health care workers who are not eligible for the bonus—an entirely predictable outcome in the government’s divide-and-conquer strategy.

I was called recently by a young nurse who was adamant he did not want their “damn $5,000.” He wanted to see across-the-board pay and benefit increases so that more health care workers would stay in the profession and they wouldn’t be working in a constant state of exhaustion.

Will this government admit it is deliberately driving existing health care workers out of the profession in order to gut the public system?