This is a bill that is relevant to southern Ontario, but doesn’t have anything to say about transit in northern Ontario. That’s the part of the province you see when you flip the map over.

Years ago, the Mulroney Conservative government killed passenger train transit to Thunder Bay. During the last few years, we lost—well, all communities lost—access to Greyhound bus transit. We went for months with no intercity transit at all, and now we have a patchwork of expensive bus services. Right now, it costs $350 to get from Geraldton to Thunder Bay—that’s about a three-hour drive—for a medical appointment, but the Northern Health Travel Grant only covers about half of that cost.

There are two parts to my question: (1) Will the government take the transportation needs of northerners seriously and reduce the costs of transit in northwestern Ontario? (2) Will the government increase the Northern Health Travel Grant so that northerners can afford to access health care when and where they need it?