My question is for the Premier. In 2019, your government made sweeping changes to our public health system without consulting public health. Fast-forward to 2023, and the Auditor General’s value-for-money audit shows clearly a lack of funding—a lack of funding which has serious risks to our communities.

Our Hamilton lab completes over 300,000 tests a year—and now Hamilton as well as five other public health labs will be closing their doors.

Premier, your government is once again putting our community at risk. When are you going to respect our local public health units and fund them appropriately?

Speaker, 300,000 tests a year—tests like RSV, C. difficile, HIV; and free testing for people with private drinking water systems like wells and cisterns; tests for water that might be contaminated with bacteria, West Nile virus, E. coli. Do I need to remind this government of Walkerton? All of these tests are on the chopping block for Hamilton.

Premier, once again, your government is putting our communities at risk. When will you put people’s health and safety first and reverse these cuts and closures?

The member opposite, of course, is talking about a recommendation made by the Auditor General. There has been no decision made by the ministry or Public Health Ontario. But to suggest in any way that we have not been funding our public health partners is a complete fallacy, and the numbers prove it out. We have, since 2020-21, invested over $100 million for infection prevention and control hubs to support over 5,000 congregate living settings across the province. That’s something that, when you were in government and when you were supporting the Liberals, never happened.

We’ll continue to support public health because we understand how absolutely critical it is.

At last year’s AMO conference, we announced that we would continue to support an increase with public health units across Ontario and support voluntary mergers if they deemed them appropriate for their community.

Since 2018, public health units have had increased funding from the provincial government by 16%—that is separate and apart from all the COVID-related expenses that happened in public health.

With the greatest of respect, facts matter. Look at the estimates, look at the budgets and see the investments we’ve made—again, 16% since Premier Ford began forming government in 2018.