It is my pleasure to put a few words on the record about the Supply Act, which basically looks at how the government spent the money that they had. I will focus on the $82 billion that the government had to spend on our health care system.

The first thing I want to talk to you about is primary care. Primary care is basically the key that opens the door to the rest of the health care system. You need to have a primary care provider to be referred to a specialist. You need a primary care provider to be referred to a surgeon, to be referred to other parts of the health care system. But for 2.3 million Ontarians now, they do not have access.

And yet, we have here in Ontario interdisciplinary primary health care organizations that are willing to help, that are ready to help, that would love nothing more than to take the thousands and thousands of Ontarians on their wait-list and give them access to primary care so that those people get the health promotion they need to stay healthy, get the disease prevention they need to control their disease, get the chronic disease management that they need, get the mental health services that they need right here, right now, in Ontario.

We have 111 members of the Alliance for Healthier Communities. Those members are community health centres. They are nurse practitioner-led clinics. They are Indigenous primary health care organizations. They are community-governed family health teams. They all have something in common: Their family physicians work with a team of other people. Usually the team will have nurse practitioners, nurses and RPNs. They would have somebody dealing with mental health, either a social worker or a psychologist. They would have people dealing with health issues, usually a nutritionist or dietitian. They would have a health promoter. They would have a team—a medical secretary etc.—that works to provide primary care.

Right now in Ontario, the Ontario College of Family Physicians has gone all over the province to sound the alarm bells. We cannot continue the way we are going. We were at 2.2 million when they came—we’re now at 2.3 million Ontarians without access, and by the end of next year, we will double those amounts, with close to five million Ontarians. A million Ontarians right here in Toronto won’t have access to primary care, and yet you have sitting on the desk of the Minister of Health a list of nurse practitioner-led clinics that want—all they need is a little bit more money to hire one more nurse practitioner, to hire one more nurse, to hire a dietitian, and they would be able to take on more patients.

I can speak for the nurse practitioner-led clinic in Capreol. Capreol is part of my riding in Nickel Belt, where 40,000 people do not have access to primary care. I live in northern rural Ontario, and do you know what, Speaker? We have underemployed nurse practitioners who would love nothing more than to get a job at a nurse practitioner-led clinic in a community health centre and take on hundreds of people who need their help. It is so bad that—the specific nurse practitioner-led clinic I’m talking about in Capreol had a maternity leave. During the maternity leave, a nurse practitioner came and did the maternity leave. They were able to keep her a little bit longer because they used money that was left over from COVID to keep her, and they were hoping that—they’ve been asking for more funding for nurse practitioners for years and years. I should have counted how many letters and how many requests for funding I have hand-delivered to the Minister of Health for this one particular nurse practitioner-led clinic. And yet, it is radio silence. We have solutions right there.

Do you know what’s happening now, Speaker? Lise has opened a private clinic for nurse practitioners. She bills people who come to see her. She doesn’t want to do this; she wants her job. She was excellent, actually. She worked at the nurse practitioner-led clinic in Capreol until they did not have enough money to keep her. Now there are hundreds of patients who are paying to see her, because this is the only way that they can gain access. This is wrong. It doesn’t have to be like this. We’re not talking about billions of dollars—we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars more to nurse practitioner-led clinics, to community health centres, to Indigenous primary health care teams, and thousands and thousands of people would gain access to primary care.

We know what happens when people don’t have access to primary care. None of us wants to sit in an emergency room for hours and hours on end. So we wait, so we wait, so we wait, until we are so sick that we haven’t got a choice anymore.

And then, rather than being diagnosed with stage 1 cancer, you’re diagnosed with stage 3 or 4, which—for a lot of cancers, we have the treatment for you, we will treat you, we will try to gain you your life back, but it will cost the health care system hundreds of thousands of dollars for that treatment. All of this could have been avoided—and we’re talking for one person. The treatment for stage 4 cancer, the treatments for stage 3 and stage 4 breast cancers are in the hundreds of thousands—you’re talking half a million dollars per client. Are they worth it? Yes, absolutely. We have the technology. We have the knowledge. We know how to help people. But all of this could have been prevented had people had access to primary care. All of this could have been prevented if the hundreds of requests for funding that sit on the Minister of Health’s desk would have been answered. For the money we spend on treating people once they’re sick, we could have saved money and given access to all of those people. But they did not do this.

The Supply Act made it clear that the minister had announced that there would be $30 million to improve interdisciplinary care. Once they finally signed the $3.1-billion agreement with the federal government, they took the federal money and invested up to $100 million in 78 projects. But there are hundreds of other projects sitting on that desk that will open the door to people who need primary care. What are we waiting for? Why are we letting people suffer, gambling with their health and with their lives when we have the knowledge, we have the skills, we have the money? We have a government that chooses not to do that. They choose to—what is it—increase by four times the amount of money that we spend to the few private hospitals that we have. They chose to increase it by 230%, I think—I’m going by memory—the amount of money that we give to the 10 private surgical suites that exist in Ontario right now.

They have no problem increasing the funding for the private, for-profit delivery of our health care system, but when it comes to funding primary care—let me read some of the requests that the Alliance for Healthier Communities put forward. They are the ones who represent the 111 community health centres, nurse practitioner-led clinics, Indigenous primary health care teams, community-based family health teams.

They said that health human resources at comprehensive primary care organizations across Ontario has been underfunded for over 11 years. For years, health care providers and administrative staff in community-based non-profit primary, community, mental health and addiction, and long-term care have faced lower pay grades than other parts of the health care sector, including newly created government health care agencies. Funding is inadequate and does not keep up with inflation or cost of living, which makes recruiting and retaining staff a challenge. Primary health care staff have been paid at or under 2017 salary rates. Community health organizations provide care for populations that are 68% more complex, on average, compared to the average Ontarian. Despite this complexity, clients served go to emergency departments less, resulting in $27 million saved every year. On average, patients with access to team-based care have improved health outcomes, fewer emergency visits, better discharge experiences, and cost savings ranging from $10 to $90 per patient, per month.

They went on and on. And yet, they did not get a pay increase. They did not get the funding they need to hire more staff so that we don’t look at 2.2 million Ontarians without primary care—making 2.3 million.

I also want to put on the record a letter that the township of St. Joseph put forward. This one has to do with the closure of the public health lab in Sault Ste. Marie. The corporation basically went on to ask—“At their March 6, 2024, council meeting, the township of St. Joseph passed resolution 2024-61 regarding the planned closure of six Public Health Ontario (PHO) labs, including the laboratory in Sault Ste. Marie.” They attached a resolution outlining their objection. And they wished to advise the Ontario Minister of Health that it is opposed to the closure of the Sault Ste. Marie Public Health Ontario lab and requested that Public Health Ontario be directed to review past decisions to remove the Sault Ste. Marie public health lab’s ability to test samples.

Their recommendation is in writing. It has been sent to the Minister of Health. They basically made it clear that the public health lab in Sault Ste. Marie is an important part of their health care capacity. Plus, many people they serve do not have water from the city, so they need to rely on the free water testing at public health to make sure that the water that comes from different wells and also water in the pools etc. is safe. None of this will be available.

They went on to say:

“Whereas the closure of the Sault Ste. Marie” public health “lab would mean longer wait times in getting results from beach water, hotel and recreation centre spas/pools and provincial park water sampling for the region, or even the cessation of sampling altogether due to time sensitivity, and

“Whereas Sault Ste. Marie and area is currently faced” with “an acute shortage of doctors and the availability of clinical/diagnostic testing supports the attraction and retention of more doctors, and

“Whereas a strong local health care system requires a critical mass of skilled health care professionals and health care services, which include reliable and timely lab testing....”

I hope the minister will answer to the township of St. Joseph, who do not want the lab to close in Sault Ste. Marie.

I have something very similar coming from the Timmins area, where, again, we’re looking at closure.

In this Supply Act, we don’t see anywhere in there that we will bolster the public health lab in areas of the north to make sure that it continues to be available. We all know what happened in Walkerton. We all know what happens when people don’t have $135 to pay a private lab to see if their well water is safe: People get sick; people get hurt; people die. All of this is prevented right now because we have public health labs throughout the north. If those are not available anymore, many people won’t drive all the way from Hearst to Sudbury to have their water tested for free. They will either have to pay 135 bucks or go without. We all know that many will choose to go without.

The next thing I wanted to talk to you about is the supervised consumption services site. There was a letter that was written to the Minister of Health as well as the minister of mental health, about the supervised consumption sites. It was signed by 51 health care executives; 51 health care executives signed the letter to the Minister of Health and the minister for mental health, asking them to keep the sites open. Some of the letter says:

“Unregulated drugs of unknown contents and potencies are driving increased deaths, hospitalizations, injuries and trauma across Ontario, with an estimated 3,644 drug-related deaths in 2023. Several communities in Ontario have declared a state of emergency due to drug toxicity deaths. Supervised consumption sites, and particularly low-barrier overdose-prevention sites, are a necessary emergency response to this crisis and must be immediately scaled up. In 2018,” this government “arbitrarily capped funding to only 21” consumption sites. “Six years later, the government still has not delivered on funding 21.... Despite overwhelming need and local support, the Ontario government has approved and funded only 17 consumption site locations across the province. Only one of these is located in northern Ontario,” located in Thunder Bay, which is way too far for the people of Timmins, Sudbury or elsewhere. “Meanwhile, the toxic unregulated drug crisis has taken far too many lives since 2018.”

We’re talking 20,000 people who have died, many more family and friends left grieving.

“In the context of this preventable public health emergency, urgent action is required. There are at least five submitted applications for” consumption sites “that have been ... delayed by the Ontario government.” That includes in Sudbury, who sent their application 30 months ago; Barrie, 28 months ago; Windsor, 19 months ago; Timmins, 13 months ago; and Hamilton, where they had to withdraw their application in October after two years of waiting.

“The tragedy of an isolated instance of gun violence in Toronto must not prevent people in diverse locations across the province from accessing vital health services any longer. The Ontario government’s decision to stop processing applications altogether for more than seven months is punitive and irresponsible.”

They go on to talk about what is happening in Timmins, Windsor and Sudbury, with the very high opioid mortality rate, which is on average three times the provincial average. They come with a clear ask. We’re not talking, again, billions of dollars; the site in Sudbury needs $1.2 million. For $1.2 million, you will save on average two to three lives in Sudbury every single week. Every single week, two to three people’s lives could be saved with an investment of $1.2 million in the supervised consumption site. Why is this so hard to fund? But you’re not going to find this funding in the Supply Act of 2023; they did not spend a penny on this.

Another one that is rather interesting is Birth Mark. Birth Mark is a charity dedicated to providing essential reproductive health care support in southern Ontario. They are a charity that has been providing these services for free for the last six years. Their programs “offer preventive care and early intervention, leading to significant cost savings by addressing health and social issues before they escalate into more severe and costly problems. By providing adequate support, we effectively reduce emergency room visits related to mental health crises, childbirth complications and postpartum issues, thereby alleviating strain on our health care system and reducing associated costs.”

They basically work with mainly pregnant homeless women and help them through their pregnancy, help them through their delivery and help them, post-partum, to look after their newborn. They have been doing this for free through donations. They’ve been having a tough time with the pandemic and everything else to raise money through donations and are asking the ministry for a very small amount of money so that they can continue to do this.

We all know what happens to homeless pregnant women once they give birth, if they are homeless, the CAS comes in, take their baby away and nothing good comes of that. Through the program, through Birth Mark, all of this changes. They support these women. They support them through their pregnancy, through their delivery, through their post-partum, through how to care for a child so that even when CAS comes and does their assessment, they are deemed to be fit mothers and get to keep their babies. It’s good for the baby; it’s good for the mother; it’s good for our health care system, for our social system. It’s very low money, but you won’t see a penny that has been spent so far by this government for this very worthy program. This is a cost-saving program. This is the right thing to do for newborns, for mothers, yet this government leaves them high and dry.

The next one I wanted to talk to you about is home care. Our home care system is broken. It fails more people than it helps every single day, and this has dire consequences on so many people. One of my constituents came to see me. Her husband has been discharged from the hospital. He was alternate level of care, so he was admitted into the hospital, had a stroke and had multiple problems. He’s waiting for a long-term-care bed. She has agreed to take him home and keep him at home until a bed becomes available in one of the long-term-care homes in Sudbury.

The home care system fails her pretty much every single day. She needs help early in the morning to care for her husband, to help transfer, to help bathe, go to the bathroom, feed etc., but the worker is never there. They gave her a call and said, “Oh, we will be there soon. We should be there by 3 o’clock in the afternoon.” Nobody gets out of bed at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. Nobody can wait till 3 o’clock in the afternoon to have breakfast. She needs help to get him out of bed, to get him fed, to get him to go to the bathroom and all of this, but home care never came. I had a little meeting. Bayshore, that has most of the contracts in my riding, came. Her daughter was there and her daughter mentioned that as soon as she’s finished work, she comes and helps her mom. So around 3:30, 4 o’clock in the afternoon, she’s with her mom. They don’t need a PSW anymore; all is good.

You know what, Speaker? Since Bayshore found out that at 3 o’clock in the afternoon they don’t want a PSW anymore, every day the PSW is only available after 3. Then, when she says, “Well, I don’t need you at 3; I needed you at 9 o’clock this morning,” they say, “Oh, you’re refusing care.” We all know what that means. That means Bayshore takes the 56 bucks for that visit, the PSW never gets to come and hundreds of millions of dollars in profit just keep growing and growing for Bayshore while an 84-year-old woman who is trying to look after her 87-year-old spouse while he waits for a spot in long-term care has to go at it on her own. This is wrong.

We had the same thing with a lady from Azilda who has a kidney issue and has qualified for home care that is supposed to come to her house every day. They know that on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, she goes to dialysis at the hospital and she’s not there. Those are the only times where Bayshore will say, “Oh, we have a PSW that can come for you at 12:30 on Wednesday.” They already know that on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, she goes for dialysis in the afternoon. You figure that they would send the PSW on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday to help her—no, no, no. They know that she will turn it down on Monday, Wednesday and Friday because she’s at the hospital receiving dialysis, so that’s when they make it available.

I want to talk to you about Tina Senior, who has a very disabled child, a beautiful little boy, big blue eyes—anyway, a beautiful, beautiful child, six years old, goes to school, and he needs to be fed through a G-tube. So a nurse is assigned an hour and a half every day that he’s at school to feed him through a G-tube tube. So he connects it, puts in the food, and often the machine goes “beep, beep, beep” and the nurse handles it and goes. That’s not what happens at all.

Bayshore gets paid for an hour and a half for that call, but they only assign the nurse to go for 15 minutes. So the nurse goes in, connects the G-tube, gets the food, and then takes off. But at least twice, sometimes three times a week, the machine will go “beep, beep, beep,” and then they don’t know what to do. They call the mom.

The mom is an intensive care nurse at Health Sciences North. She has had to leave the hospital to go care for her son so many times that she has now quit her job as an intensive care nurse at Health Sciences North in order to be there every time the nurse, who is supposed to be there to look after her son for an hour and a half, is not there. Again, we sit with Bayshore, we try to straighten that out, and it never works. Bayshore gets paid for an hour and a half to look after this kid, sends the nurse for 15 minutes, and then depends on the mother to back this up.

This is causing a ton of stress. Think about it: You’ve lost your income as a nurse. You’ve lost your opportunity to continue to provide care to your community, a profession that she loves doing, because the home care system is failing her.

She also received direct funding for respite. Trying to recruit, train, book all of that on her own, submit the receipt in time at the right place, at the right time is a full-time job. It shouldn’t be like this.

This is not what home care is about. Home care is supposed to be there when you need it. Home care is supposed to be there. If you qualify for an hour and a half, they’re supposed to be there for an hour and a half. But given that you don’t get paid in between clients, they will come in 10 minutes late and then leave 10 minutes early because they have to drive.

In my riding, they showed me 750 kilometres. How long do you figure it takes, Speaker, to drive 750 kilometres in the middle of the winter in rural northern Ontario? And they don’t get paid for that time. It shouldn’t be like this. We know better than that.

I also want to put on the record a little request from Gilles Proulx, who is a constituent in my riding who basically said, “I am writing to express my concerns regarding the financial challenges faced by parents participating in the Model Parliament program. My son, Yanick Proulx, is a dedicated participant in this valuable program, and while I’m immensely proud of his involvement, the associated costs pose a significant burden on our family, particularly due to our residence in northern Ontario, specifically the Sudbury region.”

I’m just putting it out there that this is something that the government could look at. We want all the kids to participate in the Model Parliament. It is a beautiful, beautiful program that helps a lot of kids experience things that they would have never been able to experience before. Helping with transportation, helping with accommodation for those kids that come from more than 50 kilometres away would really help. There are very few kids from my riding who have participated, mainly due to the fact that their parents did not have the money to do so.

I had the list of other things to talk about, certainly the private, for-profit long-term-care homes and the way that they pay their staff. We have the Elizabeth Centre in Sudbury right now that refuses to negotiate. It has been two years now where PSWs and RPNs have not seen an increase. None of that is in the Supply Act.