The ayes are 26; the nays are 70.

Absolutely. Health care is not for sale. This bill amends the Regulated Health Professions Act as follows:

Section 3 of the act is amended to provide that an individual be treated with fairness in addition to sensitivity and respect in their dealings with their health professionals. The colleges protect the public but don’t protect us from unfair fees, and now they will.

Section 51 of schedule 2 of the act is amended to provide that a member has committed an act of professional misconduct if the member or another person has charged a patient an unfair fee for a service provided by the member. If the panel makes such a finding, the panel may require the member to reimburse the patients for the amount paid by the patients for the unfair fee as well as direct the registrar to suspend the member’s certificate of registration for three months.

Schedule 84 of schedule 2 of the act is amended to provide that the patient relations program of a college must include measures for preventing and dealing with unfair fees charged to patients.

The bill also amends the Independent Health Facilities Act in the following ways:

Section 18 of the act is amended to provide that the director may revoke or suspend a licence in instances where the independent health facility is charging unfair fees to patients; and

Section 20.1 of the act is amended to provide that the director may eliminate services from the list and types of services in respect of the independent health facility which, in the opinion of the director, are being charged, or will be charged, to patients in an unfair way.

I support this bill and I hope everybody else will.

Ms. Karpoche moved first reading of the following bill:

Bill 25, An Act to amend the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 to implement various measures to stabilize rent / Projet de loi 25, Loi modifiant la Loi de 2006 sur la location à usage d’habitation afin de mettre en oeuvre diverses mesures destinées à stabiliser les loyers.