On the occasion of nurses’ week here in the province of Ontario, I’m very happy to be putting in a petition on health care privatization. I want to thank in particular Joanna Binch and Hoda Mankal, who are nurse leaders in our community. I want to thank Rachel Muir from Ontario Nurses’ Association, Local 083, for doing a lot of the work in recruiting citizens to get their name behind this.

These citizens are concerned with the trend of health care privatization, which has been openly promoted by this government having private, for-profit organizations operating out of our public institutions like the Riverside campus of the Ottawa Hospital with nary a word of criticism from members of this government. It’s unfortunate, because the nurses who are behind this petition and across our community that help people every single day are doing great work.

And in describing this petition—

I am very passionate during nurses’ week to be introducing this petition on health care privatization to the Clerks’ table with page Lise.

My question is for the Premier: 134,000 people in the Ottawa region don’t have a nurse practitioner or family doctor. They’re part of the 2.3 million people in Ontario that don’t have that coverage. These neighbours rely on unsuitable walk-in clinics or crammed hospital emergency rooms to get basic health care needs.

For weeks, I’ve heard the government talk about plans to open 78 primary care practices, but we don’t have any details. Will the government today commit to providing a public list of these 78 clinics?

So, again, Speaker—very clear, yes or no: Will the people of Ontario get this list of 78 clinics today?

Speaker, for-profit health care staffing agencies are hurting our hospitals. One of these firms is Canadian Health Labs. This company has convinced hundreds of burnt-out nurses and PSWs to leave their workplaces, offering them double the salaries they normally earn. Their head lobbyist is former Prime Minister Paul Martin. The company made $154 million from 500 nurses and PSWs they’ve hired out of our public health care systems and public workplaces. Their plan is to hire as many as 5,000 people.

Can the Minister of Health confirm if she has met with this company and contracted Canadian Health Labs to work in Ontario?

Back to the health minister: One of two operating rooms at the general campus of the Ottawa Hospital was closed last Saturday when a nurse had to call in sick. That meant one less OR for major trauma incidents in our city. But do you know what was open last Saturday? The for-profit corporation that has been operating at the Riverside campus of the Ottawa Hospital and poaching nurses from our existing hospital infrastructure. This minister and this government, I’m going to assume, are going to insist there’s no link between these things, but I believe the president of the nurses at the Ottawa Hospital, Rachel Muir, who says there is.

Speaker, will today be the day, finally, that this government comes to grips with this obsession with for-profit health care and how it is hurting our hospitals?

Interjection.

Let’s review what this government’s innovation agenda actually is for public health care in Ottawa: First, they allow a for-profit clinic to operate inside our public health care system. Every weekend, they’ve been bringing in surgical equipment from Toronto. Colleagues, do you call that innovation?

Interjection: No.

Interjection: No.

Interjection: Absolutely not.

My question is for the Premier.

Operating rooms at the Riverside campus of the Ottawa Hospital have been leased to a private, for-profit corporation on Saturdays for the last while. The 26 surgeons running this for-profit corporation have been hiring nursing staff from the Ottawa Hospital’s public OR rooms. Nurses are being offered twice their normal salary. The surgical equipment for this clinic is shipped in from Toronto. On the surface, it doesn’t seem to make sense. But what has also never been clear to me is how this for-profit clinic was approved in the first place.

Can the Premier clarify if this clinic was given his government’s formal approval to operate?

I’m not going to respond to the disinformation campaign of this government about—

Interjections.

Interjections.

Thank you, Speaker. Look, there is a serious question being posed here, and I would expect a serious answer from the minister opposite. Every day a cancer patient waits for surgery is another day that patient risks losing their life; it’s another day that family is put in stress and anxiety because that patient could lose their life. Bill 60, the legislation that this government is putting forward allowing for for-profit, investor-driven clinics in a for-profit system, has led to a secretive clinic in our city that may be putting lives at risk in Ottawa.

It’s a very simple question: Will the government investigate these allegations made apparent to me? It’s their responsibility. Will you do it?

My question is for the Premier. Speaker, it has come to my attention that cancer patients waiting for surgery right now at the Ottawa Hospital are being bumped by clients of the for-profit clinic that’s been operating on Saturdays at the Riverside Campus of the Ottawa Hospital. This for-profit clinic has been offering nurses double the wages they earn in our public hospital system, and that has had an impact on our public system’s ability to have the staff capacity ready for cancer surgeries for patients in urgent need. This is what I’m being told privately by hospital staff who fear the repercussions for speaking publicly.

Speaker, a very simple question to the Premier: Will they commit today to investigate this matter?

That’s a straight-up lie.

Interjections.

My question is to the Premier. Good morning, Premier.

A private, for-profit surgical clinic is operating for the second time this Saturday at the Riverside Campus of the Ottawa Hospital from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Meanwhile, there is a long backlog of orthopaedic surgeries—over 2,000—to members of the public who are waiting for the public health care they were promised. This is another example of our public operating rooms being closed to the public who paid for them but open to the profit of a select few.

A question to the Premier: Will this government get public operating rooms fully up and running for everyone?

Interjections.

It is a sad day when there are nurses in this building who work very hard for us every single day, we ask serious questions about the attack on the funding of our public hospitals, and we get talking points back.

What we know in Ottawa today about this clinic is that nurses are being offered, inside our public hospitals, twice the salary to work in these for-profit, private clinics. We know it’s going to get harder to keep nurses in our public system as a result of your efforts to hand over these surgeries to for-profit clinics.

A serious question, Speaker: Is this government going to invest in our public operating rooms instead of selling them off or renting them out?

I want to thank the leader of our party, the MPP for Davenport, for putting this motion on the floor today.

I want to thank our health critic, the member for Nickel Belt, for so articulately saying what is really at risk right now in this moment: It is the well-being of our hospitals—let’s be very clear—because if you take these surgeries, 50% of available surgeries, and you hand them as a gift to Tory-run, private, for-profit clinics, you jeopardize the funding of our hospitals.

Do you know who’s not fooled, Speaker? Rachel Muir is not fooled. Rachel Muir is the president of ONA Local 83 back home. She leads all the nursing units at the Ottawa Hospital campuses. Rachel texted me Friday night with a revelation: A private for-profit clinic was going to be operating for the first time the following morning, at 7 a.m., at the Riverside campus of the Ottawa Hospital. She learned about it because members of her union had been approached, as the member for Ottawa West–Nepean just said, in the hospital, near the ORs, about whether they would work in this private, for-profit organization running out of a public facility. So I’ve just learned, if you’re a health care professional, how you get a raise under this government—it’s not at the bargaining table, with Bill 124 and all the assistance they give their lawyers fighting people in court; you go for 100 bucks an hour, and you work for one of the private operations run by one of their friends. That’s how you get a raise from this government. Well, guess what? Rachel sees through them.

Do you know who else sees through them, Speaker? Marilena Fox. Marilena Fox is a recording secretary of CUPE 4000. That is the group that represents almost all the workers at the Riverside campus of the Ottawa Hospital.

Did anybody ask people in administration, housekeeping, patient transportation, foodservice, trades, nursing, personal care attendants and orderlies—were any one of these people approached by the Ottawa Hospital or this government, the Ministry of Health, before they embarked on this for-profit experiment in our public system? What do you think, colleagues? Not a single one. And yet they call them heroes in this place. I just heard it over there: “We love our nurses. We love our orderlies.” It’s a load of nonsense if you walk into their workplaces and disrespect them.

This Thursday, the nurses will be rallying outside the Sheraton hotel here in this great city of Toronto. And the members of the New Democratic Party are going to be with you, nurses. We’re going to be with you, CUPE. We’re going to take on this government and embarrass them the way the education workers of CUPE did in November. Get ready for a very, very hot winter.

It’s a great pleasure to introduce again Sharon Lee, an OLIP intern working with us and our team for the Ottawa Centre office.

Sharon, it’s nice to see you. Thank you for all your help.