I want to ask my friend from Whitby a question about student and staff mental health, because it’s an issue he cares about, and I care about it too. I just recall an anecdote from my time as a university educator. I remember a student all of a sudden not coming to class. It was once, it was twice, and then on the third occasion I managed to get in touch with the student and found out that she’d had a very debilitating lapse, a mental health lapse. When I worked with her to get her an appointment at Carleton University’s mental health and wellness services, we found out that there was an over six-month waiting list. And I thought, for someone in an abject crisis, that’s unacceptable. We have to do something about that.

One program we have in the city that would work for Carleton University students, staff, faculty is called Counselling Connect. It runs through our community health centres. It gives you up to three psychotherapy sessions online or in person, and the intake is within 48 hours. That’s the goal. It’s serving about 700 people a month right now.

So I want to ask the member if he’s willing to think about an amendment to this bill to make sure we have community mental health services that can respond on that basis when someone is in crisis, within 48 hours.

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?

As members of this House may know, myself and four other colleagues embarked on what we call the “social assistance diet” for the next two weeks. I want to say from the top of my remarks this morning to this House that it is not about us; it is an expression of frustration from me and my colleagues, from watching our neighbours suffer for four years. There hasn’t been a day in this place, I’m told, when someone hasn’t stood up and talked about how people are suffering in our communities before our very eyes.

When I heard the Premier say this week that a 5% increase is fantastic and unprecedented and adequate—I ask any one of us to follow what we’re doing, to join us in what we’re doing, and ask if $57 extra a month is actually going to help someone living in legislated poverty.

I’m going to ask us also to consider, as we do this two-week journey together, that there are countries in this world that actually say there’s a minimum level of income, and those countries that have basic income in their communities have healthier communities. They spend less on health care and correctional and police services. People have a dignified opportunity to live and be their fullest self.

That’s what we’re asking for in this place. We’re asking for an awareness that compassion is not only an ethical consideration; it’s an economic consideration, it’s a respect consideration.

I will not go into this House for one more day without making at least an attempt to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. I welcome the Premier and the minister responsible to do it with us.