Good morning, Speaker. My question is for the Premier.

Yesterday, this government had a chance to show their commitment to ensuring that primary care for everyone is a priority, by supporting our motion to put patients first. They voted against it. Instead of working with health care professionals, they are making weaker funding announcements that amount to a drop in the bucket, and it is a leaky bucket. Doctors and health care workers say it shows the government doesn’t understand the scale or urgency of the problem.

So my question is to the Premier: Why are you refusing to listen to the clear demands of patients and doctors?

Back to the Premier: We gave you the solution. So to the Premier: Why did you vote against the solution that everyone else supports?

Interjections.

Back to the Premier: How many more emergency rooms and urgent care clinics need to close before this government takes this health care staffing crisis seriously?

So, to the Premier: When will this government implement safe staffing ratios in Ontario, like the NDP government in BC has done?

In BC, they’re taking action and they’re getting results. They’ve seen improvement in recruitment and retention among health care workers. They are only the second jurisdiction in North America that has implemented these same staffing ratios, but here in Ontario, it’s pretty clear that this government is not taking this staffing crisis seriously at all. That is not only having an impact on those overworked health care workers, but it’s having an impact on the patients that they serve.

I want to go back to the Premier again: Will Ontario join BC and become a leader in health care by implementing staffing ratios, or is he content with the status quo?

Don’t worry, that’s going to happen. That’s going to happen.

Speaker, we spend a lot of time in here talking about this government’s scandals—the greenbelt grab, the cover-up, G*, the RCMP criminal investigation of this government—but one of the biggest scandals in this province is the fact that more than 2.2 million Ontarians don’t have a primary care doctor. The health of Ontarians is at risk and that risk increases with every single passing day that this government fails to deliver.

My question to the Premier is, exactly how long will he keep people waiting for a doctor?

My question to the Premier is, why is this Premier letting paperwork stand between doctors and patients?

Minister, doctors are leaving the system faster than anyone can recruit them because of this exact issue. Doctors should be spending their time with patients, not with paperwork. Why does the government continue to complicate this issue? Doctors are spending 19 hours per week on administrative tasks. If they could spend that time with patients instead, it would be like adding 2,000 more doctors. That would reduce the primary care wait-list by 90%, Speaker—a practical solution, a simple solution.

Why won’t the government get the paperwork off doctors’ desks?

Good morning, Speaker, and welcome back. It’s good to be back here, I think.

This question is for the Premier. Throughout the break, I was travelling all around this province. It’s pretty clear that people all across this province are hurting right now. They’re feeling the rising cost of everything from utilities to mortgage payments, groceries, rent. For workers in our hospitals, in our schools, in the broader public sector, they’ve also had to contend with their own government fighting to suppress their wages with Bill 124 and then with the costly legal battle and campaign to defend that bill. But the workers won, and the courts have ruled once again that Bill 124 was unconstitutional. It was an unconstitutional attack on the rights of working people and their paycheques.

So my question to the Premier is: Will he apologize to Ontario’s hard-working nurses, PSWs, teachers, educational assistants and all the public sector workers for suppressing their wages with Bill 124?

Interjections.

I’ll tell you, Premier, that did not sound like an apology to me. The government not only used their power to cut the wages of health care and education workers during a pandemic, they spent untold amounts of dollars fighting those workers in court for years, only to be told what we already all knew: The bill is and always was unconstitutional.

Speaker, through you again to the Premier—do-over—how much did this government spend on legal costs to keep down workers’ wages on Bill 124?

Interjections.

Bill 124 deteriorated conditions in hospitals, in long-term-care facilities, at the worst possible time. We were already struggling with rampant hallway medicine when this government came into power, and they managed to make things even worse. Burned-out nurses, health care workers have been leaving the sector in droves. They can’t get out of here fast enough with this government in power. And guess what, Speaker? Private nursing agencies, the friends of this government, have been ready to jump in and fill the gap, bleeding our hospitals dry at the same time, and demanding exorbitant fees for exactly the same work.

Speaker, back to the Premier: Will he admit his choices worsened the crisis facing our health care system and, once and for all, please, apologize to Ontarians for Bill 124.

Interjections.

Well, Speaker, there you go again, right?

I’m glad to see the Premier finally join us this morning. This government—

Interjections.

Interjections.

Let’s take the rising cost of energy, shall we? New Democrats proposed a smart solution to help people reduce the cost of heating and lower emissions at the same time. The Conservatives said no. Their solution? Write a letter to Ottawa and hope someone else does something.

You’ve been in power for five long years. People are struggling. There are real issues that people deserve answers to.

Speaker, as we head into the holidays, when will this government start saying no to their insiders and start saying yes to regular Ontarians?

Interjections.

Speaker, I really hope that the Premier will answer this time. I’m going to go back to the Premier.

This government gave preferential treatment to insider greenbelt speculators, enriching them to the tune of $8.3 billion at the public’s expense, without building a single new home. It included the Duffins Rouge farmland, which was supposed to be protected. The Conservatives’ scheme undid those protections and made their insider friends $6.6 billion richer.

The government is already three ministers down. To the Premier: How many ministers will have to take the fall before he fesses up?

The question is for the Premier. The people of Ontario see a pattern of preferential treatment for this government. The former Minister of Health, who got the ball rolling so that private companies could profit off of our public health care services, is now a lobbyist for the largest chain of private surgical centres anywhere in the country. A clinic she actually represents is now receiving more funding to provide the same services that are delivered in public hospitals, and that’s exactly what we have been warning was going to happen.

So to the Premier: Why is the province paying private, for-profit clinics as much as four times more than public hospitals for the same procedures?

Interjections.

The former Minister of Health would have been responsible for transferring licences for publicly funded surgical services to for-profit clinics. Under her watch, funding for one private, for-profit surgical centre—Don Mills—has quadrupled since 2018, reaching $5.2 million by 2022-23. The same cataract surgery that costs $500 in a public hospital costs more than $1,200 at Don Mills.

To the Premier, and I hope he will answer this question, how is hemorrhaging public funds innovative or cost-effective health care? Tell us.

Here’s what’s really going on. Clearpoint is a wholly owned company of Kensington Capital Partner Ltd. That’s a private equity firm. They’re not health care experts or medical professionals; they’re a for-profit corporation. Their priority is to maximize profits for their shareholders. There profits come from over-billing patients, from charging unnecessary fees, from cutting costs by compromising quality.

Back to the Premier, why does this government keep prioritizing patient profits over—sorry, private profits over patient care?

Interjections.

Ceux de nous ici, de ce côté de la Chambre, nous le savons très bien que ce gouvernement se présente comme grands admirateurs des consultants—grands admirateurs. Les conservateurs devraient donc certainement être favorables à plus de transparence et de responsabilité en ce qui concerne leurs contrats. Particulièrement puisque ce gouvernement envisage de privatiser encore plus de services publics, comme la santé.

Alors, monsieur le Président, revenons au premier ministre : est-ce que son gouvernement prévoit à mettre en place une liste « sunshine » pour ces consultants surpayés?

Back to the Premier: Does the Premier think that there should be a lesser standard for his own government?

Speaker, I’m here for answers for the people of Ontario, and we’re not getting any on that question, so let’s just try something else here.

To the Premier: Will the government stop stonewalling the release of this document so Ontarians can finally get some answers?

Here’s another fact for you—

Interjections.

Speaker, before last year’s election, the Premier promised up and down that he would not touch the greenbelt. But on November 4, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing broke the Premier’s promise. It’s hard to believe that the minister would betray such a big promise without the Premier’s permission.

Back to the Premier: Did the Premier or anyone acting on his behalf direct or authorize any ministry officials to remove lands from the greenbelt prior to last November 4?

This government is having a lot of trouble following along, so I’m going to make it very, very simple for them: Will the Premier rule out any further removals of land from the greenbelt? Yes or no?

Speaker, I am truly honoured to rise today to pay tribute to the late Honourable David C. Onley, who served faithfully as the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario from 2007 to 2014. Mr. Onley was, among many other things, the first provincial Lieutenant Governor with a physical disability and the second-longest serving since Confederation, a father, a grandfather, a husband, a change-maker, a broadcaster, a public servant and an advocate.

I’d again like to welcome Mr. Onley’s wonderful family: his wife Ruth Ann and Robert his son who are joining us here today. Thank you for being here.

David Onley is remembered as one of the most extraordinary figures in Ontario’s rich political history. He contracted polio at the age of three, which made walking a mammoth task. As his family shared with us recently at his funeral, that also left him with a lifetime of pain. Yet when he was sworn in as Lieutenant Governor, he walked up the stairs in front of us today and sat in the Speaker’s chair. That determination and grit transcended to all areas of David’s life. When David saw closed doors, he opened them, and when they couldn’t be opened, he made sure they were made accessible—not just temporarily, not just for him, but for everyone who passed through after him.

Former Toronto mayor David Crombie and I were speaking recently about Mr. Onley, and he reminded me of his son’s reflection at his father’s disability and desire to live a full life. He said, “He lived a life of courage every day,” something we should all aspire to.

Mr. Onley lived a life dedicated to service and continually fought to make this province work for the disabled. He once remarked that accessibility was, “much, much more than just the curb cuts and wheelchair parking spots and automatic doors and ramps.... It’s that which enables people to achieve their full potential.” He shared the joy in the passing of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act and was dedicated to using every tool he had to sound the alarm when he felt the province was lagging in fulfilling its legal obligations, and in 2018 he was asked to do the official AODA review.

I was speaking with disability advocate Sarah Jama yesterday—she’s a disability justice advocate who, yes, is running for a seat in this House—and I couldn’t help but ask her what stood out for her about the legacy of David Onley, as somebody who is a disability justice advocate and also a person who uses a mobility device. She said she felt it incumbent on all of us not to let his incredible work pass with him. She says, “We owe him and the millions of disabled people in this province the implementation of every single one of his 2019 recommendations.” Tough words—and she’ll have tougher words too, but I leave her to bring them to this place. And I would say that, if she were to take her seat among us here, or the next person who sits here with a physical disability, she will have been well served by the path that he forged.

I want to share, Speaker, that I was honoured to attend Mr. Onley’s funeral just a few weeks ago. It was an extraordinary event. It was held in the very church where Mr. Onley and his wife Ruth Ann met and was attended by a who’s who of leaders of all levels of government, past and present; former colleagues in the media; of course, his beloved family; but also hundreds and hundreds of disability advocates, people with disabilities.

I spoke yesterday with Anthony Hylton, his chief of staff when he was Lieutenant Governor, about the time and effort necessary to ensure that that church and service would be truly accessible for this occasion: larger font in the programs, an area for people in mobility devices, the book of condolences had to be accessible to everyone, programs in Braille, screens with captioning and on and on.

Mr. Hylton called David Onley “one of the greatest people I ever met”—and he’s met pretty great people—and he shared that he would receive a call from Mr. Onley every January 30, the anniversary of the day he asked him to be his chief of staff, becoming the first Black person to fill this role anywhere in Canada.

Anthony Hylton also remarked that Mr. Onley was a deeply religious man. His family and his pastor talked about this throughout their service. It was fitting, then, that his coffin was led out of the church by his pastor, now himself needing a mobility device, on David’s scooter.

As Mr. Onley had said often, most people are one fall or one accident away from really understanding how inaccessible places were for him. He lives on in his immortalized words in Hansard, in the results he achieved for the people of Ontario and in the lives and memories of his loving family and the friends who had the pleasure of knowing him. Thank you for sharing him with our province.