Well, Madam Speaker, the member is right about that. We’ll keep voting against the privatization of health care every single time. You can be sure and you can count on that.

The government keeps repeating the same line over and over again—that people are paying with their health card and not their credit card—but it’s simply not the case. You will, as Ontarians, have to pay for this, and you’re already doing it—countless publicly reported examples of patients who are having to pay for upgrades before they’re eligible for OHIP-covered services in private clinics. Over and over again, it’s happening right now. It’s costing patients, it’s costing their families, and it’s happening at a time when the cost of living has become absolutely unbearable for most people.

So I’m going to ask the Premier again: Why is this Premier expanding pay-for-it health care?

I was in a school, last week, where I asked grade 4 and grade 5 kids what their dreams are for their school. I asked them, if they could have anything at all in this school, what would they want? Do you know what they said? They said, “Can you bring back the soap in the soap dispensers?” That’s what their dreams are right now.

That is the state of education in the province of Ontario right now—no soap; leaky roofs.

This government is failing the future of our province.

Can the Premier explain why his Minister of Education thinks the learning conditions of Ontario’s students are not his problem?

Meanwhile, Ontario is facing a whopping $16.8-billion school repair backlog. We know both Liberal and Conservative governments have left our schools crumbling. Students are left to learn under caved-in ceilings or in classrooms with garbage bins that are collecting the rain. We’ve all seen it on this side—boy, have we.

The minister can blame the school boards all he wants, but they at least are legally bound to balance their budgets. And it’s basic math—when the minister underfunds them by millions of dollars, they are forced to make cuts, and they are not going to be able to make repairs.

So I want to ask the minister again—and the Premier: When is this Premier going to make his minister take some responsibility—

The TDSB alone is facing a deficit of $26.5 million.

In Thames Valley, classroom supplies are scarce amidst an $18.5-million deficit, the largest they’ve ever seen.

Ottawa-Carleton is facing $70 million in deficits.

The minister says there’s historic education funding, but a budget that ignores inflation is a budget that ignores reality. The only thing historic is the fact that our kids are now lobbying us to fix the roofs of their classrooms, to bring back soap in the bathroom, and to keep the lights on in classrooms.

I want to ask the Premier, do we need to hire a lobbyist or reach out to you on Gmail to get some answers?

I want to use my last supplementary to ask about another emerging health care issue. This government’s privatization-for-profit scheme is leaving patients across this province frustrated and very, very deeply worried about being charged for medically necessary services.

The Minister of Health has stood there and said that they are expanding private cataract surgeries, but we have more reports today that dozens of patients are being overbilled and charged for additional lenses and services that they did not ask for. This is exactly what we warned about: Patients being told they will only have to use their health card are just being handed a bill for thousands of dollars after their treatment.

The minister’s response has been incredibly disappointing. She recognized this practice as a violation of the commitment-to-medicare act, but has not offered, to this date, any solutions to protect patients.

I’m going to ask the minister, and I don’t want to hear that these patients consented to it, because it’s clear that patients were misled by this clinic. Minister, when will you enforce your own regulations and stop companies profiting off the backs of patients?

Interjections.

Well, what are we debating here? We’ve asked the government to vote to support our motion to strike a select committee, to create an open and transparent process, because we know that this government’s preferential treatment of their insider, speculator friends has cast a shadow over everything, including the government’s own plans: things like the building of the 413, the other urban boundary expansions that they have planned, the dreaded Ontario Place, which is a 95-year lease and $650-million subsidization of an Austrian luxury spa company—go figure—health care privatization, and of course the stalled P3 transit plans that are under way.

A select committee would allow the people of this province to hear from key members, from other witnesses, many of whom have, up to this point, refused and lawyered up. It would allow us to compel documents being recovered. It would again clear the air over this massive scandal.

I want to thank the member from Waterloo for her reference to the House of Cards, because you might possibly say that I couldn’t possibly comment. I know that people out there across the province, they want to know what, they want to know when, they want to know how—how did multiple developers know to get in touch with Mr. Amato at the BILD dinner? Why did Minister Clark step away from his responsibilities? What gave him the impression he needed to keep arm’s length from this?

People had high hopes for this government, I think, when they were originally elected—really. They were hoping for change. People voted for change; that’s fair. And now we know, and we all hear across this province, how deeply disappointed Ontarians are in the conduct of this government. Trust is at an all-time low. The RCMP is considering an investigation. Two ministers have resigned in shame, and one hightailed it to the exit. Trust needs to be restored. This government has an opportunity to clear the air. That work is not going to happen in the dark.

I urge the members opposite once again: Join us. Let’s do this work together. Let’s restore some integrity to government and to our democracy.

Well, I can tell the minister that it’s time she put the partisanship aside and did the work it takes to fix people’s health care, because this is not the reality out there across this province—code blacks, code reds. Speaker, Ontarians are speaking out because they know this government is heading down the wrong path. They saw what happened in Quebec, where carpal tunnel surgeries at private clinics cost taxpayers 84% more than if they had been done in the public system. They hear experts when they say that further privatization of health care will lead to even more emergency room closures and worse outcomes for patients.

Real leadership is listening and changing your behaviour when you have made a mistake. Back to the Premier: Will he start listening to ordinary Ontarians and stop wasting public money on privatizing care?

Interjections.

Speaker, to the Minister of Transportation: When will the Eglinton Crosstown finally open?

These delays have been caused by the utter mismanagement of this project. Instead of taking responsibility, this minister is embroiled in a finger-pointing battle between the private contractors, Metrolinx, the TTC and even her own ministry. The Toronto Sun reported this morning that they can’t even get answers on just how bad things are.

Speaker, instead of blaming everybody else, can the minister specify what direct actions she has taken to fix this mess?

Interjections.

Interjections.

Back to the minister: With rumours swirling around a potential cabinet shuffle, does this Minister of Transportation still think she’s the best person for the job?

Interjections.

To be clear, Speaker, we will continue to vote against their terrible legislation and their terrible plans because it is bad for Ontario. It is bad for Ontario.

It is ironic that the Liberal obsession with transit privatization has been embraced and, in fact, expanded by the Conservative government. Metrolinx is now overrun with private consultants. They are embedded as vice-presidents. They’re managing the Eglinton Crosstown. There are even private consultants managing other private consultants. The problem with outsourcing everything to private consultants is that, over time, the government loses the ability to do things like build transit. This minister can’t even manage her own consultants.

While the minister jets off to Paris, people here in Ontario are stuck waiting for transit that will not arrive. Why hasn’t the minister been able to deliver the transit that people need?

Interjections.

Today is Equal Pay Day in Ontario. It symbolizes how far into the next year the average woman has to work to earn what the average man has earned in the previous year. And we haven’t yet reached the Equal Pay Day if you’re a woman who’s racialized, Indigenous, 2SLGBTQIA+ or disabled.

Pay equity is the law in this province. So my question to the Premier is, will he commit to enforcing the law to ensure every woman worker earns as much as her male counterparts?

The cost of living is going up and up and up, and many women are having trouble covering even basic necessities, all while this government does next to nothing to tackle the affordability crisis. I’m sorry to say that their for-profit health scheme is only going to make it worse. It’s going to cost women more in health care user fees and upselling. And women health care workers are going to earn even less, too, because research shows that privatizing public services leads to lower wages for women.

Back to the Premier: Will he stop his privatization agenda to deliver fairness for women?

I move that:

Whereas more than a third of operating rooms in Ontario’s public hospitals do not meet the 90% target for operating room use, mostly due to lack of funding and staff needed to run all the province’s operating rooms simultaneously;

Whereas the government permitted the crisis in our health care system to persist while billions of dollars in unspent public funds are allocated to contingency funds instead of Ontario hospitals that are struggling to maintain quality of care due to understaffing; and

Whereas the Ford government is appealing the Superior Court ruling, declaring Bill 124, Protecting a Sustainable Public Sector for Future Generations Act, 2019, unconstitutional, despite the minister being told about the devastating impact on hiring, recruitment and retention of health care workers;

Whereas the infrastructure to expand surgical capacity already exists and is sitting idle in public hospitals but the government is choosing to spend taxpayer funds on investor-owned, for-profit surgical suites; and

Whereas high-quality facilities across the province have idle operating room time, such as Health Sciences North, which is only funded to use 14 out of 17 state-of-the-art operating rooms and Toronto’s University Health Network, which is unable to simultaneously run all of their operating rooms because of understaffing;

Therefore, the Legislative Assembly calls on the government to fund and fully utilize public operating rooms instead of further privatizing hospital operating room services.

Make no mistake: Today’s health care crisis is a manufactured one. It is a staffing crisis caused by years of underfunding, exacerbated by the pandemic, and made worse by the Ford government’s ideological decision to suppress workers’ wages and then take them to court over it, rather than help Ontarians in pain.

Today’s motion, if passed, would represent a step forward to resolving this government’s health care crisis. By investing the money we already have—funds already earmarked for health care—we could increase capacity in publicly owned operating rooms we’ve already built to reduce wait times. We can get people the relief they need today.

Speaker, over the weekend I listened to the story of Nathan Gilson and his family on CBC Radio. They live in Waterloo. In the fall of 2021, Nathan was just 14 when he was diagnosed with scoliosis in his spine. Left untreated, it can cause a variety of health issues, and at 14 Nathan was already experiencing pain in his ankles and knees. His surgery was scheduled for April. Nathan and his family were ready, but shortly before, they received some bad news: His surgery had to be postponed due to capacity. His mom, Shelley, said it was like having the rug pulled out from under them.

Speaker, I have two children, and there’s no worse feeling in the whole world than watching your child experience pain and not being able to do anything about it, so I can only imagine what it felt like when Nathan’s surgery was delayed a second time, then a third, then a fourth.

The long wait was taking a toll on Nathan. His spine shifted by 10 degrees over just three months. Delay after delay made it feel as though he missed a chunk of growing up. Just hours before his fifth—fifth—surgery date, Nathan was told he’d have to wait longer again. His mom, Shelley, said the most heartbreaking thing was hearing him say, “They don’t care about me, Mom.”

Finally, more than a year after his diagnosis, Nathan had the surgery he needed, and the 14-hour procedure was a success, thankfully.

But Nathan’s story is just one of hundreds we’ve heard from every corner of this province, of people waiting years for surgeries while operating rooms sit with lights off because there aren’t enough staff to run them.

Nathan could have had the procedure he needed much sooner had Ontario’s top-notch public operating rooms been allowed to operate at full capacity. Nathan could have spent more time hanging out with his friends and more time in school and less time in pain.

We need to reduce wait times for people like Nathan, and we need to reduce those wait times now, and we can by funding and fully utilizing public operating rooms instead of further privatizing our system.

When hospitals compete for staff with these new private, for-profit surgical centres that the government is planning, it’s our emergency rooms and urgent care centres that are going to suffer the most. Ontario already has more than 42,000 health care job vacancies—42,000—a fourfold increase in less than a decade.

Let’s be clear: Under the government’s plan, the staffing problem in emergency rooms will worsen. Hospital workers we do have will be incentivized to go to work in the for-profit clinics on the promise of higher wages, shorter hours and better working conditions. It will mean that we may see even more hospitals close their emergency rooms, and even more often, to manage a yet worsening staffing crisis. Communities will have an even harder time accessing services close to home because for-profit centres won’t be as profitable there. And the few health care workers we have in northern Ontario will be even further incentivized to leave.

I’m proud to support today’s motion to prioritize public operating rooms because it will reduce wait times right now and retain the health care workers we need in the public system.

Speaker, we know that spending public money on private procedure clinics also winds up being considerably more expensive, both for the government and for individual patients. For-profit clinics cost the public system more because of facility fees that cover overhead, the cost of technicians, the equipment, the supplies and the infrastructure.

Let’s look at cataract surgeries as an example. OHIP pays a flat flee of $500 per patient to public hospitals for these procedures. If it costs less, the remaining money is reinvested back into public patient care. With for-profit clinics, OHIP pays a flat fee of $605 per patient for a single cataract surgery—$1,015 for both eyes. And if the clinic’s actual costs are lower—which is, of course, always their goal—the money lines the shareholders’ pockets. It doesn’t go back into patient care.

This wasted public money adds up. About 150,000 cataract surgeries are performed in Ontario every year. That’s $90 million in public money that could be redirected to for-profit clinics if we’re not careful. That’s going to cost patients more out of pocket, too—and we heard about this earlier today—through the upselling and additional user fees.

In fact, in 2021, Ontario’s Auditor General found private clinics already deliberately misleading patients for unnecessary add-ons. Patients were coerced into buying expensive lenses—as much as $5,000 per eye—to qualify for surgery. This compromises patient choice and quality of care. Patients are often worried that if they don’t pay, they won’t be able to get the appointments, or that they could receive worse or even unsafe care. And let’s not forget, this is at a very vulnerable moment.

Speaker, I want to say again that I am proud to support today’s motion to prioritize public operating rooms because it will save the government and patients a great deal of money and will result in better care.

We know the Ford government’s move toward an investor-driven model will also put Ontarians’ safety at risk. Evidence from all over the world shows that profit-driven health care results in poorer outcomes. This makes sense when you consider that a for-profit clinic will always put its shareholders’ interests first.

We are already seeing the impact of this in Ontario. A 2012 report from CPSO noted that nearly a third of all out-of-hospital clinics fell far short of safety standards. That same year, the Toronto Star found nine patients of the for-profit Rothbart Centre for Pain Care who developed serious infections. Further investigations found there were 170 infection-control deficiencies there. They even found 11 patients who contracted hepatitis C at for-profit colonoscopy clinics over three years.

In a private clinic, if a patient experiences a complication, they have to be transported—guess where?—to an emergency room. That costs precious time and puts further strain on the system—while those in a public operating room receive care faster.

Ontarians are demanding that we not go further down the road of privatization of public care.

Today’s motion to prioritize public operating rooms will better ensure patient safety. It will lead to better health outcomes. It will help fix the staffing crisis right now. It will shorten wait times to get Ontarians the care they need faster. It will cost the government less and deliver more. And it will help ensure all Ontarians have better access to safe, quality care from our province’s trusted health care heroes. We already have the money to do it. It has already been earmarked for health care, and the infrastructure is already in place.

I want to urge all my colleagues in the Legislature today to prioritize public operating rooms. Let’s get the lights back on, fill those available shifts, and get patients like Nathan the relief they need now so no one has to wait any longer.

This question is for the Minister of Education. Speaker, unfortunately, our public health care system isn’t the only sector that is being targeted for privatization by this government. Two weeks ago, the finance minister announced a new scheme that would give payouts to parents for tutoring outside of school. It’s a plan that sucks $225 million out of our public schools, far surpassing whatever this government is contributing to in-school supports for kids and giving them what I can only guess is about 50 bucks per family for tutoring services outside of school.

Speaker, through you, to the Minister of Education: How does taking money away from our in-school supports and public education, and forcing families to find help for their kids at 50 bucks a year, actually help our struggling students?

How much is the government spending on this massive advertising program to promote a plan that doesn’t even exist yet?