Speaker, let’s talk about what this bill really means. It means that we’re giving up on those who took care of us, our seniors, the people with disabilities and the people who are most vulnerable, and the most vulnerable communities that some of my colleagues have pointed out. So in my short time, I just want to point out the fact that, when we’re talking about a health care crisis, this bill is essentially blaming those who are the most vulnerable people in our province.

No one wants ALC patients to end up in hospitals. No one here does. I don’t, and I know ALC patients themselves certainly don’t. Out of the 6,000 patients who need ALC, only about 1,800 are the ones who actually need long-term care. That means we need to build capacity for long-term care. We need to improve long-term care, and we need to make sure that we have things like inspections, things like staffing. What impact will this bill actually have on the crisis that we’re facing in our long-term care or our health care? It does not solve that problem.

The capacity issue that we face in our long-term care: Donna Duncan, the CEO of Ontario Long Term Care Association, said the following in the Toronto Star. She said that the nursing homes themselves actually do not have the capacity to take up the patients who might end up in these homes as a result of this bill because we’re not addressing the fundamental problem, which is staffing, which is the issue of these homes and which is what’s happening in our health care system.

So what we’re asking for is, withdraw Bill 7. All patients have the right to consent, especially our elders. They’re the people who built this province. These are the people who are the most vulnerable and these are the people who should not be blamed for the crisis that many of the past governments—including this government, because they were in power for the past four years—have created, this health care crisis. We really need to do better by everybody, especially those who are waiting for us to make the right decision.

The fact that there are so many advocates across this province talking about this bill and the fact that we did not have committee hearings—and we actually heard from more than, I think, a dozen people who joined our meeting yesterday, which was a mock hearing just so we could get an understanding of what people are saying. We heard from so many people who talked about the fact that we need to withdraw Bill 7. We need to fix the health care crisis, and the way to do that is to retain and recruit staff. We need to make sure we recognize internationally trained professionals who want to contribute to this province. We need to make sure that we actually help the health care system by investing in our health care system, and we need to invest in our home care. That’s where these seniors and these people want to be. They want to be in their homes, with the care they need.

I have a simple question: Do you want to go to Orchard Villa? Yes or no?

I will not be heckled about that.

Our hospitals are some of the oldest hospitals. They need to be repaired.

Interjections.

There are a lot of things that we can anticipate happening. There are a lot of advocates across the province who have been really worried about this.

I think this will answer your question. One of the quotes that I can share is from the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly. This is what they said: “We oppose today’s proposed amendments to the FLTCA revoking the right of seniors in hospital to consent to LTC which will result in them being moved far from supportive family & community, again attempting to ‘fix’ health care to the detriment of seniors. #RightsDontAge.”

Speaker, that’s what will end up happening. So many people will lose their support, will lose their community and their family because they will be forced to go to a home that may not be up to par with what they need or the care that’s necessary. Most of the beds that are empty and people don’t want to go to them—it’s because they don’t have that quality that’s necessary.

I want to thank the member for her question, because it allows me to share another bit that I didn’t have enough time to, which is that when we talk about freeing up beds, when we talk about freeing about the ability for staffing, when we talk about clearing ALC beds, this legislation actually does not free up nurses and specialized staff.

We need to talk a little bit about the types of alternate care and, when people in the hospital are in this situation, what kind of care they receive. In long-term-care homes, for example, will that actually allow for nurses and PSWs to be freed up?

And the fact that we need thousands—Speaker, thousands—of PSWs and nurses: One of the things that we could have done is to allow for internationally trained professionals and so many others who want to be nurses and PSWs in this province to become certified, and allow them to be paid better. Repeal Bill 124, so that we can retain and recruit more health care workers in our province.

If we walk back a little bit and actually talk about what happens when someone ends up in the hospital—first, no one ever wants to go to a hospital. You’re not going to a fancy hotel to stay. Let’s be clear; let’s be honest: You’re ill. You’re not well.

I have so many seniors and I know so many people who don’t want to go to the hospital even when they’re not well, especially in the crisis that we’re facing right now. So the fact that these people, when they refuse, for example, to go to the designated long-term-care home—if they refuse, then they will be charged. There is a financial hammer on this, and that means that people will feel that financial coercion in order to go to that long-term-care home.

So one of the things I would urge this member, as well as all the other members in the government—if you really care about Scarborough, show us. Come to Scarborough and provide the funding that we need, because our hospitals are some of the oldest hospitals in the province.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this bill, Bill 7, the More Beds, Better Care Act.

I’m also very excited to debate this bill because I have heard from quite a few of my colleagues this afternoon. It’s been an interesting afternoon—I have to agree with the member from Kitchener–Conestoga on that point—because while we were debating, I actually got an email from a constituent. This is what they wrote:

“Please try to stop this from happening!

“This is gross and atrocious! To think, I or members of my family could end up Lord knows where, ALONE, in any kind of a crappy facility, with no family to advocate for me. Please!

“And, announcement made this morning, law introduced this afternoon! What’s wrong with this picture? He should drop Bill 124 and pay staff properly, treat them properly. Don’t shuffle old people around like cattle to make the staffing situation look better. Shame on him!” That was the quote in an email that I got just while this debate has been happening.

I begin today with this legislation. I have read it carefully. I have read it multiple times. I actually left a copy in my office, so I got another copy from the Clerks here to make sure that I had all my notes correct as well, because when I look at this bill, More Beds, Better Care Act, I think what we should actually call it what it is, the warehousing seniors act, instead of the title the government has given.

What I want to do, Speaker, is start off with the explanatory note because I think everyone in Ontario—and some of my esteemed colleagues—may benefit from hearing the explanatory notes. It reads, “The bill amends the Fixing Long-Term Care Act, 2021, to add a new provision for patients who occupy a bed in a public hospital and are designated by an attending clinician as requiring an alternate level of care”—ALC. “This new provision authorizes certain actions to be carried out without the consent of these patients”—without the consent of these patients—first page.

And it goes on to say, “The actions include having a placement co-ordinator determine the patient’s eligibility for a long-term-care home, select a home and authorize their admission to the home.” This is the care coordinator. “They also include having certain persons conduct assessments for the purpose of determining a patient’s eligibility, requiring the licensee to admit the patient to the home when certain conditions have been met and allowing persons to collect, use and disclose personal health information, if it is necessary to carry out the actions.”

Let me just read the certain limitations that do apply: “The actions cannot be performed without first making reasonable efforts”—so you know what, Speaker? Yes, it does say that. It does make reasonable efforts, and we know from the way people have been treated—so many of our seniors who have been treated in long-term-care homes, the type of food they receive to the way they have been left alone for hours and days. We know that sometimes things can be a little bit muddy when we talk about “reasonable efforts” when it comes to treating seniors.

It goes on to say—“reasonable efforts to obtain the patient’s consent. If consent is later provided by an ALC process, the parts of the process that have been consented to must be in accordance with sections 49 to 54 of the act, subject to the regulations.” We don’t have this and the regulations will dictate some of that as well.

“The section does not authorize the use of restraints”—which is what we have been saying on this side of the House, Speaker. We understand that you will not tie down grandma or grandpa and force them out on a gurney, but that’s okay because you’re still forcing them by other means. “The section does not authorize the use of restraints in order to carry out the actions or the physical transfer of an ALC patient to a long-term-care home without their consent. Regulation-making powers are set out in relation to this new provision and the actions it authorizes.”

Those are the first two paragraphs of the explanatory note of this bill, Speaker.

I know some of my colleagues have been arguing back and forth, and I know people have been watching and sending us emails and messages wanting me to point that out because there has been some confusion, or an attempt to create confusion, so I wanted to get that out. I think it’s very important for us to understand what this bill actually talks about when we talk about consent, when we talk about restraints, when we talk about coercion and the types of treatment that we’re actually putting our seniors up to and what it really means for so many of our loved ones who may be in this situation and how they may be treated—not to mention the financial barriers that they will face.

Speaker, this bill essentially allows hospitals and long-term-care homes to use and disclose ALC patients’ health information as needed to facilitate the transfer, and it’s very important to point out because hospitals—even though the whole idea of patient consent, and as the Minister of Long-Term Care pointed out, that provision of keeping patients and if they’re charged is part of a different bill, different legislation, from years and years ago. That was used as a last resort. But unfortunately, what happens is that now we’re at a point where they’re actually giving a bill which allows for it to be used any time, as necessary. So when we look at this legislation and the impact of it, it will have just disastrous results, especially when we look at the profit-making aspect of so many long-term-care homes.

I can’t believe I have three minutes left. What I want to do is just point out a few things. In this bill, while we take away rights of patients, we’re giving more rights to long-term-care homes to actually refuse patients if they want to. What does that mean? We are telling patients that if they, for example, by the staff coordinator—and by the way, they’re not assessed by the doctors or the nurses; they’re assessed by the coordinators. If they’re determined to be placed in a home but the home refuses them, then they will not be placed.

One of the biggest issues that we are going to face is that so many of these patients will end up in homes that are not close to their family members, which is one of the biggest issues that they may face.

We have also heard from people who have been charged already. This morning, my colleague talked about someone who has been charged almost a quarter of a million dollars. One of the things that the government talks about is how this side of the House is fearmongering when it comes to this legislation. But what about the fact that so many people—it’s from, let’s say, $60 to about $1,500 per night if they refuse to go to the home that was determined for them.

I realize that I’m running out of time. I want to quote—because it’s not just coming from me; there are people across the province, there are advocates across the province who are terrified of this legislation. I want to quote Natalie Mehra from the Ontario Health Coalition, an organization that I had the opportunity to work with before I became an MPP. She says, “The bottom line is the Ford government is using the health care crisis to privatize Ontario’s public hospital services and to push seniors out to fill long-term-care beds in the worst nursing homes that no one wants to go to because they have terrible reputations, most of them for-profit. It is all couched in very carefully selected and manipulative language, but the actual policy changes they are proposing are clear and they clearly benefit for-profit companies at the expense of patients, particularly seniors.”

Speaker, we have seen how many for-profit homes benefited throughout the crisis when their CEOs, for example, got bonuses and yet PSWs and nurses did not get the support that they needed or paid sick days, or the fact that they are still fighting for their rights in their workplaces and yet we’re talking about these for-profit homes benefiting.

Unfortunately, I’m out of time, so I just want to say thank you very much. I hope that all members in this House read this legislation carefully and understand how dangerous these provisions are and what they mean for our loved ones, especially our seniors, who are the most vulnerable people in this province. We have lost more than 5,000 seniors throughout this crisis, and many of them didn’t die from COVID; they died from dehydration, from malnutrition, from lack of care.

And Speaker, I plead—I am begging this House to reconsider, to make sure that we’re—

I want to thank the member from Davenport for her passionate speech and for sharing with us exactly what many seniors in our province have gone through throughout the past couple of years, as well as the reality that we’ve had in this province and the deterioration in our long-term-care sector.

One of the things we’re noticing—and it’s clear from the member from Eglinton–Lawrence’s question—is that this bill doesn’t actually address the crisis we’re facing in long-term care or in health care in general. Rather, it’s just something they have put forward which takes away consent, takes away patients’ rights.

One of the things I think is important to highlight is that clearing ALC beds will not actually free up nurses or doctors. I would like the member to maybe add a little bit on why this government might be doing this. Does it actually do anything for our health care crisis or what’s happening in long-term care?

I want to thank the members from Mississauga–Lakeshore as well as Mississauga Centre for both of your remarks, and also thank the member from Mississauga Centre for her work in the health care sector and the dedication that she has shown, especially during the pandemic, going back to it. It’s incredible.

I do have a few questions. I know that the things you’ve highlighted are what we’re facing in our province right now in our health care sector. My question to the members opposite—and mainly, I guess, this goes to the member for Mississauga–Lakeshore because I want to quote one of the words that he’s pointed out, which was that they will “ensure” that people will, for example, be placed near their homes, and if there is a payment that someone’s asked for, this bill will “ensure” that that’s not the case. But we know that there are a lot of things that are up to the regulations, for example. How will you ensure that they are within the region of their homes or that they are liking the home that they’re placed in? And how will you ensure that there is no extra payment made?