This morning, we heard from people across the province, actually, who represent different sectors: seniors’ advocates, retirees, health care workers. We heard from folks who represent workers. We heard from people who are very concerned about Bill 7. And, of course, we heard from health care workers from different sectors.

One PSW told us that Bill 7 “blames the most vulnerable people for a health care crisis that’s not their fault and forces them ... hundreds of kilometres outside their communities, away from their families and friends.

“There absolutely is a staffing crisis in health care in this province,” this PSW said, but “this won’t do a thing to address it.”

Already overworked and underpaid health care staff will be faced with the ethical dilemma of compromising quality of care to discharge and clear beds. So my question is, why is this government refusing to listen to front-line workers who are offering real solutions?

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—