SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Jessica Bell

  • MPP
  • Member of Provincial Parliament
  • University—Rosedale
  • New Democratic Party of Ontario
  • Ontario
  • Unit 103 719 Bloor St. W Toronto, ON M6G 1L5 JBell-CO@ndp.on.ca
  • tel: 416-535-7206
  • fax: t 103 719 Bl
  • JBell-QP@ndp.on.ca

  • Government Page
  • Feb/21/24 10:10:00 a.m.

Today I’m here to talk about child care. Parents across our riding, across our city, rely on child care. I think of Liz McLaughlin, who works as a nurse at Princess Margaret Hospital. I met her when her child care centre, Carmelite, announced they were closing, forcing her and 175 families to look for new child care options in a city that has very few available.

A typical wait-list is the kind of wait-list that exists at St. Alban’s child care. There are over 100 people waiting for a spot at St. Alban’s. I asked St. Alban’s, “Why don’t you just expand to meet the need that is clearly available?” They said, “We’re struggling to even survive.” Last year, St. Alban’s operated at a deficit because the federal-provincial arrangement doesn’t allow them to raise child care fees; however, they’re not provided with enough money to cover costs. They have lost more staff in the past year than they have lost in the previous 25 because they cannot recruit or keep workers, because wages are too low and housing costs are too expensive in our city, so people are moving and leaving. It is a huge problem.

As the need for child care rises, our child care system is not able to meet the need—or even, in some cases, they’re struggling to survive. I worry that the provincial-federal child care program is at risk.

I urge this government to look for real solutions to keep child care a reality in Ontario.

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  • Feb/27/23 2:40:00 p.m.
  • Re: Bill 60 

Thank you to the member for Barrie–Innisfil for your question. What I am very much in support of, when we’re talking about expanding public health care, is making sure that hospitals in Toronto, University–Rosedale, across Ontario—ensuring that their operating room capacity is at their maximum.

In University–Rosedale, we have the UHN network; we have SickKids. I have reached out to them and asked them what their operating room capacity is and they were all very clear with me: They said that they are not able to have all their operating rooms full—especially in the evenings, certainly on weekends—because they have a human resources shortage. And this human resources shortage doesn’t just exist when it comes to nurses; it exists in every single department that they’re experiencing, from human resources to finance to cleaners to personal support workers.

It’s a reason why our party has introduced this motion earlier today, calling on the Ontario government to increase capacity in operating rooms that are run by public hospitals in order to meet the need and address the surgery backlog.

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