I have a petition here entitled “Stop Bill 166.” Thank you to the residents who reached out to our office to explain your concerns with the bill and give us this petition.

There is concern with Bill 166 because it brings in political interference to university research and education. There is also a concern with this bill because the best way to ensure that every university has an excellent mental health and anti-racist policy program is to properly fund it, and this government has unfortunately not been properly funding universities. This petition calls on the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to oppose Bill 166 for these reasons and to restore funding to post-secondary institutions.

My question is to the member for Etobicoke–Lakeshore. Just this week, we learned that the Metrolinx project at the Mimico station has been cancelled, which means local residents have been waiting 10 years now for the GO station to be upgraded and for over 2,000 homes to be built in the area. Now what they’re looking at is a hole in the ground.

To the member from Etobicoke–Lakeshore: What is your plan to ensure that your residents get a station upgrade?

We recently hosted a town hall in our riding, in the Chinatown area, and the top issue that came up was that people are losing their family doctors. If you are 75 years old and you don’t have a family doctor, then your health could be at risk. We decided to investigate the problem. We did a review of the number of doctors in downtown Toronto who could provide service in Cantonese or Mandarin, on the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario website, and we discovered a very concerning fact: Of the 24 doctors operating in downtown Toronto, 80% of them have been practising for 43 years or more, which means that they are about to retire. And that is what we are hearing in our community. Five doctors have just retired, and there are two more who are about to retire. That means there are thousands of residents in Chinatown who have just lost their family doctor.

This is not an issue that is unique to Chinatown. We know that 2.2 million Ontarians do not have access to a family doctor, and that number is expected to double in just two years.

Our health care system depends on people having a primary care provider, or a family doctor. Residents should not have to go to the emergency room at Toronto Western just to get a prescription for antibiotics because there is nowhere else for them to go.

This is the message from Chinatown to Queen’s Park: Fix the family doctor shortage in Chinatown and across Ontario by investing in primary care.

My question is to the Premier. Over 100 residents in the town of Rossmore are being threatened with a blatant renoviction by their new corporate landlord, Bedford Properties. Resident Keith Maybe said this: “It’s not humane what they have done. You’ve got people who have been in these apartments right from the time they were built 37 years ago. Some people are in their eighties and their nineties. It’s not right.”

Premier, what are you going to do to help these residents keep these homes?

For the sake of these residents, can you say yes to our amendments in Bill 97 to strengthen Ontario’s eviction protection laws?

My question is to the member for Ottawa Centre. Thank you for your speech. I know you very much care about the residents of Ottawa Centre.

My question is focused on housing. When you look at this budget, do you believe this budget adequately addresses the housing affordability crisis that you see in your riding?

Thank you to the member from Niagara West for your presentation.

I noticed in this bill, Bill 91, that the government has opened up the condo act, which I find quite interesting, because there are a lot of improvements that we can make to strengthen protections for the 1.3 million people who live in a condo in Ontario.

To the member from Niagara West: What measures would you like to see to strengthen board governance and consumer protections for condo residents in Ontario? Since you’re opening up the act, this is a real opportunity to move forward with that kind of stuff.

My question is to the Premier. Shudeshna and her neighbours have problems with their condo. They called because their units have not had heat for weeks this winter, and they’re unsafe, because the building is being broken into and their property manager refuses to improve security. They’re also concerned because there is no effective regulator, agency or tribunal that can step in and help them. I believe this has got to change.

Premier, this is my question: Can you strengthen and improve the condo tribunal, so Ontario condo residents have a place to go when they face issues like these?

My question is to the Premier. Kerrie and Daniel, who are here today, are owners of a newly built condo at 1 Yorkville Avenue. Since moving in, they’ve faced a whole host of problems—faulty equipment causing false fire alarms, amenities that were promised that have still not been built. Their home is still a construction zone.

Now, Kerrie has complained to her property manager, her condo board and government regulatory agencies, but no one is helping her and the problem remains.

A report written by the public accounts committee gives us a road map for what we need to do to give condo residents the protections they need, and this government signed off on that report as well. To ensure condo residents live in safe and well-maintained homes, when will this government turn this report’s recommendations into law?

I’d like to introduce Kerrie Fulton and Daniel Huether, residents in University–Rosedale. Thanks for coming today.

I rise today to speak on Bill 7, the More Homes, Better Care Act. I want to recognize the work of the many residents that have reached out to me: Kate Chung, Cassandra Ryan, the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly, the Ontario Health Coalition, health care professionals, caregivers and loved ones.

This bill gives hospitals more power to remove the elderly and the sick, and move them into a long-term-care home they do not want to go to, without their consent. This bill would allow hospitals and give them the right to charge up to $1,200 to $1,500 a day to a patient that does not move out of the hospital.

Let’s get a few facts straight: No one wants to stay in a hospital any longer than they have to, period. There are 38,000 people waiting for a long-term-care home in Ontario. The good homes are full. In my riding, we have Kensington Gardens. That home is full. The only long-term-care homes that do not have waiting lists are those that people do not want to move into. These are substandard homes. These are for-profit homes. These are homes where the building is aging, where people live four people to a room, where there’s not enough staff available to help people eat and to change them at a regular level or help them bathe. These are homes where basic standards are sometimes not maintained because this government has made the decision to not properly enforce the rules and have a sufficient number of inspectors go in to ensure those rules, those standards, are maintained. These are the homes that have had seniors suffer and die during the pandemic—nearly 5,000 seniors.

It is also a myth that patients in hospitals are waiting for a long-term-care-home slot. It is a myth that they are all waiting for a long-term-care-home slot. There are many people waiting to move into another type of hospital care, such as rehabilitation or mental health care, but they cannot move because these beds are full.

Hospitals don’t just provide acute care. Elderly people and disabled people—people in need of a hospital bed—should not be discriminated against, and I would like to thank Cassandra Ryan and Kate Chung for their very eloquent letters to me explaining that. These people have lived full lives. They’ve paid their taxes, they’ve raised their families, they’ve volunteered in their community, they’ve contributed to building Ontario. They should not be treated as a nuisance, or as undeserving, or as the reason why emergency rooms are somehow full. It is not ALC patients’ fault that Ontario’s hospitals have the fewest hospital beds per person of any province in Canada. It is not their fault. It is not their fault that nurses and health care workers in Ontario are leaving and quitting because they are not paid properly. And it is not their fault that hospitals are not provided with sufficient funding from this government to do what they need to do to care for the people of Ontario.

It was an honour to listen to my colleagues today speak about the solutions that experts and stakeholders and family members are advocating for, because the solutions are clear: Ontario needs to provide a holistic and kind solution to the health care crisis, which means addressing the staffing crisis by repealing Bill 124 and paying our health care workers properly. It means committing to increasing funding to home care—not for-profit home care, but home care that is provided so people can get their first choice, which is to stay at home. It means increasing caregiver allowances so family members can provide care to loved ones. And it means reforming the long-term-care-home model, moving away from a for-profit model where we warehouse our disabled, our sick and our elderly, and moving towards a long-term-care-home model where people are provided with the quality care they need so that they can lead good lives.

Bill 7 is not the direction that we need to go to. We have better solutions that are being proposed to us, and I urge this government to look at them and implement them instead of this.