Thank you to the member for that question. It’s always a privilege to tour your riding and meet with the schools in your areas as well. I think you can see my excitement about the Ontario Learn and Stay Grant, as well as the Premier’s and the Minister of Health’s, but the excitement for students who are looking to go into that field. Imagine considering nursing and to find out that you could have your education paid for if you were open to living in a different area, spending two years there. Like I said, it’s likely that you spend some time there, you start to love that community and hopefully stay in that area.

But looking at how you ensure that we have more nurses and doctors, it’s innovative programs like this, and I think—this is just the beginning of this program. We announced last March, we’ve already expanded it. It was nursing in the beginning; now we’ve expanded to lab technologists and paramedics. I think there’s so much more we can look at doing as this progresses, but we’re already seeing that there’s a huge interest in the program so there will be more to come on that and I think great opportunities to look at other communities—

We are making investments into our hospitals, our long-term-care centres. Under this government, we saw the increase of care to clients in long-term care up to four hours. We’ve also seen the investments, the 60,000 new long-term-care spaces. I’ve seen the investments in long-term-care homes in my area as well, which I know we’re all very excited about, to ensure that seniors have access to long-term care in their communities.

Thank you to the member for that question. Having supports in the north is very important, and in underserved areas. That’s why, with the new Learn and Stay grant, we’ve seen those areas specifically identified not just for nursing, but for lab technologists, for paramedicine.

With the work that we’ve been doing to ensure that there are more doctors, this is the first time in 10 years that we’ve seen a seat expansion for doctors: 160 undergraduate spaces and 295 postgraduate spaces. This was not done under the Liberal government. It was this government that came in and said, “We need to ensure that people have access to doctors.”

I can tell you that in my own area, I’ve talked to families who are experiencing not having a local doctor, but accessing the work at some of our community care clinics through our local health teams and the resources and supports that are served there. So we do recognize the need for more doctors in the north, but also in rural and underserved areas across this province.

The status quo is not working. We need to do better for the people of Ontario. Before COVID, we were working hard, and COVID just expedited that as well, but the investments are being made. We’re here to support all Ontarians and ensure that you’re going to the doctor or a hospital and using your OHIP card and not a credit card.

I just have a note from my staff that says that as of 9 a.m. today, the Ontario Learn and Stay Grant website has had over 405,000 visits, so the word is getting out there. It’s to support northern and rural communities, the ones you’re talking about, that we’re encouraging students and paying for their education to get them to learn in those communities and make that commitment of staying for two years, because if you’re staying there for two years, you’re starting to set down roots. You are becoming familiar with the community and maybe meeting someone there and staying in that area.

But the supports that we’re giving to ensure that more nurses, paramedics, lab technologists—we’re also working with the Northern Ontario School of Medicine to ensure there are more doctors in the north as well, so that everyone has access to quality care.

I’m happy to speak to Bill 60, Your Health Act.

Yesterday, I stood up in the House and spoke about the all-hands-on-deck approach that our government is taking to build a strong, more resilient health care system. As part of this approach, we’re working hard to hire more health care workers, and that starts with ensuring that the next generation of those workers have access to high-calibre education right here in Ontario. As Minister of Colleges and Universities, I have the distinct privilege of overseeing this important work. We are currently seeing record numbers of students registering in health human resources programs across the province.

At colleges and universities, students enrolled in health human resource programs such as nursing, PSW and paramedicine are getting the skills and training they need to make a difference in our communities and begin a rewarding career and to support a strong and sustainable health care sector that helps ensure people across the province have more ways to receive the high-quality care they deserve.

I think we can all agree that having faster access to care and the ability to receive care closer to home is a good idea. But what many seem to forget is that this is not necessarily a given, especially for those in remote communities. There are many, many Ontarians who need to leave their home communities just to access care they need. For example, in some cases I’ve heard of people travelling all the way from Timmins to Toronto, staying for a few days and then travelling back, just to receive patient care.

I can tell you, in the early days of when my middle daughter was born, we travelled from Orillia—not as far as Timmins or some of the areas that people are travelling from—but we were travelling to SickKids every two weeks for the first three years of her life. So I can understand how difficult that is for families to make the travel arrangements, arrangements at home with your family and how difficult that can be, especially with a newborn.

What’s clear is that while we’re lucky to boast both top-notch doctors and health care workers in this province, not all communities have equal access to those workers by sheer geography alone, and that’s just unacceptable. That is why, as minister, I was so eager, excited and proud to announce our medical seat expansion last year. This medical seat expansion announcement was the largest our province has seen in a decade, with our government adding 160 undergraduate and 295 postgraduate medical seats across the province to increase access to health care for more communities.

I was also thrilled to announce the creation of the northern Ontario medical school as a stand-alone institution and expanded enrolment capacity for the institution to help foster the next generation of doctors in the north. Last year alone, we had over 2,000 students preparing to become a doctor in Ontario, including 124 studying in the north.

I actually visited the Northern Ontario School of Medicine in Sudbury in November and had the opportunity to speak with fourth-year students. They were telling me about their third-year placements, which they spend in communities. These students are from northern communities, and they want to stay in those communities to practise in the future. They were telling me some of the reasons why. They like that community aspect. One student was telling me that he and his team were working on a young boy. He said, “A week later, we were at a local restaurant, and it happens to be owned by that young child’s family.” He said that’s the personal aspect they like of practising in small communities—and in family medicine as well. It was great to talk with these students. They were very excited, because they’re about to become doctors. But in their third year during these placements, compared to some of their other colleagues, he said, “We really get to participate in everything. It’s really all hands on deck and a great learning experience.”

We also announced the new Toronto Metropolitan University medical school in Brampton that will be opening its doors in the near future. This will help solidify local health care needs in the region for generations.

Along with the Premier, the Minister of Health and the rest of our cabinet and caucus, our government is forging ahead, stronger than ever before, to ensure that all Ontarians have the ability to access health care services whenever and wherever they need it. We recognize that in order to build on our health care system we need to ensure that students pursuing medical studies have access to a world-class post-secondary education. But doctors aren’t the only group we have focused on over the past few years. Part of being able to access care wherever you need it means we need to have a strong and reliable nursing team at your care centre, and as with any career in Ontario, a great team begins with a flawless education.

Last year alone, there were over 25,000 domestic full-time students studying at one of our colleges and universities—a number that continues to grow year over year. On our part, to help support these students, we’ve invested $342 million that will train an additional 5,000 RNs and RPNs as well as 8,000 PSWs over the next five years. But our work doesn’t stop there. When our students are ready to leave the classroom and head into the workforce, we have created pathway opportunities through clinical placements by investing an additional $160 million into these placement spaces and into our students. These investments are making a true difference in Ontario. At every opportunity, we are making the critical investments into health care education and training, supporting the amazing work done by our sector to ensure students are ready to take on these important roles upon graduation.

For a brief moment, Speaker, I would like to talk about a school that is very close to my heart, Georgian College. Aside from it being my former employer before I entered politics, Georgian is also my local college as the MPP for Simcoe North. I have had the great pleasure of visiting the campus as both the MPP and minister many times, seeing first-hand the incredible progress they have been making with their health human resources education. Since launching their own stand-alone nursing program—which is yet another initiative created by our government—Georgian College has been making incredible strides in training the next local nursing workforce. I want to really emphasize that point: a local workforce.

Before localized education like this at an institution like Georgian existed, many young people would finish their education at a major university and partner with the local hospitals in that area for their careers. We saw that at Georgian College. Students would do their first two years at Georgian, and then leave and do their second two years at York University. That meant they likely did their clinical placements in the big city and stayed here upon graduation.

While it’s great for communities like Toronto, Ottawa and London, smaller communities like Orillia, Owen Sound and Sarnia would continually see their bright young people leave their home communities for opportunities elsewhere. So as a ministry, we stepped in. We created pathways where students can choose the community where they’re able to study in, if they want to be at a college or a university, and allow for greater retention of young people to learn and stay in their home communities.

But this was just the beginning. I know the MPP for Sarnia–Lambton is very excited that Lambton College offers a stand-alone nursing program—as well as Sault College, my member colleague from Sault Ste. Marie, under his leadership, allowed and created the pathways for students in stand-alone nursing at that college.

Seeing the success of our stand-alone nursing program, we wanted to create even more pathways and incentives for young people to build their careers in underserved communities across the province, something we saw became more important when the pandemic hit. We also wanted to ensure that communities that have demonstrated the greatest need for increased health human resources could rely on this government to get it done and bring the workers to them.

With that, the Learn and Stay grant was born. Through this grant, which will see its applications open this spring, eligible students will be able to apply to in-demand health human resource programs at one of our institutions in an identified priority community. If selected, and if they agree to complete their studies and work for a period of time in that community, our government will cover the cost of their education.

Speaker, this is a program that we at MCU, this government as a whole and everyone should be very excited about. Let me just give you a couple of stats that are very exciting. Since the launch of the program, and to date as of February 9, we have had over 326,000 hits to the website, so students are excited about this. On January 20, with the announcement where we expanded the program to now include paramedics and lab technologists, that day alone we had over 14,000 visits to the website. So students are incredibly excited about this opportunity, and I hope those who are looking at going into nursing and having the opportunity to train and to possibly work in an underserved community—this is great for all students.

Partnering with the Ministry of Health, this program is meant to be responsive to evolving needs and could be tailored for any program or region, to ensure that people across the province continue to receive the health care they need, when they need it, no matter where they live.