I, too, would like to present a petition today to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario calling on this Conservative government to reopen the emergency department at Minden hospital. It was closed without any public consultation. Communities need emergency rooms. If there was a life-threatening event, residents of Minden would have to travel over 20 minutes. Sometimes—it can take longer in the winter, and they do not have a local emergency room.

This petition here is signed by residents not only of Minden but residents from across Ontario, because we all understand the importance of having an emergency room in our communities.

I will affix my signature to it and join the calls from the people of Ontario to ask the government to immediately reopen the Minden emergency department.

The Ontario Works rate has been frozen for over two decades. For Ontario Disability Support Program, it has only increased by 3%, Speaker. It’s time to double the social assistance rates. I support this petition and will affix my signature to it.

The homelessness crisis is worsening, encampments are growing, and it’s taking a devastating toll on people in communities across this province. It has gotten so bad that in Toronto hospitals, cold-weather ER visits by people experiencing homelessness skyrocketed by nearly 70% in the last few years. These are people who are in the waiting area of emergency departments. They don’t need medical attention, but they’re there because they need a safe place to stay warm. There’s nowhere else for them to go. Hospitals are becoming shelters. What is also worrisome is that there are thousands more who are just a few hundred dollars away from losing their home and ending up on the streets.

There is such an urgency on this issue, and yet this government is so consumed with things like delivering a luxury spa. You’ve completely lost touch with reality. Your priorities are not what people need you to be working on.

As we recess the House for the winter, I ask Conservative members to reflect on this and ask yourselves, are you up to the task? This is not a partisan statement. You have the opportunity. You have the power. You have the majority votes. You have everything it takes to solve this problem.

We know the solutions. Stop wasting time and energy on things that are not helping people, and just do the right thing.

Minden’s local hospital closed on June 1 due to a staffing shortage and despite overwhelming opposition from the local community. Minden is far from alone. Lanark county, Guelph, Hamilton, Perth, Grand River, Windsor, Alexandria, Wingham, Thessalon, Kemptville, Seaforth, Ottawa, Bowmanville, Clinton, Orangeville, Carleton Place, Essex county, Kingston, Waterloo, Credit Valley, Smiths Falls, London, Chesley, Fort Erie, Port Colborne—all communities that have seen either no ambulances available or the closure of hospital services in the last year due to staffing shortages.

The staffing crisis continues in our health care system, and the government still refuses to repeal Bill 124 that suppresses the wages of health care workers. At the same time, staffing agencies like Canadian Health Labs are convincing hundreds of health care workers to leave their workplaces by offering them double the salaries they normally earn. The company made $154 million from just 500 nurses and PSWs they hired out of our public health systems. Their plan is to hire as many as 5,000 people. These agencies take health care workers out from the public system and sell them back at huge profits.

This is the systemic destruction of our public health care system, and we the public end up paying way more for declining services. I can only think this is happening due to the Conservative agenda to undermine the public health care system, because no one can be so incompetent to not see the damage these policies are creating.

It is an honour to rise on behalf of my constituents to support Bill 4, the Stay Home If You Are Sick Act. I’d like to thank my colleague the member for London West for bringing forward this important bill once again.

I’d also like to acknowledge organizations like Justice for Workers and the Decent Work and Health Network, among so many others, for continuing to push for paid sick days in this province.

Speaker, there are so many arguments in support of paid sick days, but I don’t have much time to speak, so I will raise three key points. The first is that paid sick days are good for public health and are a low-cost, preventative measure to reduce strain on our health care system. And our health care system is under tremendous strain right now. Ontario is in the midst of a health care crisis as respiratory illnesses like the flu, RSV and COVID are spreading. Hospitals are overwhelmed. Emergency rooms are overcrowded. Hallway health care is the norm. Children’s emergency departments and ICUs are bursting at the seams.

CTV News reported this week that a four-year-old child with Down syndrome, who was suffering from pneumonia, waited 40 hours in emergency before getting a bed. That’s the kind of stress our health care system is under.

Paid sick days are a cost-effective way to keep sickness from spreading and reduce the strain on our health care system. Paid sick days literally save lives. When people can stay home when they are sick, it dramatically reduces the spread of infectious diseases.

My second point is that we need to respect workers. Workers are who keep our province running. Everything we have and do is possible because of workers, but almost 60% of Ontario’s workers don’t have access to paid sick days. It’s disrespectful and harmful to make people go to work when they are sick or to expect them to stay home without any pay. Many workers don’t have that choice. They live paycheque to paycheque and cannot afford to lose pay. Providing all workers with paid sick days would provide them with the respect that they deserve.

My third and final point is that paid sick days are good for the economy. They’re good for business. Paid sick days keep workers and customers healthy. When workers stay at home when they’re sick, their colleagues stay healthy. Research shows that paid sick days reduce staff turnover, increase productivity and improve worker morale.

I urge this government: Please reduce the strain on our health care system, give workers the respect they deserve and help boost our economy by passing the Stay Home If You Are Sick Act. Let’s legislate paid sick days for all workers of this province.

My question is to the Premier. Recently, Sam wrote to me to share that her father, who was admitted to St. Joseph’s Health Centre in my riding, had no room from Monday evening to Friday night. He had to stay in a hallway for four days straight because there was no staffed room available. Sam said that the workers at St. Joe’s were professional and pleasant, but they were short-staffed.

Speaker, front-line staff have been very clear. They have asked the Premier to repeal Bill 124 and urgently recognize the credentials of tens of thousands of internationally trained health care workers. Why does the Premier continue to say no to our health care workers and leave Ontarians in hospital hallways?