Today, I mark the passing of Rod Brawn, a good friend of mine, beloved of Tina, a staunch New Democrat and a kind, gentle and loving person to all lucky enough to meet him.

Rod was born in Sarnia on May 19, 1954, and earned three degrees at the University of Western Ontario: honours history, honours music and bachelor of education.

Rod had a variety of jobs: James Reaney Sr.’s research assistant, a journalist for several small-town newspapers and an elementary and secondary supply teacher.

Rod was passionate about music and was active in his church, St. John the Evangelist. He sang in the choir and played the trumpet for special occasions. Rod often played the Last Post at the funerals of WWII veterans and refused to be paid for the service; it was his way of honouring veterans.

Craig Smith writes, “Rod’s trumpet may have been silenced, but his music will still be heard.”

Rod tutored refugee children and volunteered with the Amabile choir. He was adamant about helping the underdog. As Rod and Tina were fond of saying, “Jesus was a socialist.” Now if that confuses anyone, please be sure to go back and read it again.

Rod fought for universal health care and public education. He truly believed J.S. Woodsworth’s words, “What we desire for ourselves, we wish for all.”

In his final years, Tina had to fight for Rod’s health care, trudging him through snow in the middle of winter to a clinic for his so-called home care. Rod fought for a system that wasn’t cut to the bone and privatized. Throughout, Tina has been the example of selfless love, caring for Rod without a word of complaint.

Rod died on May 12, a week shy of his 70th birthday. He was well loved by all.

Rod, I commit to you that I will keep you at the heart of all of my work and every decision I make here in this Legislature. Rest in peace, Rod.

They’re just leaving it up to chance.

It has been very clearly stated that there is a limited pool of talented, trained health care workers, that there’s a limited pool of nurses. Many have left the profession, and this opening up of these private, for-profit—predatory, quite frankly—clinics will drain yet more resources from the public system. That also should be a tremendous concern, but yet it seems to be this crisis by design. It seems to be as though that is exactly what the government wants. They want the public system to fail, because they want their insiders, the people who are talking to them in the backrooms, the people who want to skim off the system and want to make money—apparently, this government wants them to have their pockets filled. That’s not fair. Our public health care system is the definition of democracy, it’s the definition of fairness, because it ensures that people are going to get the care they need regardless of their ability to pay. Just like education, it’s a democratizing force, and this is completely undermining it.

I wonder as well, is this an attempt to change the channel from recent news? I can’t be sure.

As I begin to close my remarks, I think it’s important that we recognize that we cannot go backwards in terms of public health care. We can’t sit and watch government after government undermining and strangling—it’s like this government is strangling the health care system and then asking it why it’s not able to breathe. It needs to be funded properly.

Let’s look for solutions. Let’s repeal Bill 124. Let’s have a health care human resources strategy, like has been recommended across the province, to recruit, to retain and to return nurses. Treat them with respect, treat them with fairness, and hopefully they will come back. But that’s on you. You need to listen to Ontarians.

I want to conclude my final remarks by again quoting Tommy Douglas. He stated: “Health services ought not to have a price tag on them, and ... people should be able to get whatever health services they require irrespective of their individual capacity to pay.” I could not agree more, Speaker.

I hope that this government will change course. I hope it will listen to Ontarians, who want to see nurses treated well, and embark upon a comprehensive plan to have a health care human resources strategy to recruit, retain and return nurses and fund the system properly.

Don’t maintain your status quo of cuts. Don’t maintain your status quo of not keeping up with inflation. Take that $20 billion you’re hiding and spend it where people need it the most.

What we have here is a question of oversight. There is no reason to think that these different surgical suites could not be within the hospital’s purview. In London, there are operating rooms which are able to operate at this capacity—but the key difference here, and one that I wish you could understand, is that it’s publicly funded and publicly delivered. Nobody is skimming money off the top and putting it in their pocket. I know that’s what you love, but that’s something that is wrong. It’s care or profit—you stand for profit, we stand for care.

It’s my honour to rise in opposition to this anti-democratic motion of fast-tracking this legislation through the House. I also am somebody, as a former educator, who supports education support workers—doesn’t just support them, but supports them in thought, word and deed, unlike this government. We hear words from this government, but we see actions like this fast-tracking motion, which is completely anti-democratic, anti-student and anti-education worker.

We’ve heard in this House that education workers, many of whom have to work a second job—that should give us pause. This government? They’re looking at their phones. We also heard in this House that one quarter of education support workers are using food banks, and, again, from this government crickets, because, quite frankly, Speaker, they do not care. They do not care about education support workers. They do not care about students, despite claims to the contrary.

This time allocation motion is a clear example of the government not being able to bargain. Conservatives cannot bargain, they cannot negotiate and they do not stand for students. Quite frankly, the fact that this government would stand up and applaud when they’re talking about trampling on democratic rights should give this entire province pause.

Right now, in classrooms across Ontario, education support workers are clearly reading the news and feeling demoralized. They’re feeling demeaned and they’re feeling disregarded by this government.

CUPE is waiting at the table, Minister. What’s the government afraid of? What are you afraid of? Are you afraid of being fair? Are you afraid of doing what’s right? Are you afraid of doing what’s democratic? Instead, we see this hammer of a legislation coming down. This motion is completely ridiculous.

As a former educator myself, when children are losing, when they’re losing at a game, you know what they do? They try to change the rules, Speaker. They try to change the goalposts. Suddenly the rules that have been agreed upon are ones that are no longer in play, and they try that manipulative tactic. This is exactly what we are seeing from this government.

It’s a clear admission from the Conservatives that they’re incapable of bargaining. They’re incapable of negotiation. They’re incompetent. They’re ineffective and quite frankly, Speaker, they’re impotent when it comes to doing the right thing.

The NDP though, here on this side of the House, we stand for fairness. We stand for the rule of law. We stand for students, and we are the party of workers—end, stop.