Thank you for that question. It’s astounding to me that after 20 minutes of me commiserating with the government side, actually not blaming them for bad decision-making individually, and saying collectively that the decisions are made somewhere high up by a PR guy and by special interests, they get their feathers ruffled instead of saying, “Yeah, you’re right. You’re right. It really sucks.”

But that’s exactly what the reality is of this. They may not want to admit it today, but they know—they know—what I’m saying is true. They absolutely know that what I’m saying is true. They’re just too scared to say it themselves.

Health care Tory math: You want to talk about numbers? You? Under this government, hospitals are being forced to pay double the amount to hire agency nurses than have their own nurses. At the same cost, they could be doubling the amount of nurses in our hospitals. These are things not to be proud of: escalating costs of everything, an affordability crisis, skyrocketing costs of literally everything under this government; claiming that they’re going to fight a housing crisis, and all they’re doing is making land speculators rich while people struggle, while workers struggle. How is this something to be proud of?

But again, I don’t blame the member, because it wasn’t him. It was the people making the decisions that they’re all forced to have to walk in line with and follow. I get it: It ruffles feathers—ruffles feathers to know that you made it to government and you’ve got no power, individually. That’s why I commiserate with them, and I wish that they would stand up to their leadership and have an opinion.

I was called out by a government member saying that I wasn’t sticking to the topic. I’m not really sure how that comes into play about the current bill or even what I was saying. Respectfully, I was talking most recently about the privatization that this government is wreaking on health care and what the effect is, that it is bad Tory math, that they take spots—instead of paying nurses and respecting them so that they stay in hospitals, they stay in their long-term jobs, private agencies are coming in. We’re paying double the cost. A quarter of that at least goes into administration—their profits. This is our taxpayer money. Health care is spiralling out of control. They’re making rich friends and donors richer and richer and richer. That money, as the Tory cycle of life, comes back into their coffers.

This has to stop. I hope these members of this government in caucus somewhere get the ministers aside. Shake them. Tell them, “Stand up to the leaders. Stand up to the special interests and the PR guy and do what’s in your heart. Do what’s in your conscience.” Because I know a lot of you are not happy.