I had the opportunity to attend the public hearings on this bill. I was there for a panel that had deputations from Dr. Martha Harding—who is from the East Village Animal Hospitals, which are veterinary clinics in London, Kitchener and Hamilton that are run as non-profits—the Ontario SPCA and Humane Society as well as the Toronto Humane Society. All three of those presenters talked about the barriers to pet ownership and accessing veterinary care because the model that is enshrined in the Veterinarians Act does not allow not-for-profit corporations to own and operate veterinary clinics.

I understand that this may be addressed in the regulations, but I’m interested in hearing from the members whether that is the direction that this government is going in because it’s so important for low-income individuals to access veterinary care.

Thank you to my colleague for that question. Certainly, we have seen the track record of this government is that they don’t value post-secondary education. They don’t value public institutions in general. They don’t value the public hospitals who deliver health care to Ontarians that are completely at the breaking point.

They don’t value health care workers. We saw them introduce Bill 124 in 2019, which imposed an unconstitutional wage cap on public sector collective bargaining. They have shown a fundamental disregard for the work that public sector workers do in this province.

But what the NDP would have done differently is that when you remove that almost $2 billion in revenue that is represented by tuition, you have to replace it. You have to ensure that there are public dollars there to sustain the stability of the sector. That is something that this government failed to do, and that is why we find ourselves on the brink. That is why the sector is in such a very serious crisis at this moment. And this government’s investment will do very little to solve the problems that have been created.

There’s so much I can say in response to that question and the kinds of protections that hospitality workers in this province deserve, but I certainly agree with the member that hospitality workers should not have to pay when there is a so-called dine-and-dash situation. That is already prohibited in the Employment Standards Act.

One of the ongoing challenges, of course, with the Employment Standards Act is that it requires complaints to be made, and that has always been a real barrier to ensuring that the protections of the act are available to all workers in this province, because too often employees don’t know their rights and are exploited by unscrupulous employers.

Yes, I totally agree; it is beyond insulting for the government to leave wildfire firefighters so poorly compensated and poorly supported and excluded from legislation like this. As a result, as the member points out, we are unable to retain those essential workers, who are going to be even more important as the impacts of climate change continue to be felt.

Certainly, I have heard a lot since 2019, in fact, about Bill 124, and that is the government’s infamous legislation that capped the wages of public sector workers. Of course, a big part of our public sector workforce is health care workers. The government did this, they implemented this legislation, just prior to a global pandemic. In a global pandemic, the last people you want to see leaving their professions because they are not compensated appropriately are health care workers. What we would have liked to have seen is the government drop its challenge of the court decision on Bill 124 that found that legislation unconstitutional and do something to increase the wages of health care workers.

My question is to the Premier.

Barbara Savage is 84 years old and lives in London West. She recently received a sudden and shocking diagnosis of stage 4 breast cancer and underwent a double mastectomy in February. With tubes dangling everywhere from her chest, she was discharged and told a nurse would come to her home the next day. Speaker, 11 days later, a nurse finally came. When the tubes filled with blood, Barbara’s daughter had to google how to drain them herself.

Does the Premier believe that this is an acceptable standard of home care?

When Barbara and her daughter frantically called ParaMed, they were told no nurses were available. Thankfully, Barbara did not develop complications, but many patients do, forcing them back into the hospital.

Will this government admit that its failure to address the home care worker shortage, its refusal to drop the unconstitutional Bill 124, is putting the health of Ontarians like Barbara at risk?

I’d like to thank all of the citizens of London West who signed a petition to stop the government’s health care privatization plan. It reads:

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Ontarians should get health care based on need—not the size of their wallet;

“Whereas” the Premier “and Health Minister ... say they’re planning to privatize parts of health care;

“Whereas privatization will bleed nurses, doctors and PSWs out of our public hospitals, making the health care crisis worse;

“Whereas privatization always ends with patients getting a bill;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to immediately stop all plans to further privatize Ontario’s health care system, and fix the crisis in health care by:

“—repealing Bill 124 and recruiting, retaining and respecting doctors, nurses and PSWs with better pay and better working conditions;

“—licensing tens of thousands of internationally educated nurses and other health care professionals already in Ontario, who wait years and pay thousands to have their credentials” recognized;

“—making education and training free or low-cost for nurses, doctors and other health care professionals;

“—incentivizing doctors and nurses to choose to live and work in northern Ontario;

“—funding hospitals to have enough nurses on every shift, on every ward.”

I fully support this petition. I will affix my signature and send it to the table with page Harry.

My question is to the Premier. More than 65,000 people in the London area do not have a family doctor, including almost one quarter of the patients who go to St. Joseph’s Hospital urgent care, a significant increase since just last year.

Ruqqaiya lives in London West and she has been listed with Health Care Connect for almost two years. She was diagnosed with cancer after an ER visit last year and was treated with surgery. Without a family doctor, she has no choice but to keep going to the ER for all monitoring and follow-up care.

Speaker, whatever this government is doing is not working. How much longer do Londoners have to wait before they will be able to find a family doctor?

Mo Olajide is a nurse and has been looking for a doctor for her family since she moved to London in September 2021. Another constituent emailed me on Friday; she’s pregnant and needs regular care.

Speaker, does this Premier understand that forcing people to go to urgent care or the ER after a serious problem develops is not only costly to the system, but bad for patient health?

I want to commend my colleague for her very astute remarks about this bill.

I wanted to highlight a model that exists in my community in London. The London Health Sciences Centre has created the first-of-its-kind, stand-alone, self-contained, ambulatory surgery centre to allow people to get less complex minor surgeries performed there. It has demonstrated its effectiveness. The cost for surgeries is way down. It is a model of how we can deal with the backlog in hips, knees and cataracts surgeries under a public system, with oversight from the hospital.

I wondered if the member has any thoughts on why the government didn’t just expand this model across the province to ensure that people have access to publicly funded and publicly delivered surgical care.

I rise today to share the story of London West constituent Cathy Melo. Cathy has been waiting since 2019 for a knee replacement. She lives with a tremendous amount of pain. She can hardly walk. She’s unable to work. She contacted my office and told me that she has been put on strong painkillers, but she feels very uncomfortable taking opioids for the long-term basis. She’s seriously considering asking for assisted suicide if she doesn’t soon get relief from pain. She asked me about accessing knee surgery at the Nazem Kadri centre for ambulatory care, which is operated by London Health Sciences Centre. This is a model that solves the crisis that we are finding here in this province with people like Cathy, who are unable to get access to the surgeries they need.

The Nazem Kadri centre is a publicly delivered facility that operates under the auspices of the hospital. It has all the hospital safeguards and oversight in place. It opened in early 2020. It has performed 4,000 procedures—the first of its kind in Ontario. It currently has two operating rooms. It is in negotiations with the province to expand to six operating rooms so that they can do more of these procedures and they can expand from very low-complexity, minor procedures for foot and ankle into those hip and knee replacements that are so terribly backlogged in Ontario.

Instead of approving the funding for the Nazem Kadri centre to expand their ORs, this government is looking to shift public dollars to private, investor-owned corporations where shareholders will make the profits—and patients won’t get the relief that they need.

Speaker, investments in facilities like the Nazem Kadri centre actually save public dollars. There has been an evaluation done that says the costs of traditional operating rooms are about $469 per patient; in an ambulatory care centre like Nazem Kadri, under the London Health Sciences Centre, the costs are $172 per patient. So the province could invest in ambulatory care centres like Nazem Kadri at hospitals across the province, and they would save dollars on operating costs, and they would improve patient care.

The other findings that have come out of the Nazem Kadri centre are that patients spend less time in post-op recovery. There is better planning in those operating rooms, because they know the time that each procedure is going to require, so they are able to go through 10 to 15 procedures methodically each day in each of the two ORs.

That is the kind of solution that would really make a difference for people in this province like Cathy, who are struggling with the terrible pain of hip and knee replacements and are unable to get access to the surgeries they need.

That is the investment that this province should be looking at. That is why they should be supporting our motion today that calls on the government to fund and fully utilize public operating rooms instead of moving to further privatize hospital operating room services.

I have a petition to stop the health care privatization plan.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Ontarians should get health care based on need—not the size of their wallet;

“Whereas” the Premier and the health minister “say they’re planning to privatize parts of health care;

“Whereas privatization will bleed nurses, doctors and PSWs out of our public hospitals, making the health care crisis worse;

“Whereas privatization always ends with patients getting a bill;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to immediately stop all plans to further privatize Ontario’s health care system, and fix the crisis in health care by:

“—repealing Bill 124 and recruiting, retaining and respecting doctors, nurses and PSWs with better pay and better working conditions;

“—licensing tens of thousands of internationally educated nurses and other health care professionals already in Ontario, who wait years and pay thousands to have their credentials certified;

“—making education and training free or low-cost for nurses, doctors and other health care professionals;

“—incentivizing doctors and nurses to choose to live and work in northern Ontario;

“—funding hospitals to have enough nurses on every shift, on every ward.”

I’m proud to affix my signature to this petition. I will send it to the table with page Havana.

Again to the Premier: We also heard yesterday that Children’s Hospital at London Health Sciences Centre announced the heartbreaking decision to cancel surgeries for sick children. In-patient bed occupancy is higher than any other time during the pandemic, despite the hospital’s efforts to expand capacity and to move children to the adult ICU. The director of pediatric critical care says the crisis is getting worse every day and they don’t know how long the cancellations will last.

We’ve been hearing that this government has a plan for the crisis in our pediatric hospitals.

How can the Premier possibly defend a plan that causes sick children and their families to suffer?

This government’s so-called plan is devastating for families like my constituents.

Why did the Premier fail to provide the supports and resources needed by Children’s Hospital and other pediatric hospitals to prevent surgeries and procedures from being cancelled?

“Stop Ford’s Health Care Privatization Plan.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Ontarians should get health care based on need—not the size of your wallet;

“Whereas Premier Doug Ford and Health Minister Sylvia Jones say they’re planning to privatize parts of health care;

“Whereas privatization will bleed nurses, doctors and PSWs out of our public hospitals, making the health care crisis worse;

“Whereas privatization always ends with patients getting a bill;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to immediately stop all plans to further privatize Ontario’s health care system, and fix the crisis in health care by:

“—repealing Bill 124 and recruiting, retaining and respecting doctors, nurses and PSWs with better pay and better working conditions;

“—licensing tens of thousands of internationally educated nurses and other health care professionals already in Ontario, who wait years and pay thousands to have their credentials certified;

“—making education and training free or low-cost for nurses, doctors and other health care professionals;

“—incentivizing doctors and nurses to choose to live and work in northern Ontario;

“—funding hospitals to have enough nurses on every shift, on every ward.”

I fully support this petition. I will affix my signature and send it to the table with page Isabelle.

My question is to the Premier. Speaker, Kate recently moved to London and wants to get flu shots for her two kids. She can’t get the shots in a doctor’s office because she can’t find a family doctor. She can’t get the shots in the pharmacy because her youngest is under two. Since our local health unit doesn’t offer flu clinics, she must either wait hours in a crowded walk-in filled with sick people or drive outside the city.

She ended up booking in Guelph and says, “Sad and ironic that it is the pediatric hospitals that are overrun, and this was the only way to get a scheduled appointment for the age group that is filling up the hospitals.”

Speaker, why is this government not pulling out all the stops to help kids get their flu shots?

Speaker, where is this government’s plan to make it easy for parents who want to get flu shots and COVID vaccines for their kids?

Last week, the member for London North Centre and I met with RNAO’s Middlesex-Elgin chapter, and we listened to the nurses who attended that meeting. These were nurses who worked in home care, long-term care. They worked in emergency and pediatric emergency. They worked in the ICU. They worked offloading patients from ambulances. They worked in public health. It was a mix of experienced nurses, student nurses, nurse educators. They told us that they are exhausted, they are burned-out, they are done, and they have no faith that anything the government is going to do will help make a difference. They saw the growth of hallway medicine under the Liberals, and they have seen the weaponization of Bill 124, legislation that directly targets a predominantly female workforce and tells health care workers, tells nurses, that this government does not value them, does not respect them and does not care about the demoralization they feel after almost three years of a pandemic and the workload pressures, the stress and the violence that they face every day on their job.

Speaker, I hear daily from Londoners who contact my office who can’t find a family doctor, whose routine screening tests were cancelled, whose surgeries were postponed. I hear from worried parents who are reaching out to my office, asking me what is going to happen if their child becomes seriously ill and they have to take that child to a children’s hospital in London where there are waits of hours—hours-long—with a desperately ill child. Imagine how you would feel as a parent, knowing that if that child had to be admitted to an ICU bed and they’re over 14 years of age, it may be to an adult ICU bed or it may be to an ICU bed in another community altogether.

Speaker, we have heard the Minister of Health say that this surge was expected, that the overwhelming of pediatric emergency rooms is not a surprise to this government, that the number of children being ventilated is nothing to worry about, that they have a plan, and that plan, this government claims, is so good that no additional resources or measures were necessary in the fall economic statement.

We just heard the parliamentary assistant talk about the recruitment programs that this government has put in place. But I have news for this government: Investing public dollars to recruit workers who don’t stay in the health care profession won’t do a thing to shore up the health care workforce.

What we need to do is compensate them fairly. We need to improve their working conditions. We need to support them with appropriate mentorship programs, training programs, other programs. We need to repeal Bill 124. These are the measures that would really make a difference.

I call on this government to support the motion before us today, to consult with unions and health sector stakeholders to develop a multi-layer health care worker recruitment and retention incentive package that includes short-, medium- and long-term solutions. We need to do everything possible to recruit, retain and return health care workers.

Speaker, London West parents are worried. One mother wrote to me: “Parents are looking for guidance from our leadership right now and we are getting nothing. As a parent to a three-year-old son, I am terrified when I see the news about pediatric ICU beds.” Another said, “The state of our health care system, particularly pediatrics, is horrifying. As the mom of a toddler who has been sick with COVID, hand foot and mouth, and pink eye in the past six weeks, I am terrified.... While we have been lucky to not have to go to the ER yet, I am fearful of what we will experience when we arrive.” What she will experience at London’s Children’s Hospital is a stressful hours-long wait in a crowded emergency room that was built to handle about 100 visits per day but is being overwhelmed by 200 or more sick children—double the usual volume.

Parents of teens admitted to ICU now face the prospect of admission to an adult ICU bed, which has ICU nurses concerned about taking on teen ICU patients without specialized pediatric training.

Children’s Hospital emergency room director Dr. Rod Lim warned, “It may get worse before it gets better. I think November and December are going to be tough.”

Speaker, London parents are asking me, “What is this government doing about this crisis?” From the budget that was tabled yesterday, my answer is, clearly, “Not enough.”

My question is to the Premier.

Amanda Molnar’s 20-year-old son is blind and non-verbal and has complex medical needs. He has had serious pneumonia three times since June. About a week ago, Amanda had to call an ambulance for him and was told that a backlog at the ER would mean at least a 15-hour wait at the hospital.

Does the Premier believe that a 15-hour wait for emergency health care is acceptable?

Does the Premier believe that his government’s failure to deal with ER wait times is risking the health of patients like Amanda’s son?

Thank you very much, Speaker. This is my first opportunity to see you in that chair, so I want to offer you my congratulations. It’s great to see you there.

I’m pleased to rise to offer a few minutes of comments on this bill, this budget that is before us today, on behalf of the people I represent in London West.

This week and last week I have been raising stories of people from my riding who are experiencing first-hand what the crumbling of our health care system means for them. Our home care system is broken.

I raised the story of Robin Floyd; her son was discharged from surgery with a drainage tube. He had to wait nine days before he had a home care appointment.

I raised the story of Kim Fowler, who is exhausted trying to care for her mother, who is at home with dementia and COPD—cannot get admitted into long-term care, PSWs regularly don’t show up. Kim is frantic with worry about what will happen if she herself gets sick and cannot get the care that she needs and her mother deserves.

Today I raised the story of Jane Berges; her husband Don was discharged from hospital and admitted to a private sector long-term-care home that did not have the capacity to care for him properly. He fell out of the bed in the long-term-care home, was readmitted to hospital and tragically died.

I hear regularly from constituents who do not have access to a family physician, whose only recourse if they or a family member are sick is to use our overcrowded and stretched-thin emergency services.

And yet this budget that is before us today does nothing to address these pressing problems in our health care system. It does nothing to repeal Bill 124 and make sure that our front-line health care workers are compensated fairly, they get the wages that they deserve and the benefits that they surely have earned. It does nothing to deal with violence in health care workplace settings. It does nothing to fast-track internationally educated health professionals at the rate that they need to be fast-tracked.

I hear the government talk about their plan to stay open, as if that plan is to ensure that the health care system is going to be there when people need it. But one of the most important things that this government could do if they want to stay open, if they want our health care system to be there for Ontarians, is to legislate paid sick days. We heard today from Dr. Moore that Ontarians are supposed to stay home until their fever clears, until their symptoms have improved—60% of Ontarians don’t have access to paid sick days. They can’t stay home if it means losing a paycheque, if it means not being able to pay the rent or put groceries on the table. And we know that for racialized workers, for Indigenous workers—they are highly more likely not to have access to paid sick days.

The other issue that is of grave concern to people in London West with this budget is the absence of any appropriate measures to lift people out of poverty. The minister talks about the LIFT tax credit, but more than 200 advocacy organizations have told this government that what we need is to double social assistance rates. Instead, we see a paltry 5% increase for ODSP and nothing for Ontario Works. That ODSP increase will mean $58 more a month, which locks people into legislated poverty.

There’s no mention of rent control for the many London West constituents who don’t know that when they move into an apartment that was built after November 2018, there’s no rent control whatsoever. They are being hit with double-digit rent increases, unable to know how they’re going to afford to continue to live there.

There’s no mention of the climate crisis and the need for strong climate action. There are many, many gaps in this budget that make it impossible for me to support it if I am doing my job on behalf of the people of London West.

My question is to the Premier.

In February, 83-year-old Don Wilson slipped and cracked his pelvis. Four days after admission to London Health Sciences Centre, Don was transferred to a long-term-care home—a home that was in COVID outbreak, with only two PSWs for a ward of 30 residents, and no rehab services. Less than a week later, Don fell out of his LTC bed and was readmitted to hospital, where, tragically, on April 15, he passed away.

Is this the kind of trauma and grief that more families will face with Bill 7?

Will the government do the right thing and withdraw Bill 7?

My question is to the Premier. This government’s failure to deal with the health care crisis is not just affecting hospitals; it’s hurting patients who rely on home care as well.

This month, Robin Floyd’s son, who is vision-impaired and has a heart condition, went for surgery at London Health Sciences Centre. After being discharged with a drainage tube, he was told that a home care nurse would come the next day to check the incision and drain the tube. After countless phone calls and endless frustration, Robin finally managed to get a home care appointment nine days after her son had his surgery.

Does this government believe that that is an appropriate standard of care?

Kim’s story is not new and not unique. The VON told me they can’t meet 50% of the referrals they get. Why is this government completely ignoring the long-standing problems in home and community care?

I appreciate the comment from my colleague because he is exactly right. What this bill does is allow a long list of actions that can now be taken without the consent of a patient that will coerce or pressure alternate-level-of-care patients to feel that they have to leave the hospital and move to a long-term-care home, and the only restriction is that they cannot be forcibly handcuffed, physically restrained and physically transferred from the hospital to a long-term-care home.

So I understand why seniors are terrified of this bill, and I understand why experts and advocates also have raised those concerns.

Health care workers are leaving. They’re leaving because of this government’s low-wage suppression policies that are driving them to retire early or leave the province.

I don’t think there’s any question that hospitals, alternate-level-of-care beds, are not the greatest place for people to be, but neither is a long-term-care home that is not of the patient’s choosing—a long-term-care home that likely has availability because no one wants to go there. We all know of those long-term-care homes that became notorious during COVID-19 because of their abject failure to protect the residents who lived in those homes.

Unless this bill is accompanied by a huge effort to improve PSW wages, to make those jobs good jobs, to improve supports for seniors in long-term-care homes, moving vulnerable people from one situation of crisis in a hospital to another situation of crisis in a long-term-care home will do nothing to solve the problem.

Clearly, I do not think it is okay to allow the provision of personal health information to any entity without the consent of the person whose information is being shared.

I did want to comment on the fact that private sector long-term-care homes are very likely to be the biggest beneficiaries of this bill, because many of the long-term-care homes that have the shortest waiting lists, that will be able to accommodate these alternate-level-of-care patients, are those private sector homes that other people don’t want to go to. They are the homes that were exposed as having the worst protections in place for seniors during COVID-19.