That answer had nothing about PSWs, nothing about nurses and nothing about the shortage of physicians in our province.

This government has allowed our health care system to fall into such dire straits that a little transparency would threaten our economic prosperity. This government is terrified that public sector workers will have more bargaining power than they will. They’re terrified that even the private sector, flourishing under their protection, could soon be holding them over a barrel, demanding higher rates.

Why? Because this government’s mismanagement has resulted in the highest demand for health care workers in our province’s history. If it sounds familiar, that’s because it’s the same trademark mismanagement that’s got the demand for housing—pardon the pun—through the roof. This government can’t make progress on housing, and they can’t make progress on health care. All they can do is hide from the damage they’ve done and try to save their own skin.

Mr. Speaker, will the Premier give Ontarians a straight answer and tell them how many front-line physicians, nurses and PSWs our health care system is missing?

On behalf of patients across Ontario, I wish to welcome Natalie Mehra from the Ontario Health Coalition, Michael Hurley from the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Erin Ariss from the Ontario Nurses’ Association—and a special welcome to every single person in this chamber here today who is showing their opposition to Bill 60.

It is my honour and pleasure to introduce to the Legislature today two bright young students here, alongside a former federal Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, the Honourable Navdeep Bains. I would like to welcome my friends Alexa Sherer, a grade 11 student from TanenbaumCHAT; and Lachlan Ross, a grade 11 student from Northview Heights Secondary School. Our youth are our future, and we’re happy to keep these seats warm until they’re ready to take our spot.

I also would like to introduce a large group of nurses who are joining us from the Ontario Poison Centre—Crissy Amiana, Jacqueline Burke, Marie-Christine Ceganda, Mailyne Garraz, and my sister Faiza Shamji.

We stand categorically against Bill 60 and the way in which it gives way to corporatize profiteering in our health care system. There is absolutely no room for that. We have been clear. I campaigned as a Liberal in the last election saying that there is room to move some surgeries out of hospitals in a not-for-profit model with adequate guardrails. That remains our position. To be clear, we are entirely against the profiteering and corporatization being proposed under this legislation.

We’ve seen the corrupting effects of profiteering in our health care system. We’ve seen how Bill 124, for example, has pushed nurses out of public health care. Things like temporary, for-profit nursing agencies, which have proliferated under this government, have subsequently pulled nurses out of public health care.

It’s why, in my unwavering commitment to protect our public health care system, I introduced legislation that will hold these nursing agencies to account, that will commit to and strengthen our publicly funded health care system. It’s what I have done as a physician, it is what I am doing as an opposition critic, and it is what I and the rest of the Liberal caucus will always do.

The member across also made the allegation that nothing happened under the previous 15 years of Liberal government. I would point out that the most immediate five years of performance under this Conservative government have been the worst years in this province’s entire history. I would caution the member about any sort of chest-thumping, given the current state of our health care system.

On repeated occasions, the Minister of Health has been very clear that she didn’t believe that there was a problem in the first place. I recall quite vividly that she cited a 1-800 number, I believe, to anyone who believes that they have been upsold and upcharged, in frank contradiction to what the Auditor General has been telling us.

And so, amidst that backdrop, amidst this problem that we know is objectively a problem, this government now expects us to believe that, coming out of that fantasy land, they can be trusted to protect against upcharging and upselling with this new fallacy of a plan? It simply is not credible.

Thank you for your question.

Report continues in volume B.