Health Minister Sylvia Jones and Long-Term Care Minister Paul Calandra were back in the pole position after the opposition came out hard against the government's proposed changes to long-term care (LTC) and independent health clinics.
<h3>Operating rooms</h3>
As per usual, NDP interim leader Peter Tabuns led off for the Official Opposition and took aim at the government's recently-unveiled health care system rework. Tabuns' opening salvo focused exclusively on the government's willingness to have some surgeries taken from the ER to independent clinics.
Ontario's operating rooms don't run at full capacity, nor do the province's MRI and CT scan machines, Tabuns said. So why, then, is there a need to involve these private clinics?
Also as per usual, Jones didn't really address the substance of the question, instead opting to talk up the "Plan to Stay Open."
"Thank you to the member opposite for giving me an opportunity to highlight" the plan, Jones said. When she got around to answer, she boosted a $300 million outlay to help reduce the surgical backlog.
Tabuns followed with a question on the possibility that health-care pros could flee the public system for the private system if the plan goes through as written.
Au contraire, Jones said. The government's added physician residents in northern Ontario and launched an ER peer-to-peer mentoring system to help the public workforce.
LTC
Things got a little hairy when moustachioed NDP MPP Wayne Gates questioned Calandra on placing certain hospital patients in LTC homes.
Gates alleged Calandra's bill allows hospitals to remove alternate level of care (ALC) patients from acute care to an LTC home not of their choosing.
"Well, the honourable gentleman is actually incorrect. Now, perhaps he didn’t have a chance to take a look at the bill, because had he looked at the bill, he would have seen, right in the explanatory note that" consent is required to remove an ALC patient from acute care.
"I certainly do appreciate the minister sending over the bill to me, but I just happen to have a copy in front of me," Gates retorted, and listed off the things a hospital can do without patient consent, like getting the paperwork process started.
Gates and Calandra continued to talk past one another on the substance of the bill for a few more minutes.
The government evidently wants to clear up the whole consent thing. Three PC backbenchers — Lorne Coe, Effie Triantafilopoulous, and Brian Riddell — lobbed belt-high softballs at Calandra asking for clarification on various aspects of the bill. At least Riddell tried to change his delivery to make it seem like a fastball.
<h3>Education</h3>
NDP MPP Marit Stiles asked why the government is planning on giving parents $225 million when that money could be better used to bolster the public education system.
The $225-million promise comes from the PC's Budget 2.0 and lacks any real details. After the budget came out, neither Education Minister Stephen Lecce nor Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy could answer the who, what, when, where, why, and how.
Putting money in parents' pockets is a great way to fight inflation, Lecce said. It's also not an "either/or proposition," he added.
"This Progressive Conservative government is going to give support to parents while increasing investments in public education. We can do both in this province and we owe it to parents to do both."
<h3>Et al.</h3>
Health care, predictably, got most of the airtime on Monday.
Opposition MPPs also probed the government on disaster relief funding for Ottawa, enhancing the Northern Travel Grant, putting more money into ODSP, explosions from abandoned oil and gas wells, and supporting Indigenous protected and conserved areas.

Your question period briefing: Operationally sound

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