Ms. Lisa MacLeod (Nepean–Carleton): For the past several months, it seems every time we turn around in Ottawa there’s more bad news about health care. First, it was Ottawa’s seniors, who we’ve learned have the second-highest wait list in the province when it comes to trying to find a long-term-care bed.

The Speaker (Hon. Michael A. Brown): We need to know to whom the question is addressed.

And I need quiet.

Ms. MacLeod: Sorry, Mr. Speaker. It’s to the Premier.

Then it was Ottawa’s children who have to wait longer than any other children in the province for pediatric surgeries. Yesterday, we learned that Ottawa has the absolutely worst wait times for radiation treatments in all of Ontario.

The Premier promised to reduce wait times and he is breaking that promise to the very people who elected him. Will the Premier please stand up and tell us why his government is neglecting Ottawa when it comes to improving health care?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty (Premier, Minister of Research and Innovation): I know that the member opposite is relatively newly elected, but she cannot be so unfamiliar with what has happened in Ottawa with respect to new investments in health care.

I’ll just list some of these things. We have a newly expanded cancer centre, with sites at the Ottawa Hospital and the Queensway Carleton Hospital, reducing our wait times to about three weeks. There is a new Royal Ottawa Hospital. There is an expanded Montfort Hospital in the works. It’s going to nearly double its current size. There is an expanded Queensway Carleton Hospital, with a new emergency wing expansion at the civic site of the Ottawa Hospital. There’s a new critical care wing at the Ottawa Hospital, general site. There are expansions at CHEO, including a new ICU wing with oncology and ambulatory care.

It’s pretty hard to walk by any hospital or health institution in the city of Ottawa and not find some kind of construction activity taking place there. The member opposite is sadly mistaken in terms of her assessment—

The Speaker: Thank you. Supplementary.

Ms. MacLeod: The Premier can talk about all the fancy phoney photo ops he wants to, but the fact is that under his government, the people of Ottawa are not getting the health care they need when they need it.

This government promised to reduce wait times, but all across Ottawa that promise has been broken. According to latest round of data, the Montfort has seen cancer surgery wait times up by a whopping 323%. Hip replacement wait times are up 87%. At the U of O Heart Institute, bypass surgery wait times are up 12%. Overall in Ottawa, knee replacement and CT scan wait times are up. No matter where you look in Ottawa, wait times are up.

This government is short-changing the people of Ottawa when it comes to timely access to health care. Why isn’t the Premier and his government taking the steps to address these wait times seriously and make real steps to address these growing wait times in our city?

Hon. Mr. McGuinty: I think a brief history lesson would be in order. The former Conservative government tried to shut down the Montfort Hospital; the former Conservative government tried to shut down the cardiac centre at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario. The former Conservative government did succeed in shutting down the Riverside hospital; the former Conservative government did succeed in shutting down the Grace Hospital.

We are undergoing a virtual renaissance in Ottawa when it comes to investment in our health care institutions. We’ve got more nurses, more doctors, more ability and more capacity to deal with more patients and continue to get our wait times down.

Ms. MacLeod: Again, the Premier can try to hide from his record by trying to bring up the previous government all he likes. He can talk about his announcements and province-wide statistics; he can even talk about the few areas where we have seen marginal improvement. But the fact of the matter is that Ottawa is suffering under his leadership.

A report in the Ottawa Citizen last month said, "The region has ... wait times that are higher than the provincial [numbers]," and the government’s wait times website confirms this. Cancer surgeries, bypass surgeries, cataracts, hip replacements, knee replacements, MRIs and CTs: In all five priority areas with very, very few exceptions, the wait times at Ottawa hospitals are higher than the provincial numbers.

Either Ottawa is being terribly neglected or chronically underfunded—or both. When is this Premier going to turn this around? When is he going to address the health care crisis in his own hometown? Does he even have a plan?

Hon. Mr. McGuinty: We’ve been working very hard to clean up the mess left by the previous governments and to restore to some significant capacity our ability to help our families in Ottawa when it comes to their health issues.

When it comes to wait time results, first of all, we’re very proud of the fact that we’re collecting this information for the first time, and secondly, we’re making it publicly available. Armed with that information, we can then focus our resources and our initiatives.

Overall in Ontario, angiography is down by 39%; angioplasty waits are down by 17.9%; cataract surgery is down by 27%; hip replacement wait times are down by 19.9%; knee replacement wait times are down by 19.8%; MRIs are down by 13.3%; and CT scans are down by 2.5%.

We have been very successful in driving these wait times down and we will continue to do more in the days, months, weeks and years ahead.