Ms. Lisa MacLeod: My question is again to the Minister of Government Services. Even if the Minister of Health is prepared to throw you under the bus for making the arrangements to pay-

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Order.

Interjections.

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: The reality is that you sit on the Management Board of Cabinet that approved the sweetheart deal. So does the finance minister, the Attorney General the Minister of Transportation, the Minister of Infrastructure, the Minister of Tourism and the Minister of Community and Social Services, the members from Kitchener-Conestoga and from Guelph. Why didn't you blow the whistle, any of you, on the three-quarters-of-a-million-dollar payout to Ron Sapsford after the eHealth boondoggle?

Hon. Harinder S. Takhar: Minister of Finance.

Hon. Dwight Duncan: Management Board and treasury board of cabinet exercise due responsibility in honouring legal agreements and respecting contractual obligations that were entered into. Then Management Board/treasury board ensured that this was published in the sunshine list so that it could be seen by all Ontarians.

We will continue to build on our success in health care, to build the best-quality health care we can, by making investments in the services that people across this province want: better access to health care, shorter wait times, and more nurses, more doctors and more options for a better future for Ontarians.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary.

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: The more we see these three-quarters-of-a-million-dollar or million-dollar payouts from the health care budget means there's less money going into front-line care.

Ontario families are shocked to learn that you buried the sweetheart deal with Ron Sapsford in the budget of a hospital. When they look at hospital budgets, they expect to see that every dollar is being spent on front-line care, not payouts to bureaucrats to run the billion-dollar eHealth boondoggle. The Ontario PC caucus believes that three quarters of a million dollars is better spent on 10 weeks of surgery at the Queensway Carleton Hospital, which is being threatened this year with rolling shutdowns and closures in their surgical unit.

My question is, why did the members of Management Board think it was better to spend this money on a mysterious payoff to former health bureaucrats than the hospital in my community?

Hon. Dwight Duncan: This government reopened the Montfort and Ottawa Hospitals that member and her party cancelled. Let's talk about that party's record.

I understand your outrage about $700,000, but you were part of a government that gave $917,000 in severance to one Mr. Michael Gourley. Do you know what? You ought to look at your own track record. Why did you do it? Do you know what the total payment to him in untendered contracts and severance was? It made by the Leader of the Opposition, by a number of members of that caucus: $4.6 million. You should be outraged about that. You should stand up for your constituents. Tell them what your colleagues did.

You can yell all you want; the record speaks louder than the loudest voice in this Legislature-