This past Friday, I had the opportunity to meet with Ishrat Rehmani, Sal Osman, Paul Pineo, Randy Little, Paul Brooks, Vijay Shukla, Tu Chu, Rob Cameron, Peter Barreiro, John Condron and Bassem Nashed. They are community pharmacists in Nepean-Carleton who took the time to share concerns with me over Dalton McGuinty's plan to cut front-line health care.

The message was unanimous: As pharmacists, they are neither business people nor political lobbyists. They instead are people who entered the health care field to help Ontario families, seniors and patients.

As well, my constituency office in Nepean-Carleton has been flooded with hundreds of emails, postcards, petitions and phone calls from residents who are worried that Mr. McGuinty's plan to cut front-line health care will result in a reduction of services, closures of pharmacies and increased prices in our community pharmacies.

As the MPP for Nepean-Carleton, I share many of these concerns, particularly because Ontarians will no longer have access to some our community's most trusted and highly accessible health care professionals, particularly in our rural areas.