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December 11, 2024

MPP Gélinas: Let’s put our heads together and fix Highway 144

QUEEN’S PARK – This week Nickel Belt MPP France Gélinas rose in the legislature to speak to the dangerous state of Highway 144.

“It has been another week of mayhem on Highway 144. Highway 144 is a 300-kilometre highway that goes from Sudbury to Timmins. It is a two-lane highway with no shoulder, very few passing lanes, no cell service for most of it, one gas station at the Watershed and a ton of transport trucks. Whether it be summer or winter, this highway kills and maims way too many Northerners.

The Ford government refuses to do anything about training of commercial truck drivers or winter road maintenance in the North of this province even though weekly pictures of jack-knifed trucks laying across all lanes circulate constantly on social media as well as on the news. This issue cannot be ignored anymore. Not only do people have to use this highway to get home, but some of the biggest wealth-producers in this province—nickel producers like Vale, Glencore and the new gold mine with IAMGOLD—all need that highway to stay open.

If this is a world-class place for investment, why are families and workers in my riding putting their life at risk every time they use Highway 144? My constituents want a round-table with representatives from the Ministry of Transportation, police, ambulance, tow truck operators, shipping companies, mining companies, school bus drivers and other road users. Let’s put our heads together to make this highway safe. The province is responsible for this highway and needs to take action to stop the deaths. This has to stop. Highway 144 kills way too many people. We want it to be safe.”

December 3, 2024

Gélinas: We Cannot Ignore Police Mental Health

QUEEN’S PARK —NDP MPP France Gélinas (Nickel Belt) has reintroduced her bill to honour police officers who died by suicide due to being in the line of duty, by including them in highway memorials for fallen officers.

“We need to continue to shine a light on the mental health of the people charged with protecting us” said MPP Gélinas.

In 2021, the Ontario Provincial Police unveiled a suicide memorial, for officers whose death was related to their line of duty, at their headquarters in Orillia. The memorial aims to commemorate the work officers who died from suicide carried out for their communities, as well as remind current officers of the resources available for them to maintain their mental health. “The establishment of this memorial shows our province is starting to recognize the impact of police work on their mental health. The mental health of our first responders is an issue that is growing in gravity and needs continued work” stated Gélinas.

Gélinas’ bill Highway Memorials for Fallen Police Officers Amendment Act (In Memory of Officers Impacted by Traumatic Events), 2024 changes provincial law to include police officers who died by suicide, in memorials along the King’s Highway.

November 21, 2024

MPP Gélinas: Have the Conservatives learned anything from the home care fiasco?

QUEEN’S PARK – This morning during Question Period, NDP Health Critic France Gélinas (Nickel Belt) pressed the Conservative Health Minister Sylvia Jones.

“The last mile delivery of medical supplies to home care patients is a critical part of homecare. The Minister’s decision to centralize home care supplies and hand it over to her donors at Bayshore has hurt a lot of patients and threatened the survival of small businesses across Ontario, like Boggio Pharmacy in Niagara.

Can the Minister tell the house what she has learned from this centralization fiasco and what she will do to make sure no one is left waiting for critical supplies?”

First reported in the Hamilton Spectator in September, homecare patients in Ontario have been forced to buy their own supplies due to shortages. Those needing pain medications, morphine pumps and needles have been left in pain.

“Ontario’s Conservatives seems more focused on fundraising directives from Conservative party headquarters than ensuring patients in Ontario receive quality care. The home care supply delivery system we had before worked well and met home care patients needs. This government decision to centralize home care supplies with their friends at Bayshore has hurt many patients some of them severely.

What will the Minister say to those patients and families who were hurt by her decision?”

November 19, 2024

Gélinas: Closing Consumption and Treatment Sites means more costs for cities

QUEEN’S PARK— This morning during question period MPP France Gélinas (Nickel Belt) asked the Minister of Health why her Ministry is downloading her responsibilities to the municipalities?

“Minister, a person dies every 2.5 hours from the toxic drug supply in Ontario. Consumption and treatment sites (CTS) have been instrumental in preventing thousand more deaths. Without CTS you can expect more calls to First Responders, which means limited availability for other emergencies. You can expect busier Emergency Departments where people already wait way too long.

Why is the Minister putting more strain on our First Responders and Emergency Departments?”

The Ford government’s Bill 223 introduced yesterday effectively ends any supervised consumption sites in Ontario. The CBC quoted the Minister of Health as stating: “there will be no further safe injection sites in the province of Ontario under our government.”

“Speaker, if this government could stop downloading its responsibilities onto municipalities we would have cleaner, healthier communities across this province, but yesterday that member voted against my leader’s motion to do just that. The Minister is closing consumption and treatments sites and leaving a long gap before any other service becomes available.

Why is the minister downloading her responsibilities to our municipal partners?”

The government has said it will fund 10 HART hubs before the end of 2025 with no set date for when services will become available; the existing CTS will close on March 31, 2025.

November 6, 2024

Gélinas: Doug Ford’s priorities have horrible consequences

QUEEN’S PARK – France Gélinas, MPP for Nickel Belt, rose in the legislature this morning to share the challenges her constituents are facing when accessing supports for children with complex high needs.

“Speaker, a constituent of mine has been in crisis for 5 long years. She is a mom who had to quit her job and is burnt right out trying to care 24/7 for her complex high needs 8 years old daughter. Last week after exhausting every avenue possible she gave guardianship of her daughter to the Children’s Aid. Her family can no longer afford to properly care for her needs. First the Children Aids put her daughter in a hotel room and now she has been moved 5 hours away from her family at a foster facility in Mississauga. All of this should and could have been prevented.

In March I held a press conference in the living room of Tina Senior. Tina had to quit her job as Registered Nurse at Health Sciences North to care for her complex medical needs son Alex. Before the Ford government came to power, children with high level of needs received help from community-based children’s agencies. Kids received the care and support they needed to achieve their full potential. Now under this government parents have to quit their job, spend money they don’t have and go into debt to access private for-profit services.

This is not right, this in not my Ontario. These kids, these families need and deserve care in Northern Ontario, in Sudbury. It is very sad to see the damages done by this government to our public not for profit care system and the horrible consequences it has on high level special needs children and their family.”

The CBC, the Star and Soo Today have all reported that an increasing number of Ontario parents are surrendering their children to the province because they cannot find the services and support they need to keep them safe at home.

October 31, 2024

Gélinas: If I had $200 or make that $3 billion

QUEEN’S PARK – This morning before question period, MPP France Gélinas (Nickel Belt) made a member’s statement focussed on the Ford government’s skewed priorities.
“Speaker, this province is going three billion dollars farther into debt so that the government can send a $200 cheque to every adult and child in this province. If the government thinks that will make the people of Ontario forget that they don’t have a family doctor; that their homecare worker doesn’t show up half the time or that their kids can’t drink the water in their school because of old lead pipes, they are dreaming.

I suppose a family can spend this two hundred bucks on a tablet and streaming service to watch movies while they sit for 20 or 30 hours or more in the emergency department, or for extra gas to drive to the next town because their emergency room is closed.

As Ontarians try to decide how to spend their $200 the government has borrowed on their behalf:
– 2000 people sick enough to be admitted to a hospital are laying in a hallway or a bathroom,
– cancer patients still pay out of pocket for take home cancer drugs,
– children’s aid societies in Algoma and North Bay are close to bankruptcy,
– thirty thousand children are on the waitlist for mental health services,
– and 73,000 on the autism wait list
– parks in communities across this province are filled with homeless encampments
– no 4 laning of HWY 69 the list goes on.

Yet this Premier, this government, is ignoring these problems and adding 3 billion dollars to the deficit in a shameless attempt to buy votes.”

According to yesterday’s Fall Economic Statement Ontario’s government debt stands at approximately $429 billion and the current deficit for the fiscal year is projected at around $6.6 billion.

October 30, 2024

Gélinas – How many crises can the Minister of health create?

QUEEN’S PARK – This morning during Question Period, NDP Health Critic France Gélinas (Nickel Belt) reminded Health Minister Sylvia Jones of the hardship her Ministry is inflicting on Ontario’s patients.

“Palliative care physicians from all over the province are still reaching out to me about the crisis in homecare medical supplies. This Minister’s decision to hand off the “last mile” medical supplies delivery to Bayshore is leaving palliative care patients in pain. It is also hurting small business who for years have been handling medical supplies delivery to their community, to their neighbors and who lost those contracts.

This Minister’s decision is bad for patients, it is bad for small business. Speaker, how could this Minister have made a worse decision for Ontario’s patients and small businesses?”

First reported in the Hamilton Spectator, homecare patients in Ontario have been forced to buy their own supplies on Amazon due to shortages. Those needing pain medications, morphine pumps and needles have been left in pain.

“Catherine in Cornwall had her prescription renewed for a full year before her doctor retired a year ago. Her doctor knew walk in clinic would not renew it. She has spent the last 11 months trying to find a doctor, unsuccessfully. I would suggest the Minister ask her colleague the MPP for Stormont Dundas, he knows all about it.

My constituent Yvon died of Cardiac arrest last spring at age 60, 2 years after retirement. His doctor retired in 2020, his wife Stasha is certain that if he had access to a doctor he would still be alive.

Will the Minister admit today that by her actions and decisions, she is also responsible the crisis in primary care?”

According to the Ontario College of Family Physicians 2.3 million Ontarians are currently without a family doctor or Nurse Practitioner; they expect that number to grow to 4.4 million by 2026.

October 21, 2024

Gélinas to Jones: Minister, is this another profit over patient care scandal?

QUEEN’S PARK —NDP Health critic France Gélinas (Nickel Belt) questioned the Minister of Health Monday morning about reports from across Ontario that homecare patients are unable to access the medical supplies they need to be cared for at home.

” Not only is home care failing families every, single, day, the supplies needed to provide homecare are not available. Ask any physician in this room, they know that under this government scheme, homecare patients are being forced to shop, and pay for the supplies that they need to stay alive, to stay out of the hospital. Supplies that this government decided to contract out to Bayshore.

Speaker, why are large corporations, who put profit ahead of quality care, continually given preferential treatment by this conservative government? I’d like to ask the Minister, is this another profit over patient care scandal?”

Both the CBC and the Hamilton Spectator have reported on “a provincewide shortage of home care medical supplies and equipment that has gone on for weeks.” The Ontario Medical Association was at Queen’s Park on Monday attending question period so there were many physicians in the room.