MPP Arnott hammers Liberals over health wait times

Waterloo-Wellington MPP Ted Arnott delivered the following statement in the Ontario Legislature on April 11th, 2006 concerning health care wait times:

Mr. Ted Arnott (Waterloo-Wellington): Mr. Speaker, the McGuinty Liberals’ broken promises mean that Ontarians are paying more and getting less when it comes to their health care.

While in Opposition, the Liberals promised to reduce wait times. When they came to power, the Minister of Health promised a wait times website that would let Ontarians know how long they would have to wait for crucial procedures.

He promised in November 2004 that the Website would be up in a matter of months. At the time he said, “The more Ontarians know about the wait time situation, the more empowered they will be to hold the government….to account.”

The following month, he promised that the website would be updated with information about how long patients were waiting. Almost a year later, in October 2005, the information was finally posted. The Minister claimed the data was “reliable” and “up-to-date”.

However, as soon as the Minister was questioned on the data, he began to back away from it. He did it back in December when he said that we couldn’t really trust his website. Then he did it again yesterday when our Caucus confronted him with evidence that wait times are increasing in many communities across Ontario . For example, he has presided over a 14% increase to cancer surgery wait times in the Waterloo-Wellington LHIN. This is totally unacceptable.

With cancer wait times growing longer, Ontarians rightly wonder where the health tax money has gone. We do know it was the largest tax increase in history, we do know it broke the central promise of the Liberals’ election campaign, and we do know that a middle-income taxpayer is paying $600 more a year in Provincial tax.

Ontarians are paying more and getting less, proof that the McGuinty Liberal Government is conniving, incompetent and unworthy of the public’s trust.