'I am the premier, and you're not': King and Perry clash over LTC funding

This government loves to throw out big headlines but cannot back it up. So according to that report, there were 12144 long term care beds in 2021. Now that’s both private and public. And three years later in February 2024, government gave a presentation to the Standing Committee on Health. At that time government reported that there were 12145 long term care beds on the island and that represents A1 bed increase in three years. One bed in three years and I’ll table the relevant documents today. So a simple question for the Minister of Health, You knew a massive shortage was taking place and in three years you added only one bed. What on earth was the reason for all this delay? The honourable Premier? Mr. Speaker, could we ask the honourable leader of the Opposition, quite honestly, to pick a lane here? Do we want to invest in healthcare beds, as he said, or do we not want to do it? Every time we lean in to do it, they say, well you can’t do this, you can’t do that. You didn’t do it fast enough. Can we pick a lane? Can we find out what you want? I know it’s not possible to make any one of you over there happy, but can you pick a lane and pick the lane that Islanders are in? And that is let’s get the best healthcare that we can get. Whoever can work in and lean in on this to do the best job they can, that’s what we should be doing. I’m working with all partners. Anyone who wants to deliver healthcare out there to Prince Edward Islanders all pay for it, get it done. He won’t be paying for it. It’s the taxpayers of PEI. They’ll be paying for it. And there needs to be an accountability from this government to the taxpayers of Prince Eridana. They need to know where their dollars are going. So Mr. Speaker, I think this delay is quite obvious. This do nothing. Government waited around until the crisis clearly emerged and then they turned over all the responsibility to the private sector and now it’s relying on the on the profit motive to solve their problems. I will go back to an earlier question with which, which is also a request to this government. Why isn’t the government taking an aggressive approach to build public long term care beds and deal with the shortages that you identified yourselves 3 years ago? Mr. Speaker? I didn’t need to wait for a crisis I inherited in 2019 after 11 years of total utter chaos from his government Mr. Speaker, which I would add, he left the PC party to join Mr. Speaker. So he rolled into the fire, he rode into the fire and he grabbed a handful of grass and he spread it all across Prince Edward Island. I will take no lessons in this province from the healthcare delivery of Liberal Party of Prince Edward Island. After 11 years of utter chaos, Mr. Mr. Speaker, honourable Leader of the Opposition, thank you Mr. Speaker, and I’ll say it here today. I left the PC Party because there was a feeding frenzy from the through in the backroom. So going back to the internal report on long term care, it’s clear that there’s an opportunity for this province to take a greater role in the public delivery of this essential service. So according to this report, only 28% of long term care homes across Canada are held by profit making businesses. Now in New Brunswick only 12% are held by privately owned profit driven businesses. In Newfoundland, only 3% are profit driven. On Prince Edward Island 47%. So why aren’t we pursuing a model which promotes public care instead of handing over so much of this much needed service to the public sector? Well, again, stand here, Mr. Speaker, and tell you that I’m very, very proud of the hybrid model of healthcare delivery we have in this province. It’s the realistic position that we find ourselves in, in a small jurisdiction. All I’ve heard is complaints from the other side for five years running now. We don’t have enough people for this. We don’t have enough people for that. And every time we lean in to do something, they say, Oh my gosh, please don’t fix it. I think they love the chaos. They created it for 11 years, but we’ve been working every day for five years to fix it. Every day gets a little bit better in this province, the honorable leader of the opposition. I would love to say that the Premier’s calendar reflects that he’s been working every day. However, I can’t say that. So last week the province issued a news release to go along with his 25,000,000 payout to the private sector. And it says, and I quote the province will be issuing a tender requesting proposals from private homes to build hundreds of new beds over the years. End Quote Will you be providing grants and loans to the private sector to do this? Furthermore, you will Will you be handing out 2% loans to the private sector all this to achieve those goals. So how much money does the Minister expect expect to hand over to private businesses to do all of this? Speaker, I know the Opposition Leader is not a stickler for details, but the member of the Minister of Health and Wellness outlined in great detail what our plan is, our plan to build the beds that he talks, that we haven’t spent any time on. We’ve actually been spending hours and hours and hours and working with the private sector and the public sector to deliver what we need to deliver on. There’ll be a capital budget coming this fall where we will address the public side of this, and we’re also going to be working with our private sector to deliver the beds that we need to do. I could get the Minister to read it again, again, give them the information, but they don’t go to meetings, they don’t listen to anybody and they don’t read any documents. So I don’t know if we’re doing any good, Mr. Speaker, that’s hilarious coming from a premier who wouldn’t even go to a health meeting in the Summerside and been asked to go to that. So according to the 2021 internal report, now this will be very, very expensive Mr. Speaker and I will quote from that report. The 35% in bids will have an approximate capital cost of over $134 million and an additional operating cost of more than $30 million, End Quote. Now this is a huge investment and I’m sure that all private operators are very excited about this. But from someone who believes in the public role in public services, I’m certainly not that enthusiastic. So before we go any further down the private track, will the minister table all of the agreements that were signed with private operators to support the 25,000,000 he handed out last week? Mr. Speaker, I would also go back and list the documents of course that the honourable member his government used to be part of the investments they made in Medavi for home care, which was just irritated. The public sector who thought they were taking jobs away from RCWSI could talk about the investments they made in long term care. The same people we’re investing in. Mr. Speaker, the honourable member over there was part of a government who invested in the very same. And even the member from Olary, Inverness and his brief stint as the Minister of Health would have signed documents to give money to those wonderful people who provide care in this province. Hypocrites. I don’t know what else you can call it. Mr. Speaker. Speaker. I shouldn’t use that word. I shouldn’t call him a hypocrite. I’m sorry, but I don’t know what other word to use. But I take it back, Mr. Speaker, I take it back. You’re right. I am the premier model and you’re not.