Questions about Premier Doug Ford’s relationship with developers and the expansion of private health-care delivery will dominate the return of the Ontario legislature tomorrow.
The house is set to resume after its winter break, and the first new piece of legislation is expected to contain promised health reforms.
That will include allowing community clinics and diagnostic centres to perform more procedures and tests and letting health-care professionals from other provinces work in Ontario without registering right away.
It will also allow nurses and paramedics to expand their responsibilities.
Ford says it’s a great plan that has been informed by consultations with many health-care workers across the province.
The new legislation will expand cataract surgeries performed in private clinics and allow hip and knee replacements to be done by private organizations.
The province says they’ll introduce legislation that will protect hospitals from losing staff to these clinics.
The government will also be pressed by opposition parties on Ford’s ties to developers.
Ford says he did nothing wrong when developers, who are family friends, attended his daughter’s stag-and-doe event last summer at one-hundred-fifty dollars a ticket.
The Office of the Integrity Commissioner says Ford had no knowledge of gifts given to his daughter and son-in-law and that there was no discussion of government business at the summer event.
But the NDP, Liberals and Greens say they’ll continue to push the Progressive Conservative government for more answers.
Both Ford and Housing Minister Steve Clark have said they did not tip off developers before opening up parts of the protected Greenbelt to build 50,000 homes.