Wednesday, January 14, 2026

Ms. Sonya Shorey

Continuing to invest in the networks that I highlighted—the regional innovation centre network, the small business enterprise centres—to create more opportunity for more founders to benefit from those services, to scale faster, to put AI to work, enabling AI democratization, where we’re all sharing lessons learned on how to put that to work to be the most productive and impactful possible. Certainly, we see the job market changing. Ottawa definitely faces risk with respect to the public sector layoffs at the federal level, so the opportunity to transition those workers into technology-based businesses, main street businesses, becomes a very big stake for the province. As your second-largest economic region, the opportunity to double down there, double down in technologies like those that we support at Area X.O for all sectors—currently, most notably defence, cyber security, aerospace and space—that is an immense opportunity. There is a lot of investment from the federal government in all of those sectors, and they are needed globally. The more we can do to accelerate the development, the IP and the opportunity to take those companies global, the faster we will see our economy continue to grow to support many of the causes that you see today, including the one to my right. So I believe that we can double down in areas where we see it working, meet greater demand. The pipeline is massive, and it will continue to grow with those layoffs in the public sector. If we come together, look at the data and continue to invest, we will see dividends. We measure them.

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MPP Bill Rosenberg

And in return, Ontario will benefit from having several good-paying jobs come back to us.

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Ms. Sonya Shorey

Jobs, investment, GDP growth—those are the three key metrics that we track consistently, and we look at the interventions that we make. I am a big fan of collaboration for impact. It takes a village to help companies accelerate growth. The more we do together—the more we optimize the resources, the assets, the expertise and the investment—the faster they will get there. So we lean into collaboration for impact. We never look for sole attribution, but we measure the impact of our interventions that come with the provincial funding, the municipal and federal funding and private sector technology and contributions.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

MPP Smith.

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Mr. Dave Smith

One of the challenges with being the last round of questioning in 39 minutes is that you don’t have a whole lot of time for anything. Andrew, I’m going to jump over to you. You made some comments at the very beginning of your presentation—a little bit more than 70% of the music industry, from what you were saying, and I’m paraphrasing it, is here in Ontario. I’ve tried to find some numbers on this. It looks like it’s about $215 million in GDP directly from that portion of the industry. Is that a reasonable number? Would you say it’s about $215 million to $250 million that is generated in Ontario right now from your portion of the industry?

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Mr. Andrew Cash

No. In Ontario, our numbers are a bit higher than that. It’s about $400 million in GDP.

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Mr. Dave Smith

Okay. You said about 70% of the Canadian number is in Ontario.

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Mr. Andrew Cash

It’s 78%, yes.

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Mr. Dave Smith

What do you see as the potential growth on that, then? If we’re at $400 million now, do you see us getting to $600 million, $700 million, a billion dollars?

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Mr. Andrew Cash

We see us getting close to a billion dollars, with the ask that we’re coming to you with today of $25 million. That gets us to about $900 million in GDP growth.

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Mr. Dave Smith

And how would that be distributed across the artists? Is that high-end—you mentioned the Sheepdogs, just as an example. Is that artist at that level, or is that artist at a smaller level?

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

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Mr. Andrew Cash

The beauty of what’s happening in Ontario is that it’s very decentralized and it’s spread out right across the province. Of course, in the Golden Horseshoe, we have a large number of industries, but we have artists all across the province. First of all, it’s not for foreign-owned multinationals. It’s for Ontario-owned companies and Ontario artists—so that goes from the solopreneurs and the freelance artists, all the way up to some really significant, large, independently owned Ontario music companies.

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Mr. Dave Smith

My former EA’s brother went to Nashville to try to grow his music career. Are you suggesting, then, that if we made that type of investment, someone like him, at 21, 22, wouldn’t have to relocate to the States and we could have that kind of an ecosystem here in Ontario to support that?

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Mr. Andrew Cash

Yes.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

That concludes the time for this question. It also concludes the time for this panel. I do want to thank all the panellists for all their work of preparing to come here and, in doing so, ably presenting it to us. As a committee, we appreciate your assistance.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

We will be hearing from VHA Home HealthCare, Champlain branch; Queensway Carleton Hospital; and the Canadian Film Centre. The Canadian Film Centre and VHA Home HealthCare, Champlain branch, are both virtual. So the first presenter will be virtual. Are we on the call—VHA Home HealthCare, Champlain branch?

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Dr. Kathryn Nichol

Yes. Good morning.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

There we go. If everybody else would move out of the way, we could see the screen.

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Dr. Kathryn Nichol

Good morning, everyone. Just a quick clarification: Certainly, it is VHA Home HealthCare. I am not here solely representing our Champlain branch, but also all of the services we provide across the province. The head office of the organization is actually in Toronto. So I’m joining you from Toronto. My name is Kathryn Nichol, and I’m the president and CEO of VHA Home HealthCare. I’d like to start off by thanking the committee for the opportunity to speak to you this morning. In my allotted time, I’d like to cover three things. First, I’d like to share a little bit about my organization and the services that we provide to Ontarians. Secondly, I’d like to share a little bit about how home care is a highly cost-effective and patient-preferred solution to some of our current hospital and health system pressures. Thirdly, I’d like to offer a recommendation for investment in home care for the 2026-27 period. Starting with a little bit about VHA: VHA Home HealthCare is one of the larger not-for-profit providers of publicly funded home care in Ontario. Our organization has been in operation for over a hundred years. Today, we have a team of 3,000 people on the ground providing personal support services; nursing; rehab services, including occupational therapy; physiotherapy; dietitians; social workers; speech-language pathologists; and community support workers. We look after over 100,000 clients. In the last year, we did approximately four million visits. So it’s a fairly substantial team on the ground and contribution to caring for Ontarians. VHA also works in partnership with many hospitals across the province, including University Health Network, Sunnybrook, North York General Hospital, Michael Garron Hospital, Holland Bloorview Kids rehab and the sick children’s hospital. In doing so, what we endeavour to do there is helping adults and children to transition home more quickly, following surgery and illness, through our hospital-to-home programs, and stay at home through our respite and our behavioural support programs. Overall, these programs shorten hospital stays; they reduce readmissions to hospital; they prevent visits to the emergency department; and they certainly support families and reduce caregiver distress. We’re very proud to invest in our administrative and our clinical data so that we can offer academic research and evidence to inform solutions for both the health care sector and the broader health care system. Onto my second area of focus, which is how home care is a highly cost-effective and patient-preferred solution to current hospital and system pressures: One of our areas of research study is to show how, without the burden of brick-and-mortar physical infrastructure and with a focus on personal support services, home care is the most economical way to not only provide care but to scale care up. We completed an economic analysis that showed that, on average, one occupied hospital bed can cost the province $730 a day. In comparison, a long-term bed costs approximately $201 a day, and a home care bed is $106 per day, essentially showing that hospital care can be more than seven times more costly than care at home. This cost-effectiveness was certainly reflected in the government’s investments in home care over 2022 to 2024, which allowed for an investment in personal support services and other home care providers’ wages through contract rate increases. It decreased personal support services’ turnover by 38% and unlocked an impressive 1.8 million additional hours of care. Last year, in 2025-26, an investment of $1.1 billion was announced to sustain growth in home care services experienced over the previous two years and to invest in hospital-to-home programs. This funding will certainly allow for new services for Ontarians, and I’d like to thank the government for this funding. Now turning to the future: what is needed for the sector to retain our people, our workforce, to continue to provide great care at home and to effectively both prevent patient flow into hospitals and support patient flow out of hospital. The $1.1 billion in funding is dedicated to new services, as mentioned previously. What we desperately need is funding in current services, in the form of contract rate increases, to support compensation and wage increases so our workforce can meet the rising cost of living and we can retain our amazing people, and to support covering the rising costs of doing business, including technology costs due to inflation. What we know is, the average wage increase for 2025 for public sector workers was about 3.4%. We also know the average wage increase for 2025 for both public and private sector combined was about 3.9%. For health care, there have been cases where it is much higher. For example, in 2023, 65,000 ONA nurses received a 16% adjustment.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

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Dr. Kathryn Nichol

In home care, we’re doing our best to keep up or catch up. At VHA, in my organization, our recent collective agreements—we’ve been able to lift compensation by 15%, which is 5% over three years, and we’ve also improved our group benefits, to help our people manage their costs and to remain competitive as an organization. To sustain these costs, we need your support. We need predictable and stable funding, through annual adjustments to home care contract rates, to maintain service levels and strengthen the health care system overall. The ask is a 5% increase in contract rates for 2026-27, which would cost approximately $220 million, based on the current home care budget. This would be welcomed. And really, it’s all about keeping patients out of hospital, keeping them—

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Thank you very much. That concludes your time. We will now go to the second presenter, Queensway Carleton Hospital.

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Dr. Andrew Falconer

Good morning, distinguished members of the committee. My name is Dr. Andrew Falconer. After 30 years as an emergency physician, I have the privilege of serving as the president and CEO of the Queensway Carleton Hospital in Ottawa. I’m here to present an excellent opportunity for government to bring investments in health care and life sciences together; to have a real impact at the bedside. We’ve called it the health technology innovation transition fund. Ontarians need better access to health care; hospitals need better tools to provide it. We propose that Ontario creates a $15-million fund to speed the adoption of Ontario-developed technology by community rural hospitals, specifically addressing the primary roadblock that we all face when it comes to adopting new technologies, and that’s the transition costs. In this presentation, I’ll cover the fund’s design, why it’s needed, how we could implement it, and what the impact would be. Queensway Carleton Hospital has been proudly serving the west of Ottawa for over 50 years. We’re consistently ranked as one of the top health providers in Ottawa and always ranked in the top 20 of hospitals in Canada. We’re not a large hospital; we’re not a small one. And we’re not academic. But what we do really well is innovate at the bedside, move nimbly, try new things, pivot quickly, and find new ways to deliver health care. We have an amazing team, and we have an amazing culture. Unlike many hospitals, we’re not struggling to find physicians and nurses. We have a very efficient emergency department, seeing over 80,000 patients a year in a space that’s less than half of what most hospitals have that face those volumes. We’re not alone in our challenges in the emergency department. Ontarians are waiting too long for health care. Our biggest challenge at Queensway is that we don’t have enough space. But that’s a bigger problem, with a different proposal that we submitted to the government, and we remain optimistic for your support. Today, I’m here to talk about a small roadblock—and how do rural and community hospitals implement new technologies. There are many tools out there right now; they already exist. They’re from Ontario companies. They’ve already been proven effective in larger academic centres. The roadblock we have, really, is the transition costs—things like operating dual systems while we implement the new technologies, staff training and infrastructure challenges. It’s frustrating because we know the investments in Ontario are already there. We simply don’t have the funds to adopt them. For instance, there’s a network, CAN Health, whose mandate is to support Canadian technologies. Many research hospitals have implemented great innovations; we can’t, because we must demonstrate an ability to pay for the technology after trial funding. We can’t do this because it would actually take away from the dollars spent at the bedside. Without additional specialized funding, many hospitals in our situation can’t benefit from some of these technologies. Our proposed solution, the HTITF—or Hit It—is to create support for non-academic and rural hospitals to implement new technologies. I’ve spoken with many other hospital CEOs and many other organizations, and they all support this. This will help us overcome adoption barriers and improve health care delivery. Through structured governance and alignment with current government priorities, we can introduce sustainable innovations in health care to make a real difference at the bedside. It would leverage guidance and governance already in place. It would support the implementation of technologies recommended by the Ontario health technology assessment centre. You can implement a sunset model, tapering the financial requirements over a three-year horizon. By then, the efficiencies will be realized. The investment aligns with government goals to end hallway medicine by accelerating the adoption of validated technologies that improve flow, reduce length of stay, and support the efficient use of beds. It also leverages the local intellectual property and anchors high-quality jobs in Ontario by using the power of procurement to become a customer of these companies. So we have three recommendations which align with our broader mandate: Include a $15-million technology innovation transfer fund in the 2026-27 budget with a three-year sunset and defined performance metrics. Ministries will collaborate with hospitals and innovation partners in year one to establish eligibility, governance and evaluation frameworks. Ontario hospitals will lead as early adopters of validated, local technologies, benefiting patients and taxpayers. In conclusion, this fund is a strategic initiative designed to overcome adoption barriers and improve health care delivery. Through structured governance and alignment with priorities, it offers a pathway to sustainable innovation and better health outcomes. It supports our economy in having hospitals like QCH be customers of the great solutions that are coming forward from our Ontario universities, colleges and other hospitals in the life science ecosystem. This is not a grant. It represents less than 0.006% of the total health budget. The return on investment is for non-academic and rural hospitals’ ability to deliver high standards of care that are deserved by our patients and their families. The ROI will continue to be realized long after this fund has sunsetted. Thank you for your attention.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Thank you very much for the presentation. We now will go to the Canadian Film Centre. Again, it’s virtual.

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Ms. Maxine Bailey

Good morning. Thank you for taking the time to see me. My name is Maxine Bailey. I’m the executive director of the Canadian Film Centre. The Canadian Film Centre is the beginning of the pipeline for Ontario’s film industry. We train writers, directors, producers, makeup artists, cinematographers, and actors. As well, thousands of cast and crew use their training at the Canadian Film Centre to gain access to the various unions and associations so that they can be full-time workers and be employed. Ontario is where Canada’s screen-based industries—film, television and digital media—thrive. But right now, the industry is at a critical moment. We have talent, we have momentum, we have infrastructure, but without immediate action, Ontario’s global, vital role in the screen-based industry is at risk of faltering without investment in the beginning of the pipeline. That’s where the CFC comes in. For decades, not only has the Canadian Film Centre trained the best and the brightest of Ontario’s storytellers, but we have launched the careers of over 22,000 creators, cast and crew who support this bustling industry. The CFC is singular in our economic and cultural output. No one in the province—nay, the country—do what we do. We are the beginning of the pipeline in the province, and unless we receive financial investment from the province, Ontario will no longer be able to call itself the production powerhouse it has become. Here is our current situation: Ontario captured 36% of national production volume last year. This generated $4.35 billion and supported tens of thousands of jobs. Yet our training capacity is constrained, and recent funding cuts have left a significant gap. If we don’t act now, Ontario risks losing both talent and ownership of our intellectual property to other provinces and international competitors. We are here today with a very precise ask of $9 million over three years from the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Gaming. This is not charity; it is a strategic investment with a measurable return for Ontario’s economy, its workforce and global standing. The investment will help establish a robust training studio in Ontario with integrated labs that build both creative and technical production skills, training talent for real jobs in the industry, ready to produce world-class content. It will also allow us to expand our CFC satellites, which are virtual and hybrid workshops, bringing training province-wide, not only in Toronto and the GTA, but to communities across Ontario, particularly the north. Over the next three years, these programs will train and support over 3,000 artists and production crews, helping seed new companies, launch high-quality content, and create jobs across the province. That’s not a vague cultural benefit; it is economic impact that you can actually measure. To illustrate the CFC’s current impact, I can boldly state that you cannot look at any of the lists of film and TV credits without finding CFC alumni. The following shows come straight from CFC alumni: Letterkenny, Law and Order Toronto, Shoresy, Heated Rivalry, Murdoch Mysteries, Schitt’s Creek, Hudson & Rex, Saint-Pierre, Wayward, Allegiance, Departure, Orphan Black, Rookie Blue, Heartland, Son of a Critch, Sort Of—the list goes on and on. Our alumni currently helm over 80 active production companies in Ontario, and our alumni have founded over 200 companies that generate well over $250 million annually in the province. We train 800 cast and crew, and 92% of our alumni credit CFC programs for their career success, something we take immense pride in. Programs like the Norman Jewison Film Program and music lab have become world-class pipelines, feeding the industry with the creators, producers and storytellers who are shaping today’s global market. Let me give you two other examples. Amy Cameron, an alum of our film program, is now co-founder of Cameron Pictures and the producer behind Law and Order Toronto and Pretty Hard Cases. She said, “The CFC has been instrumental in helping us build Cameron Pictures, from our training at the CFC to the support it has offered over the years. All of this has meant our company has been able to find an international profile while proudly based in the province of Ontario.” Mark Montefiore, also a graduate of our programs, founded New Metric Media, the company behind the hit series Letterkenny, Shoresy, Children Ruin Everything, and Bria Mack Gets a Life. He credits the CFC with shaping his instincts as a producer, opening doors he didn’t even know existed, and connecting him with collaborators who continue to drive his success today. These are not isolated stories; they are the standard. They demonstrate exactly what happens when Ontario invests in talent: We retain it, we grow it, and we turn it into companies, jobs and global cultural exports. If you take one point from my remarks today, let it be, this works.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

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Ms. Maxine Bailey

When we invest in training and talent, Ontario retains the skills and owns the IP. This is not simply about funding a program; it is about protecting and expanding Ontario’s competitive advantage in the global industry. The Ontario government has the opportunity to scale impact across the province and strengthen the industry by investing in the CFC. I thank you for your time.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Thank you very much for the presentation. That concludes the presentations. We’ll start the first round of questions with MPP Fraser.

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Mr. John Fraser

I want to thank all the presenters for taking the time this morning to be here, to take so much time to prepare for this, and for everybody being pretty much on time, which is great. It’s hard to get everything you want to say about things in seven minutes. I’m going to start with Dr. Falconer. I want to say good morning and hello. It’s nice to see you again. It’s interesting; the thing that you’re advocating for reminds me of something I’ve been thinking about recently that we talked about a long time ago, which is scribes in the ER. That was an innovation that was brought forward to the Queensway Carleton and met with some success, so you have a track record.

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Dr. Andrew Falconer

That’s right. We had actual manual scribes, so real human beings, who would trail the emergency physicians and actually document all of the recordings. That actually allowed me, as an emerg doc, to spend more time face to face with a patient. It improves their experience tremendously, and with the illegible writing that I am cursed with, it made my health record far more competent. That’s now being replaced by AI, and that’s a wonderful example of the kind of technology that’s out there, developed in Ontario, that we can implement if we have funding to cover those transition costs.

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Mr. John Fraser

I want to talk a little bit about that, but for my colleagues—and many of you probably already know, but for those who don’t know, we’ve had a real challenge in Ontario. We have this great sector, the medical device sector, in the life sciences, and they build things and they create things. And the thing that I’ve heard consistently—in fact, I’ve never had anybody come to me and say, “I’ve been able to sell it here.” It’s like, “I’m selling it in Asia. I’m selling it to five health systems in the US. I’m selling it all over, but I can’t sell it here.” And that’s a real shame. Even something as simple as a wound care program, which was more of an idea and a process, is having a hard time selling here. So this is an opportunity, I think, for us to, in another way, help hospitals adopt that technology and give those Ontario companies an advantage, which I think is important in terms of what the global climate is right now and our need to protect our economy, protect our workers. The question I have is, in terms of that $50 million, that’s for all the rural hospitals and small hospitals, right?

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Dr. Andrew Falconer

Correct.

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Mr. John Fraser

Small—I shouldn’t say small, but non-academic.

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Dr. Andrew Falconer

Yes, non-academic community hospitals.

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Mr. John Fraser

So when you look at that fund, what is eligible or what are you asking to be eligible in that fund in terms of—is it staff, is it capital?

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Dr. Andrew Falconer

Things that we’re looking for are AI adoptions and for equipment like you’ve already spoken about. The fund is to cover the transition costs, so any capital purchase that’s required, the cost of training staff to adopt the new technology, and those transition periods of time where we’re running two technologies in parallel. Once we’re able to sunset the existing technology, we know we will achieve some savings and better and more efficient health care for our populations.

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Mr. John Fraser

You’re talking a lot about AI, those kinds of solutions. So in terms of the costs that you incur, what are more significant—the capital costs, or is it the transition costs with, essentially, having to train staff?

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Dr. Andrew Falconer

It’s generally the transition costs—running both technologies same time and training staff to adopt to the new technologies.

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Mr. John Fraser

It’s a high-human-resource component.

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Dr. Andrew Falconer

That’s right.

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Mr. John Fraser

So is it a request that’s made through the Ministry of Health?

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Dr. Andrew Falconer

Yes.

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Mr. John Fraser

Is there a specific fund that they have there that this is going towards?

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Dr. Andrew Falconer

We are proposing a new fund that would be managed by the Ministry of Health.

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Mr. John Fraser

Maybe a better question is, is there a section in the Ministry of Health?

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Dr. Andrew Falconer

Hospital branch.

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Mr. John Fraser

Hospital branch. That’s where it’s at. Just for my colleagues on the other side, because you’re in government—you may already know, so, please, I’m not trying to be pedantic here—is that the real challenge is, this is an economic development issue and it’s a health issue, and it’s a really hard thing to get people together because—

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

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Mr. John Fraser

—the three parties point at somebody else. Someone has got to pull the trigger on it to do it. And it’s not a party problem. It’s a government problem. And you guys have the ability to try to fix that. That’s all I wanted to throw in—if you want to add anything else?

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Dr. Andrew Falconer

No, thank you. That was very well articulated.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

MPP Brady.

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Ms. Bobbi Ann Brady

Thank you to all of our presenters in this round for your passionate presentations. I’m going to use my first round of questioning for Kathryn. This committee has heard time and time again about the wage parity concerns in the province, and we’ve heard it every single day on this committee, when we have met for pre-budget consultations. I’m like a broken record—a tree cannot stand if its roots are rotten. I know that wage parity remains an issue for VHA. I’m wondering if you can detail for our committee whether VHA is losing valuable workers to better-funded sectors and how that impacts your operations on a daily basis?

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Dr. Kathryn Nichol

Thank you so much for the question. Certainly, the recruitment and retention of great people remains a challenge across the health sector, but yes, absolutely, it remains a challenge for VHA. This is particularly true for home care, as you mentioned, where there are wage parity concerns. We do have staff leaving to work in higher-paying sectors, like long-term care or hospitals, or even leaving the health sector altogether and moving to retail and foodservice, which is why I think it’s so important to pair investments in new services and increased access with investments in current services and recruiting and retaining the people we have and making sure that the organization is able to pay the costs of supporting the team in the way that we know we need to support them.

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Ms. Bobbi Ann Brady

I represent a very rural riding with an aging population, so I see this. One of the other issues that I hear about from PSWs and those working in the community is the sharp rise in violence in the workplace, and I believe that VHA has adopted some best practices.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

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Ms. Bobbi Ann Brady

I’m wondering if you can share with the committee what some of those best practices look like.

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Dr. Kathryn Nichol

That’s a great question. I think whenever you’re working with the public, there’s a risk, but in particular, violence in the workplace is, I would say, a higher risk for our team. (1) They work alone. They’re independent, working in the community; and (2) they’re in an uncontrolled space; they’re in somebody’s home. This is not a space where you can implement safe storage practices or make demands around who’s welcome and who’s not welcome. You’re walking into someone’s home. It is an uncontrolled environment, so we certainly see this. Thank you for asking. Yes, we have implemented a really interesting strategy at VHA. We call it end-of-visit reporting. It is a technology-enhanced reporting system that they use on their mobile phones, where they can report at the end of the visit whether there—

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Thank you very much. That concludes the time. Now we’ll go to the government. MPP Smith.

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Mr. Dave Smith

We’re doing 12 different cities this way, with about 18 presentations in each; the Ministry of Finance, on top of that, is doing another 32. We refer to it as speed dating. So there’s a lot of information that comes at us. It’s very technical, in a lot of cases, and sometimes it’s a little bit depressing. So when we have a presenter like the Canadian Film Centre, Maxine, this gives us an opportunity to have a little bit of levity, and I’m going to take that opportunity with you. I’m going to throw this out to you first, Maxine. You mentioned a number of different productions. We had the Canadian film industry in Toronto, back in December, and I threw this out to them, so I’m going to throw it out to you. The Littlest Hobo: I want it brought back—so you bring back The Littlest Hobo and I’m all over that. That’s one of those great Canadian shows that we need to have more of.

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Ms. Maxine Bailey

I agree.

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Mr. Dave Smith

Well, thank you. I love to hear that.

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Ms. Maxine Bailey

We’ll mention it, because there is something about looking back at those sentimental shows and the kind of place that we were at the time. But there are other shows that have come forward, such as Murdoch Mysteries, that give you the same kind of family feeling as The Littlest Hobo did.

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Mr. Dave Smith

They do, but they’re not about a dog, and that’s the biggest thing with The Littlest Hobo, so—

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Ms. Maxine Bailey

Oh, Hudson & Rex. Hudson & Rex has a dog, and that’s one of our alums. There you go.

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Mr. Dave Smith

All right. We’ve got some programs, right now, about the film industry itself; specifically, in northern Ontario, through the NOHFC. There are a number of initiatives that we have. We’ve seen some success with that. One of the concerns I have is, about six weeks ago, Donald Trump made a comment about the film industry and how they were going to throw a 100% tariff on any films that were made outside of the United States. Is this something that we should be guarding against—that Trump may take an opportunity to penalize industries in other countries—or should we simply be looking at it as, the domestic market and the international market, other than the United States, are where we have an opportunity for growth, and thumb your nose at Donald Trump?

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Ms. Maxine Bailey

Part of my presentation was about doubling down on our domestic industry. With the success of Heated Rivalry, Murdoch Mysteries, all of the shows that Mark Montefiore runs—they have great success not only across the country, but they also have success internationally. America is not our only outlet for sharing our product. I would say doubling down on the domestic industry is the place to go. I am so sorry I forgot to mention, when we were talking about The Littlest Hobo, that one of our alumni and friends, Clark Johnson, got his start on that show.

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Mr. Dave Smith

Thank you very much. I’ll turn the rest of the time over to my colleague.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

MPP Darouze.

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MPP George Darouze

Thank you, Chair, and through you: I want to thank you, Doctor, for being here this morning. I appreciate all the work you do in our communities and surroundings, not only our city. The HTITF funding—I just wanted to ask a little bit about if it was implemented in any jurisdiction, if we have implemented that technology somewhere else, and also what type of experience or result we got out of that. In your presentation, you didn’t have a lot of time—if you want to elaborate a little bit more, talk about the success of that program and the efficiency that help our communities and our patients when they come first at the door to your emergency services.

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Dr. Andrew Falconer

Thank you for the question. Academic centres have many streams of funding, including research grants—and other research-based—that allow them to develop the operating costs to implement these technologies. SickKids has implemented a wonderful AI called Hero AI, which allows them to survey all the patients who are waiting in the emergency department and look for any potential changes in vitals, their blood pressure and that sort of thing—

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

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Dr. Andrew Falconer

That will allow them to spot those who are deteriorating in the emergency department, pull them out and get them to care earlier. That has actually already saved lives. We see it working well. The difficulty for community hospitals is lack of access to that type of funding. This is what we’re trying to do. I’m talking for all of Ontario here, all community hospitals and small rural hospitals—I think we provide a lot of care to a lot of patients, and I think there’s a big bang for the buck, to deliver care to more Ontarians.

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MPP George Darouze

Do you have a rough time? How long will efficiency—how will it reduce the time for the patients when they come to the door at the hospital?

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Dr. Andrew Falconer

Yes, we feel this can get up and running within a year and run for three years. We’re already seeing lives saved with Hero AI. There are other technologies that have helped reduce—-

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Thank you very much. That concludes the time. MPP Pasma.

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Ms. Chandra Pasma

Thank you to the presenters. Dr. Falconer, it’s always very nice to see you. Thank you for the great work that you and your team do. I’m really proud to have such an incredible institution in my riding. You provide amazing support to the people of Ottawa and beyond. While you’re here, I have to ask about the need to right-size the Queensway Carleton. It’s desperately needed. I’m really hoping to see that funding in the 2026 budget. I’m hoping you can share with members of the committee and the government why that expansion is needed, but also the really innovative plan that you’ve developed—the fact that the expansion is ready to go once the funding is there, and the dividing up of the building to phases that would allow smaller companies in Ottawa to participate and receive the economic benefits of that program.

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Dr. Andrew Falconer

Thank you for the question. Queensway Carleton Hospital is the only hospital in the west end of Ottawa. We serve 500,000 people, or half the population of Ottawa. Our hospital is not built to support that kind of growth. So we’re currently seeing north of 83,000 patients a year in an emergency department that was built to see 63,000. We’re also over capacity. We were at 120% one day this week, which means there are roughly 75 patients in unconventional spaces, including beds in the emergency department, which only exacerbate that problem. To meet the rising population demands in the west end of Ottawa, Queensway Carleton desperately needs an expansion of our emergency department and an additional 90 in-patient beds. We have a submission before the capital branch of the ministry to support that application. We’ve just submitted stage 2.1, which means we’re ready to go. As soon as we get the go from the government, we’re ready to start building, essentially. This is a very cost-effective and land-ready solution. We were ready to go. We don’t need to acquire new lands; we can build on our existing. We’ve divided the project into five segments. The emergency department is about $300 million. The in-patient beds are almost $200 million—a supporting-urgent-care-type thing, beside the emergency department. Others are also smaller hospitals. We can concurrently build the hospital to meet the needs of the community and actually tender those projects to many smaller firms in the province of Ontario. So we’re quite excited by this. We know the community urgently needs this, and we’re waiting for the nod from the government to proceed.

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Ms. Chandra Pasma

And investing in a way that allows more Ottawa-based firms to participate also means more jobs created in the Ottawa region, specifically. Can you also mention briefly—because I think this is a particularly interesting part of the project—the fact that the hospital is already built in a way that you can build up?

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Dr. Andrew Falconer

When we built our newest section 10 years ago, we knew that at some point we’d require increased growth. The structure of that part of the building allows for the development of three floors straight up, so we can build 90 new additional beds without requiring more land—just build up. And that part of the building still meets current building codes to allow for upwards expansion.

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Ms. Chandra Pasma

Thank you—amazing work. Like I said, I really hope that funding is there, because when we’re talking about 120% overcapacity on a regular basis, then we are talking about greater patient impacts in the future if that funding and that expansion doesn’t come soon. I do want to ask about IT. You talked about transition costs. Yesterday, we heard from the Kemptville hospital about the challenge that ongoing IT costs are placing on their budget, particularly when the costs of IT are surging and hospitals are depending more and more on IT. Is that a challenge that you see for the QCH or other hospitals that are small, medium hospitals? Do you think there should be a fund dedicated specifically to supporting hospitals with IT?

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Dr. Andrew Falconer

It is a consistent challenge. There are higher licensing fees that are occurring every single year. It does create an operational pressure for all of our hospitals.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

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Dr. Andrew Falconer

I consider that my responsibility to find those funds, but it’s the adoption of new technologies that really—it’s hard to take money away from the bedside to fund those opportunities. So we would gladly welcome both, but I really think we can innovate better as a province if we support new technologies and new innovations.

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Ms. Chandra Pasma

I’m not familiar with the technologies that you mentioned. You’ve said that they will help in terms of improving time spent with patients, but can you give us an idea, quickly, of how that would work?

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Dr. Andrew Falconer

By allowing more efficient flow. In the emergency department, if a clinician doesn’t have to worry about typing in the whole medical record—how many of us have sat in front of our doctor and they’re typing stuff in the computer? That doesn’t have to happen. There’s voice recognition software. It automatically populates the record; it automatically populates the tests that are required. So that will drive efficiencies—

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Thank you very much for that. The time is up. MPP Fraser.

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Mr. John Fraser

Again, I thank everyone for their presentations and their effort. I’d like to direct this to Dr. Nichol. I know that you were trying to finish something about your end-of-day reporting. So if you could just go back through that, because I was interested in that—and then the Chair had to cut you off.

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Dr. Kathryn Nichol

No worries. Thank you.

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Mr. John Fraser

That’s not his fault.

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Dr. Kathryn Nichol

That’s okay. I understand. What we have is an end-of-visit reporting tool that our front-line workers use, through their mobile phones, to be able to report immediately at the end of the visit if there was a concern around workplace harassment or violence. What this allows us to do is immediately have a response plan put into place. It starts, of course, with their supervisor, but it can be escalated accordingly all the way to our government funder, and looking for an alternate solution for the client—which would be something that we wouldn’t definitely want, but we can take it that far. I think the other thing is, it truly allows us to track how much of a problem this is and whether our response is working to reduce the incidence of this happening to our workforce. To my knowledge, we’re the only organization doing this, tracking it on a visit-by-visit basis, and being able to keep it front and centre and continually look for our numbers to go down.

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Mr. John Fraser

It’s great that you’re doing that. I focus a lot on education these days, and the reports of schools not being safe places to work or to learn aren’t exaggerated. What’s happening in your sector is not exaggerated either. I can never remember growing up and having somebody have to read a sign that says, ”You can’t harass people. This won’t be tolerated.” We get on a phone and we’re told that we can’t—so there is an overall problem that affects the workplace and employees in a very significant way, and if it’s not kept in check, you can’t retain. People get injured, not just physically, but emotionally and mentally. It is a really tough job. In terms of wages and wage parity, what is your ask in regard to that? I know that retention and recruitment is hard.

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Dr. Kathryn Nichol

I think that what I brought forward was that it was an ask in contract rate increases. I want to address the fact that it allows us to continue to increase wages, to be able to attempt to close that gap. To take a single step and to close the gap, I think, would be very difficult because it would require a significant investment. For example, nurses in hospitals often make $10 an hour more than the nurses in home care. I’ve worked in hospitals—brilliant nurses. I’ve worked in home care—brilliant nurses. But the nurses in home care are working independently. They have no team to fall back on. They have to troubleshoot in the moment to get the work done, and as you just noted with the violence conversation, they’re dealing with a multitude of issues outside of the clinical tasks at hand. I do think that my ask, during the 2026-27 year, of a 5% increase in contract rate increases would go a long way to helping us take a step towards less inequitable wages across the different parts of our health system.

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Mr. John Fraser

We can’t actually help people unless we have people to help them. That’s the thing. Having gone through two in-laws and two parents in home care, I can attest to that. Having people there is important. Ms. Bailey, thank you very much for your presentation. How much time do I have?

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

You have 1.2 minutes.

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Mr. John Fraser

Not bad. I want to go back through your ask again, what you’re asking from the provincial government in terms of—and whether that’s leveraged against another investment.

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Ms. Maxine Bailey

We’re asking for $9 million spread over three years, or $3 million a year. The government’s support allows us to approach various organizations in the industry—

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

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Ms. Maxine Bailey

—and across the country to help leverage that government support. Unless the government is involved, it’s really hard to get other organizations to support—something that they all desperately need. So that’s what we’re looking for.

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Mr. John Fraser

We just heard about the music fund. From a film perspective, has there been any ongoing support for your organization from the provincial government or a provincial agency?

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