Wednesday, January 14, 2026

Ms. Sonya Shorey

Continued investment in the regional innovation centre network, where we see that oversubscription in so many programs, four to one, and helping those companies scale and build differently in an AI-driven, transformative era certainly is one. I love what you said about a system-wide approach. If all of the regional innovation centres are given more money, we can work together in different ways—create one intake, create one set of data where no matter where one company goes in any part of this province, we all have access to the same data and can lean in with our expertise and help them scale faster in this moment of time, get out to new markets. Trade is an area that we are leaning in on with our global expansion team. We’re grateful for the investment the province makes together with the feds so that we can bring more companies to market faster in more impactful ways. Diversification of markets has never been more important. We know, with tariffs and the challenges to the south, that getting out into European and Asia-Pacific markets is key. That is another area—leaning in and enabling us to continue growing our brand and promoting everything that we have in the city. We’ve heard today that it’s sometimes challenging to rise above the noise. That is absolutely true. We have a combination of expertise in Ottawa; we are your economic development hub. There are assets here that cannot be re-created anywhere else in this country. How do we work together with the province to ensure the whole world knows that? We’re building our scale-ups, keeping the IP here, driving revenue and business that supports our whole economy and all the mainstream businesses that create our quality of life, attracting the right major multinationals and soft-landed companies here that will complement and fill gaps that we don’t have capability-wise while we’re planting those seeds. I believe an economy works together holistically. If we make those collective investments—we have built the plans; we have them. We can work together to execute on them. And we track every single dollar, every intervention in terms of job creation, investment, GDP contribution. We are very data-driven, and we are a very inclusive opportunity for all.

Official source

The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

MPP Darouze.

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MPP George Darouze

Thank you, Chair. Through you: Thank you very much to all the presenters this morning. Sonya, I don’t want to waste time; I want to go right to the point. I know in the last few days, we’ve been touring Ottawa. I know Invest Ottawa very well. I served on council with my colleague here for many years. From the perspective of Bill 72, from a policy perspective and a legislation perspective, we’ve heard from so many innovators, we’ve heard from small businesses, we’ve heard from so many people in the last few days—and that was our first tour our government does in Ottawa. Can you share with the committee a little bit of the feedback we’ve heard and what else we could do to move forward what we had heard further with Bill 72? I understand investing in—Invest Ottawa is a huge success and a huge story, but also from a legislation perspective. I want to move it a little bit that way.

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Ms. Sonya Shorey

Procurement is absolutely essential. If you ask any company that we serve whether they’d prefer a grant or subsidy or a customer in government that will generate revenue and create long-term opportunity, reference customers that they can leverage globally—that is exactly what they would say. We are very grateful for the procurement strategy that has come forward. We are leaning in, and there is incredibly positive feedback and a lot of hope. Procurement is one of the biggest stumbling blocks that faces many of our companies, particularly in sectors like defence, aerospace, cyber security and security. That is going to be a game-changer, as long as it is implemented correctly, where we truly lean in and support Ontario companies to keep Ontario IP growing, and we help them to collaborate effectively with multinationals and other anchors to access new supply chains, big-picture customers that can grow their revenue base and their customer base. I do believe it can be done holistically. The government of Canada is also leaning in on procurement. We are an advocate and a partner, and we want to bring our companies forward so that we can find the right opportunities for the government of Ontario to procure directly from them, to help supply chains become more domestically driven. That will generate a significant shift in the opportunity and the prosperity for this province and, certainly, for our region. Our companies are grateful.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

We will now go to MPP Pasma.

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Ms. Chandra Pasma

Thank you to all of our witnesses for being here. Andrew, it’s nice to see you, even if it’s virtually. Kaite, I’m going to turn to you. You mentioned the need for the not-for-profit sector to get involved in building housing so that it’s affordable. One of the projects that I am really happy about—Nepean Housing, which is a great housing provider, used investments from the federal government, provincial government and municipal government to turn what was four units of affordable housing into 31 units of affordable housing, and 35% of them are accessible, which is well above the provincial standard. The building is very eco-friendly. There are units set aside for supportive housing in the building. I think it’s an amazing example of what our not-for-profit sector can do. I’m wondering if you can speak to the supports that our not-for-profit sector would need to build those kinds of homes.

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Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

To build or to operate?

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Ms. Chandra Pasma

Both.

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Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

First of all, I think we have to be honest. I’ve given you a lot of averages today, but needs vary. The majority of people, around 80%, who experience homelessness do not have super-high needs; it is a small percentage who are actually needing the most robust supports. For folks with the most robust supports, we’re talking 24/7 health care access in a building; nursing care would be there; case management; having a councillor; that kind of stuff. But that’s the Cadillac, and that’s not needed for everybody. There are a lot of people who need independent living, with a rent subsidy and some light-touch case management or light-touch supports—a worker coming a couple of times a week or a couple of times a month—and that will do it; often, those folks are good to go. They don’t need forever support. So I would say it does vary, depending—and right now, we’re not using our data to match need; we’re not building to match need. We’re just building a bunch of housing, but we’re not necessarily saying, “There are 50 people in Ottawa who need supportive housing that is staffed 24/7.” If we had that number, then we should build for that number. Broadly speaking, it’s that kind of various level—but we need the data to drive the decisions as well.

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Ms. Chandra Pasma

On the building side: Nepean Housing was able to take that government funding and turn it into these additional units of affordable housing. Do you think that’s a model? Should we have more funds that are set aside specifically for non-profits to build non-market housing?

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Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

Absolutely. I think there are a couple of federal opportunities—we know about Build Canada Homes—that we can really use to supercharge building right now. I think one that isn’t talked about enough is the acquisition fund. Real estate investment trusts are off-loading their buildings because they’re old buildings, but that’s a lot cheaper and faster—to get housing to become affordable, if a non-profit acquires it. There is an opportunity that we could leverage that funding by injecting just a little bit more funding from the province to acquire those homes. And same with Build Canada Homes—I think there need to be standards for scale for non-profit housing providers. You can’t keep funding a 10-unit, tiny organization. They cannot keep doing a capital campaign for a small number of units. They have got to be doing partnership. The legislation and the funding opportunities have to encourage and mandate partnership.

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Ms. Chandra Pasma

The emergency shelter diversion—that was new to me; that’s not something I’ve heard before. I’m wondering if you can talk us through it. There was a woman I met in the Cornerstone shelter last year who told me her story about how she had some mental health challenges. She was employed, and then she went to being unemployed, living in her car, moving to the city of Ottawa emergency shelter and eventually into Cornerstone. What would that have looked like for someone like Lynne?

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Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

It’s interrupting at the door. Is this somebody who just has rental arrears? That’s half the cases. That’s a pretty cheap, easy thing to fix—instead of getting somebody stuck in the shelter system and losing their job. Youth diversion is particularly effective because young people are younger—a lot of the time, it is actually family conflict, and it’s family conflict that, when you have a professional supporting some mediation there, is pretty solvable. In the Niagara region, they found that diversion—a lot of the time it’s, “We can get you a bus ticket back home, but you have a safe family or a family friend you can actually stay with.” It’s leveraging those natural supports that actually can lead to diversion in a lot of ways. It’s tougher with adults. A lot of the time, people have more resources than we think they do. It’s fundamentally changing the assumption—

Official source

The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

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Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

—that you have no place to go, you have no resources, and our job is to bring you into the system. Let me tell you: If anybody here has ever worked with somebody who is homeless or at risk of homelessness—a family friend—you probably are advising them to not get stuck in that system. We need to make sure that, as a system, we’re encouraging that as well and designing it that way.

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Ms. Chandra Pasma

I’ll turn my remaining time over to MPP Bell.

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Ms. Jessica Bell

Thank you to all speakers. Hello, Andrew Cash. My question is to the Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa. You mentioned the spend of approximately $2 million to end encampments. Could you flesh that out for us? What would that involve? What would you spend it on?

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Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

This would be about 5,700 new options for housing—so a lot of rent subsidies for people who are lighter-touch supports. It would include some money for building more supportive units for the hardest-to-house. That’s from the Association of Municipalities of Ontario report. That was the number they fleshed out. That’s over three years, so it’s less than a billion dollars a year, pretty low-cost—

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Thank you very much. That ends the time. MPP Fraser.

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Mr. John Fraser

I thank everybody for their presentations. I’d like to turn to Mr. Cash and ask you a question with regard to your request. I know that the fund was established somewhere around 2013 and made permanent around 2015 and then changed, I think, around 2020. At that change, it was reduced by a little bit more than half. In other words, is that money leveraged by an equal investment from a company? How is that measured—if you can help me understand that.

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Mr. Andrew Cash

Again, this is not a handout. It’s an investment in the companies. The companies have to match that investment. When the province reduced the investment in the sector, it also made it much more difficult for Ontario investors to invest in the sector. One of the effects of that, if you will, is that we’re seeing foreign-owned capital come in and purchase Ontario companies, Ontario IP, that the Ontario government and the people of Ontario have invested in previously. This is part of the place we’re at now.

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Mr. John Fraser

That’s great. I would encourage the government to consider it, especially when we’re in a situation where we’re trying to be more self-reliant and understand that we have to protect ourselves as a province but also as a country. Thank you for your presentation. I want to go back to homelessness, because it is an issue that affects all of our communities. AMO, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, says about 85,000 people in this province are without a home and about 20,000 of them are children—600 of them are our kids. This is not as much of a question as it is more of a statement. When we’ve had these situations before, after the end of the Second World War and then in the 1970s, when there were some real challenges around housing, a government—not a Liberal government, not an NDP government—got into the business of building public housing. We did it. I want to thank you for all your work, and I want to thank you for trying to roll this ball up the hill. It’s a time when we have to look at this, because the number is growing, and that will—that’s wrong in the first place, but it’s going to affect all of us. It’s going to affect our economy. It is going to affect our health care system. It’s going to affect our education system. So it’s a critical thing. There are willing partners, obviously, municipally—and the work that the alliance does—but there’s a federal government that’s interested in that part of the business right now, in doing that. We have to do it. It can’t keep going in the same direction. We’ve got to send it in the other direction. I’ll leave it at that, and I want to thank you very much for—unless there’s something else you want to add at the end.

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Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

I do, actually. Deloitte wrote a report that said it would bump—if we invested getting to 7% of our national housing stock—5% to 9% increase to our GDP. In a time of economic uncertainty, I don’t know that you can make a better argument than that. We desperately need to build, and building non-market still employs private developers. We need somebody to build. On so many levels, this is a path forward. If you pick any social problem, I will get it back to housing as the thing that will at least make that social problem better, if not fix it.

Official source

Mr. John Fraser

Do you know what’s better than building a tunnel? Building affordable housing and making sure people have a place to live. I’ll leave it at that.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

MPP Brady.

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Ms. Bobbi Ann Brady

I want to go back to you, Kaite, again, because if there’s one social issue that profoundly saddens Ontarians, it’s watching people on our streets and in our communities suffer. You mentioned that the economic environment to build low-income and affordable housing or housing that is affordable—two different things—doesn’t exist. We all know that. It currently doesn’t exist. I think we should be looking at things like financial incentives to make the math work for our builders. Forgivable loans, GST removal and loan forgiveness programs are important. I want to go back to the units that you are proposing for Ottawa. Do you have an idea of the percentage of homelessness population it would realistically—that that program would house and what gaps would still remain?

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Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

Sorry; the Ottawa numbers or Ontario numbers—like for supportive?

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Ms. Bobbi Ann Brady

Right.

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Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

For supportive, I should, but I don’t actually have that number. I only have provincial-level numbers.

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Ms. Bobbi Ann Brady

That’s fine.

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Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

Provincial-level numbers are 30,000, so as the second-biggest city, a chunk of that would be here. And that cost, which I had in my head, and it’s written somewhere here that I can’t remember right now, I think is just over one and a half—oh, no, $900 million.

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Ms. Bobbi Ann Brady

It’s $900 million? Okay. How do we ensure that new low-income housing remains affordable over time? We know that the market pressures can quickly see those prices rise.

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Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

Totally. It’s a great question. That is the difference between non-market, mission-driven—“Our entire reason is to have affordable housing for people” versus, “We need to make a profit, and I have shareholders to respond to,” which is reasonable, but it’s just not going to meet a human right.

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Ms. Bobbi Ann Brady

As a fiscal conservative, I like to move away from ongoing subsidies. Should we be looking at permanent non-profit co-operative ownership, longer-term agreements for some of the folks who are living in these low-income homes?

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

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Ms. Kaite Burkholder Harris

I think, ultimately, we need the buildings, we need the housing that is just in perpetuity going to be affordable. I think that deals like inclusionary zoning and making it affordable for 10 years is just kicking a crisis down the road, but I do think it creates flow. If you have a young family move into a co-op, all of a sudden they can save money for, actually, a down payment. We see that happening in our system. We see people become entrepreneurs, because they wake up in the morning and they’re not in a shelter. So I really think it creates broader flow. It is for the middle class to actually have affordable options. And then you do have the low, low income that—we’re always going to have people in that level of crisis, but if they have housing, they have a much greater opportunity to get out of that, as well.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

MPP Rosenberg.

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MPP Bill Rosenberg

Thank you, panel, for being here today and bringing the ideas forward to us—and that we have that opportunity to listen and bring them back, not only to benefit people here in Ottawa, but all Ontarians. The government is moving forward with helping Ontario manufacturing processors to lower their costs, innovate and become more competitive through the manufacturing investment tax credit, and they’re also amending that to have some criteria for investments in machinery and equipment. My question, Sonya, is to you. As a government, we have been supportive of the private sector finding innovative solutions to problems. I wonder if you would be able to speak to—see how small business as being a very important part of building a more competitive, resilient and self-reliant Ontario.

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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.

Official source

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.

Official source

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.

Official source

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.

Official source

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—

Official source

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?

Official source

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.

Official source

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.

Official source

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—

Official source

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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