Mr. Speaker, Hamilton's home care patients, their families and our entire city won a significant victory last week when we forced the provincial government to reverse a decision to shut out the Victorian Order of Nurses and St. Joseph's Home Care from home care nursing contracts.
VON and St. Joseph's Home Care provide highly respected and professional nursing to clients who suffer from chronic illnesses and medical conditions. The loss of these excellent nurses would have been a devastating blow to some of our most vulnerable citizens. But the Hamilton community was not going to allow it to happen.
Over 1,500 people came out to a rally where many speakers, including the federal NDP leader and myself, came to the defence of our non-profit service providers. Our community convinced the province to cancel the Hamilton process and review the province-wide program behind it.
How did we win? It was the unions representing these nurses leading this fight and a unified community standing together for quality, non-profit health care in Hamilton. When we stick together, we win.