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Situation Critical

Help stop the plundering
of our public health care for profit

Help stop the
plundering of
our public
health care
for profit

Public hospitals’ operating rooms idle while patients wait

Text in blue links to sources and data.

Our public hospitals’ operating rooms are closed evenings, weekends-- some even permanently. They aren’t given enough funding to run full time, which would reduce waitlists.

Record emergency department closures

Ontario had more than 1,100 emergency department closures last year. Local hospitals, in existence for 100 years, are now at risk of permanent closures. If the Ford government chose, they could restore services by funding & staffing our public hospitals.

Lowest public hospital funding while $ billions shifted to private health care

Ontario funds our public hospitals at the lowest rate of any province. At the same time, the Ford government is redirecting more than a billion dollars per year from our public taxes to fund private for-profit clinics & staffing corporations.

For-profit clinics charge patients $$ thousands in illegal (& unethical) user fees for surgeries & tests

Maureen needed eye surgery for macular degeneration so she wouldn’t lose her vision. A private clinic charged her $7,000. She told us, “Being a senior on a fixed income, I’m still trying to catch up with my bills from the surgery.” This should NEVER happen. The Ontario government is responsible for enforcing our medicare laws to protect patients like Maureen from extra-billing & user fees. Medically needed surgeries & tests must be covered by OHIP. That’s the law. Last spring, we made a complaint to the Ford government from 50 patients - including Maureen - who were charged or manipulated into paying for medically unnecessary add ons in private clinics. The patients should be reimbursed & the clinics should be stopped. We’re making another complaint this fall to push the Ford government to stop them. If you’ve been charged for your surgery, please contact us.

Ontario has downsized our hospitals to an extreme extent. We are last in Canada & third from the bottom among developed nations.

In 1990, Ontario had 50,000 hospital beds for 10.3 million people. Today, we only have 35,000 for 16.2 million people.

According to data from the OECD, only Chile & Mexico have fewer hospital beds per person than Ontario.

Why? Because everything they cut from public hospitals is privatized.

Please send a message to Doug Ford: You can’t say you stand up for Canada while privatizing our health care

The United States has the most privatized health care in the developed world. Americans pay almost double our costs for care.

The Ford government is privatizing more & more of our long-term care and hospital surgeries & diagnostics. They’re giving primary care to for-profit chains, privatizing Public Health services like COVID testing, vaccines & more. They’re allowing private clinics to bill OHIP & charge patients on top. They’re moving toward U.S.-style for-profit health care.

U.S. for-profit hospitals charge exorbitant prices. Businesses face high insurance costs for employees. On top, employees pay co-payments every paycheque plus they have to pay deductibles before coverage kicks in...IF they are covered. Insurance companies make profits by denying coverage.

Medical costs are the top reason for bankruptcy: 56 million Americans struggle with medical debt: more than Canada’s entire population.

Double the cost for surgeries paid to a for-profit hospital with political connections

Under the Canada Health Act, it is illegal to charge patients user fees or sell queue jumping for the wealthy. OHIP covers all medically needed surgeries & diagnostic tests.

However, patients are being charged record-breaking illegal fees in Ford’s privatized surgical clinics. Instead of stopping them, the Ford government is expanding them.

Ontario funds our public health care at the lowest rate in Canada

Ontario Health Coalition calculations from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), National Health Expenditures Database 2024

Every service that has been cut has been privatized. It’s not a coincidence, it is the plan.

If Ontario even met the average funding of the other provinces, our services would be much better and they would stay under public ownership & control.

Close connections with for-profit lobbyists

For-profit long-term care corporations have benefitted from billions of dollars in contracts with the Ford government to build new and expand their existing long-term care homes rather than using our money to build those homes under public and non-profit ownership and control. Among the biggest winners of government contracts for new beds and redevelopments are the chain corporations with the worst records for death and negligence. The for-profit long-term care industry has many close connections within the Ford government. 

Under the Ford government there has been unprecedented lobbying from for-profit corporations to get laws that benefit themselves, shield themselves from accountability for poor care and get billions in public money to build long-term care homes that they will run for their own profit under new 30-year licenses from the Ford government. 

From Devastating to watch’: Private long-term-care homes have seen some of Ontario’s worst death rates – but Doug Ford’s new funding set them up for decades of profits in the Toronto Star:

"Southbridge alone brought in three [lobbyists] from Earnscliffe Strategy Group, including Alanna Clark, who joined the firm directly from Caroline Mulroney’s office, Rob Leone, a former PC MPP, and Stella Ambler, who is running for a PC nomination in the next election. (Neither Leone nor Clark responded to request for comment. Ambler replied only to say she left Earnscliffe, and lobbying, late last year.)

Arch Capital Corporation, a private equity outfit that has been scooping up long-term-care homes in Ontario for the past four years, hired Carly Luis, a long-time PC staffer...After Luis left to become Health Minister Christine Elliott’s director of communications, Arch replaced her, in April 2021, with Kailey Vokes, Doug Ford’s former director of policy for major projects.

There are more. Omni Health Care, which is owned by private equity heavyweights Hillcore Group, retained, among others, Fraser Macdonald, who played a crucial role in Rob Ford’s mayoral campaign in 2010. Caressant Care hired Patrick Lavelle-Tuns, Ford’s deputy campaign manager in the 2018 leadership run. Amir Remtulla, who is close to both Ford and his chief adviser, is still lobbying for Revera, one of Canada’s largest long-term-care operators. Melissa Lantsman, who ran Ford’s war room in 2018, lobbied for Extendicare.

Even the Ontario Long-Term Care Association (OLTCA) got in the act, hiring Luis, and later, a team of conservative lobbyists from Crestview Strategy, including Andrew Brander, a former Ford government staffer, and Ginny Movat, a longtime federal and provincial conservative activist, and occasional columnist at the National Post."

There are multiple media reports about the connections between Ford's people and these for-profit corporations. For evidence, see the following: