A serious note about protecting Medicare under Doug Ford

Dear friends and supporters,

We are making a video today. It shows the Ford Conservatives using their majority in the Legislative Committee on Social Policy to vote down amendments to the Ford government’s massive new health restructuring law. The amendments, under multiple sections of the Act, would prevent the Ford government from being able to use the extraordinary powers they have given themselves in the new legislation to privatize any health care service, close any local hospital or cut local services.

After the new law was introduced in the Legislature we asked the NDP and Liberals to support the amendments, drafted up sample language and worked with them to ensure the amendments were introduced within the almost-impossible timelines imposed by the Ford government, intent on slamming through the law with as little time for public scrutiny as possible. In every single section of the Act where the amendments were proposed, the Conservatives voted them down.

We ask the Official Opposition NDP to get the votes on film from the Legislature’s recording service. Our staff is editing them so everyone can see what is going on. We will release them next week so that the public can see what is really happening.

We are standing guard for public medicare; working not only to stop privatization (and now mega-mergers and a renewed round of cuts) but also to push for reform and improvements in the public interest.

In fact, the Ontario Health Coalition has been working flat-out as fast and as hard as we can to get out information of the cuts that are coming out every day, to build protest and to cast a spotlight on alternative approaches that would improve care, not dismantle and destroy it.

We have seen some success.Last fall we won $90 million and a reopening of 600 hospital beds in response to our mass rally against hospital cuts and privatization. We have saved dozens of hospitals, rehab, labs, ED, birthing mammography and continue to be a force that the Ford government is afraid to take on in defense of local services.

Though there is no question that the Ford government intends to try to privatize health care, we have forced them on the defensive. We have pushed media to question the Minister over and over about this, successfully. We have supported and built up the fight against the OHIP cuts and the government has now delayed moving forward for months. And we are working our hardest to set key issues to win improvements for the vulnerable and the ill.

Since January we have done a 31-town our to release our report on violence and insufficient care in long-term care garnering media in every tow; organised 6 pre-budget hearings rallies on the Ford plan for cuts to public services; organized the response to Bill 74 including recruiting more than 1,000 organizations to apply for standing at the public hearings; wrote analysis of the leaked documents and legislation, wrote model submissions; shared legal opinions; organized massive social media response and generated more than 7,000 emails to the Premier, Health Minister and local MPPs opposing the Bill. We have met with countless MPPs, municipal councillors, concerned citizens, seniors’ groups, physicians, nurses, health professionals unions and patients. We have held a mass rally of approximately 10,000 people to stop the OHIP cuts, and other health care cuts, closures, mega-mergers and privatization. We held a sticker day at hospitals and organized more than 100,000 nurses, health professionals and vital support staff to wear stickers telling the government not to privatize our health care, generating significant public awareness. We have kept up-to-date briefing notes and press advisories, and a “Cuts Tracker” revealing the Ford government’s cuts and analysing their new laws and policies. We released a budget analysis, have done literally hundreds of media stories and interviews and appeared live on CBC, CTV, CP24, and in newspapers and other media all across Ontario on the budget, the cuts, health restructuring and privatization. Our Facebook and Twitter go to thousands. Our emails go out to more than 100,000. Policy makers and media know our reach is wide, thanks to all of you, and they pay attention. We are proud that what we do matters and we hope you are too!

And now we need your help if you are able.

Our existence is based on donations from community groups and individuals. There is no other source of funding for the work that we do. If you support our work to preserve Medicare for all, can you help?

If you are able, could you please become a member of the Ontario Health Coalition? We have set our membership rates low so that membership is accessible to as many people as possible. Most people who are able, purchase a membership and add in a donation to help with the work we do on behalf of all of us. I have pasted the form below and also attached a printable version.

There are only two full-time staff at the Ontario Health Coalition. We use all the funds we raise to organize campaigns and community action to save services, stop privatization and ensure that needed health care is protected and improved for the people of Ontario. We are guided by the principles of equity and fairness in the Canada Health Act, and we strive to protect health care for all, regardless of income. And we truly make a difference.

We have won amendments to every piece of health care legislation in the last 15 years, in the public interest. We have repeatedly saved local services, stopped private clinics and privatization, improved care levels in long-term care, stopped competitive bidding in homecare, rolled back privatization in the P3 hospitals…and the list goes on and on.

We truly could not work harder or be more dedicated to the important job entrusted to us. But we need your help.

Thank you for taking the time to read this note. If you are able to help, we send our sincere gratitude and our commitment to you to do all we can to protect our most cherished social program in the face of a real and present threat. For all of you who already give monthly or donate annually, thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We could not do it without you.

Warm Regards,

Natalie Mehra
Executive Director

StOP Legal Aid Cuts – Justice For ALL

Hello,

Doug Ford continues to make cuts to many of the services that we access including health care, social services, education and libraries and it is important that we all stand together in opposition to these cuts. Legal Aid services have also been targeted and thousands of people depend on these services to help them in their day to day living.

Please join us on Monday June 3rd for our Stop the Cuts Town Hall Rally at the Finlandia Hall from 1pm-3pm. It’s so important that we work together to stop the cuts to legal aid which will impact front line service. As many of you are aware Kinna aweya legal clinic provides free legal services to those living in poverty; people who wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford legal advice. Their ability to provide these services could be greatly impacted as a result of these cuts. Let’s work together to ensure that this doesn’t happen.

Please see the attached poster, share with your networks and post at workplaces.

Thanking you in advance and looking forward to seeing you there!

Town Hall Poster EDITED

April 17th Thunder Bay Day of Action for Education and Health

After the release of the Provincial Budget, the Ontario Federation of Labour is urging all unions to organize a demonstration in response to the attacks against our rights by the Ford Conservative Government.

These attacks against the people of Ontario are many and are focused in vital areas of importance to working people such as Health, Social Services, Child Protection and Education.

It is clear that we can only succeed in the struggle to protect our rights when we stay united. The Conservative Government is opening many fronts, that could be their potential weakness. The labour movement can overcome, if we are able to keep our unity and if we are able to develop fight back actions that are coordinated and have a holistic approach.

This is not the time for isolated sectoral actions. Isolated sectoral actions will only help to ensure that the Tories will have the momentum to force the cuts announced over the last two weeks and in the Provincial Budget today.”

With that in mind I propose that we gather at the Ontario Government Building (Mini Queen’s Park) on James St. South on the “Province Wide Day of Action for Education and Health Care” on Wednesday April 17, at 5 P.M.

A demonstration in such short notice can only succeed if all the unions/organizations in the area are able to see the gravity of the matters at hand and are willing to take a coordinated, concerted action against such an outrageous attack on working people.

In solidarity,
Carlos Santander-Maturana
President of Thunder Bay & District Labour Council

Preliminary Analysis of Ford Government Health Care Omnibus Bill

This Act takes the existing LHlNs and other key health care agencies and transfers them into a new Super Agency. At the same time, the Super Agency and the Minister are given new powers to order megamergers, takeovers, closures, transfers of health care services, including the privatization of public and non-profit health care services. There is no progressive language about the goals and principles, there are no democratic protections, there is no ability for the public to intervene in the transfers/closures/mega-mergers/privatization of their health care services. This is a radical piece of health restructuring legislation first and foremost and it requires continual health care restructuring in perpetuity as tong as this legislation is in existence.

Ontario Health Coalition February 26, 2019

Briefing Note – Doug Ford’s Omnibus Health Bill (Bill 74)

Not a Single New Service or Improvement to Care
We have excellent health care. We just don’t have enough of it. Yet Doug Ford’s new health care omnibus bill does not open a single new health care service. Not a single surgery to help tackle wait lists. Not one new nursing home space. No more health professionals, vital support staff, nurses or doctors.

At the same time, Ontario has the fewest hospital beds left of any province in the country and of any developed nation, even while patients wait for days on stretchers for a bed to open up. Every major hospital has operating rooms that are closed due to lack of funding, even while people wait for surgeries. Our province funds our hospitals at the lowest rate in Canada. We also have the second fewest long-term care beds of any province while wait-lists number 33,800. The evidence is clear: cuts and rationing have gone too far. In fact, in the election Mr. Ford traversed the province promising more, not a wholesale dismembering of the health system.

Briefing note – Doug Ford’s Omnibus Health Bill (Bill74)