LATEST STORIES:
Singh says Ontario should not privatize health care

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is in Hamilton to discuss his view on privatized health care in Ontario, the impact it’ll have on Ontarians receiving timely care, and what the federal government can do to stop it.
Singh called on the Trudeau government to help fill 700 vacant jobs at Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS).
Singh offered an example of how he would fill the jobs, “we can invest in dollars in our healthcare system that go with strings attached to hiring more healthcare workers.”
Healthcare is the jurisdiction of the provinces but the federal government contributes significant dollars, and an increase in that funding will be the topic of a much-anticipated meeting between Trudeau and the premiers on Tuesday.
Singh wants Trudeau to use that leverage to stop Doug Ford’s plan to use public money to pay private surgical clinics to help cut down the pandemic-induced surgery backlog.
“With the specific program that Doug Ford’s proposing, what the federal government should be doing and what I would be doing as prime minister would be negotiating that no cent of federal money will go to those for-profit private clinics,” Singh said.
Singh says Ford’s plan will draw workers away from the public system, exacerbating the worker shortage.
Trudeau has said in addition to increasing the Canada Health Transfer, bilateral deals with each of the provinces will be made to address specific concerns.
Mountain MPP Monique Taylor says the shortage and Ford’s intention to utilize more private delivery of publically-funded healthcare was the top concern at a morning roundtable with local healthcare workers.
As was the province’s wage limiting legislation Bill 124, and concerns around working conditions, all things Taylor says must be addressed to fill the 700 vacant nursing jobs at HHS.
“We definitely heard today, your schedules are flipping on a regular basis, your expected to do overtime, there’s no time for family, there’s no time for a private life.”
Singh also was in town to support the provincial NDP’s candidate in Hamilton Centre Sarah Jama.
Jama will run in a yet-to-be called byelection to fill Andrea Horwath’s old seat.
The liberals have announced advocate and columnist Deirdre Pike as their candidate, just today the PC’s announced Hamilton police officer Peter Wiesner will run for them, and running for the Green Party is hardware designer Lucia Iannantuono.
Prime Minister Trudeau says not to expect a deal on healthcare right away on Tuesday,
calling it a working meeting.
It’s not yet known what kind of offer the federal government can be expected to make,
but the premiers have said they want the federal share of health care funding to increase to 35 per cent. That would equal an increase of $28B a year.