Linda Silas, President of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions (CFNU), Canada’s largest nurses’ organization, presented a case for patient safety and safe working conditions to Canadian premiers in an early morning policy breakfast meeting.
CFNU hosted the meeting, which took place on Tuesday, July 22, 2025, at the Grandview Golf Club.
Health care workforce experts joined her, Prof. Alison Leary and Dr. Jennifer Zelmer, for a presentation and Q&A session.
President Silas, speaking to Huntsville Doppler, summarized the presentation stating, “I think it’s key to guarantee patient safety through proper nursing staffing, and that’s the message we gave to the premiers and to make sure that they continue working on healthcare.”
In a media release, following the meeting, CFNU outlined three key action points that premiers and all levels of government need to accelerate in order to preserve health care standards across Canada:
- Implement minimum nurse-patient ratios to address unsustainable workloads and improve patient care.
- Mandating safe hours of work to protect the health of nurses and the quality of care they can deliver.
- Collaborating on a pan-Canadian approach to health workforce planning, to ensure Canada’s public health care system is strong for generations to come.
“We had two presenters talking about the importance of patient safety and seeing nursing as a safety-critical industry, because as we know, nurses are there 24 hours, seven (days a week), and it is about making sure we have the experience and qualification to guarantee patient safety,” Silas pointed out.
Despite the primary focus by the premiers and Prime Minister Carney on trade, Silas reiterated the major challenges facing health care services in Canada, “As Canadians, we have to make sure that we keep our health care system, our public health care system strong, and that’s by having a strong federal partner to give it [a] fair share in tax dollars.”
Nursing has been under increased pressure for many years, with staffing shortages, patient-to-nurse staffing ratios, excessive overtime expectations, and declining enrollment in the profession exacerbating critical concerns since the pandemic, resulting in a higher number of nurses leaving the profession. With diminished ranks in the field, younger nurses are entering workplace conditions that are not conducive to excellence, nor to safeguarding the rigorous standards that historically nursing in Canada has been heralded for. With fewer senior nurses remaining due to burnout, new nursing graduates are not afforded the mentoring and guidance of more experienced and developed staff. Conditions also dissuade students from choosing to pursue nursing careers.
Regarding the success of their presentation to the premiers, Silas said, “They know we all have a collective hard work to fix our healthcare system. We were having difficulties pre-pandemic, and then the pandemic really hit the system and its workers very hard. So, there’s not one premier in that room that doesn’t want to do better on health care. It’s just that they’re all challenged with different issues. Our job as nurses’ unions is to make sure that health care and health care workforce stays on top of their minds.”
The Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions (CFNU) is Canada’s largest nurses’ organization, representing 250,000 frontline unionized nurses and nursing students in every sector of healthcare – from home care and long-term care to community and acute care – and advocating for key priorities to strengthen public healthcare across the country.
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We would have more nurses if they got rid of the mandatory covid vax. This vax is not necessary and the hospital still requires you be vaxed before hiring. Two vaxes. There has been many cases proven that the covid experimental jab has killed people and severely damaged others. Take the mandated vax out of the hospitals hiring program. As far as I know the hospital is the only place this is forced.