By Lesley Hastie
The Ontario government wants more money from the Federal government for health care. Perhaps Doug Ford should have thought of that before he:
- cancelled a cap-and-trade program resulting in $3billion in lost revenue
- in 2020 spent $2.8billion to buy three natural gas plants (erasing 1/3 of the emissions reductions Ontario achieved by phasing out coal)
- gave drivers $1billion by cancelling licence plate renewal fees
- spent over $230 million to cancel 758 renewable energy contracts
- gave Enbridge $234milion to install gas pipelines which when hooked up would cost homeowners and taxpayers over $36,000 per home.(Clean electric air source heat pumps, which also provide air conditioning, would cost half that, with no emissions).
- committed to building Highway 413 at an estimated cost of $8.2 billion and adding to the loss of an estimated 319 acres of farmland every day, equal to one average family farm.
- spent $4million on anti-carbon tax stickers and associated advertising campaign
- promised to spend $30million to fight the price on carbon.
All this money could have been spent on Ontario’s inadequate and underfunded public health system. No surprise then that the federal government cannot trust Doug Ford’s improvident government to spend extra money where it’s so sorely needed.
Lesley Hastie
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Bob Braan says
“Ontario Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner agreed, and said the report confirms the Ford government is underspending on critical services.”
“It’s shameful and inexcusable to underspend on health care while nurses and other health care workers are burnt out, emergency rooms are overflowing if not closing outright.”
“If keeping emergency rooms open doesn’t warrant spending — what does?”
Ford needs to sort out his priorities…
Doug Ford’s top priority when elected in 2018 was to cut the number of Toronto councillors in half.
He spent weeks on that and was even going to use the doomsday “notwithstanding” clause it was such a top priority.
Most of Ontario couldn’t care less how many councillors Toronto has.
Recently Ford’s top priority is giving a few mayors more power.
While emergency rooms are overflowing if not closing outright.
Bob Vtech says
Maybe Mr. Ford should make the anticipated move
of declaring himself Premier for life.
MPP’s only get in the way! Who needs them?
Tami Kegley says
Agreed.
Too bad so few could be bothered to get out to vote in the recent provincial election. Sad, irresponsible, and doesn’t bode well for the future.
Elections have consequences, so we are stuck for the time being. Hopefully, Ford will wake up. Especially with regards to our fragile healthcare system.
Anna-Lise Kear says
Lesley Hastie; AMEN! Thank you.
Erin Jones says
The healthcare crisis has been a LONG time coming. When the Feds dumped much of the funding responsibility on the Provinces, that was the beginning of the crisis. It was supposed to be a 50-50 arrangement but it is now less than 30% coming from the Feds and almost 80% from the Provinces.
The mess is compounded by what more forward thinking people warned about, at least two decades ago. It is a “perfect storm” of over-taxing-over-spending (so there are declining amounts in the till for funding healthcare) along with an aging population (who require much more from the healthcare system).
The staffing shortages are due to the retirement of many healthcare workers and chronically low pay/very hard work. Many nurses took it as a total slap in the face that they worked to total exhaustion during the pandemic and then received a 1% pay raise when inflation was running at 6%. Can you blame them for saying, “Okay, I’ve had enough–I’m retiring!”? RPNs are highly skilled and educated professionals and yet, because of the drastic shortage of PSWs, they are often compensated at a rate that is less than a PSW. Don’t get me wrong, I think PSWs do very hard work and they deserve every penny they get, but they have nowhere near the level of responsibility or education of an RPN.
Politicians and the political appointees at the top of the health bureaucracies (who often receive ENORMOUS salaries and benefits while they rely on their staffs to run the healthcare establishment) haven’t done a thing in three decades to address the problems. When hospital staff complain, they are told, “Well, you just have to learn to do more with less.” Often, the people at the top of the health bureaucracies do not even have a smattering of experience in the healthcare field. They have often come from stints at the top of the educational bureaucracies or transportation, etc. Many have little understanding or sympathy for those who must work in the system or those receiving care.
The fixes are not inexpensive nor are they easy but, until the problems are addressed, they will get worse.
1) Healthcare workers–especially RPNs need to be compensated well for their significant contribution and dedication. They are the ones who are actually doing the very hard work of delivering service to needy people.
2) The ranks at the very top of the healthcare establishment should be thinned out–with the savings passed on to the local hospitals and staff. We must demand that our politicians do so. We have hired them to watch over the government’s finances–not to give plummy jobs to their friends (and they ALL do it, when they are in power).
3) Provincial politicians should demand that Ottawa pay its agreed-to share of the costs.
4) The College of Physicians and Surgeons should lose their “sacred cow” status and there should be more than one licensing body for physicians. Doctors should not be terrified of their own licensing boards.
5) Emergency Rooms cannot continue to be used as a substitute for family docs. They are staffed and equipped to provide critical care–not deal with colds and sore throats. We need more walk-in clinics. We should NOT have to drive to Bracebridge to the ONE walk-in clinic. Why don’t we have one in Huntsville? Waiting five or six hours in an E.R. to see a physician or physician’s assistant is unacceptable.
6) Hospitals are designed to offer short-term care–not long-term care for those who have nowhere else to go. Why are hospitals often being used as long-term care facilities because there are no nursing home beds available? More and better nursing homes need to be built YESTERDAY–not tomorrow. \
7) Hospice care must be greatly expanded. A friend’s 96-year-old mother was a dementia patient and was dying during the early days of the Covid pandemic. The nursing home would not allow her in to see her mom. Fortunately, the friend was a nurse and, (in consultation with the Director of Nursing at the facility) knew it was time to have her mom moved to a hospice home. After her mom had been transferred to the hospice facility, my friend went to the front reception area and asked to be shown the way to her mom’s room. When a worker offered to take her there, my friend said, “Wait– while I put on my mask!” The worker gave her a sad smile and said, “We don’t worry about such things here. We are much more concerned about the patient’s comfort and that includes making it as normal as possible, as they approach their final journey.” There were soft lights and music all through the facility and my friend was struck by the level of compassion and professionalism of the staff. She was able to touch and soothe her mother, which would not have been possible in the previous nursing home.
Anna-Lise Kear says
Correct me if I am in error.
Our Minister of Health, Sylvia Jones has a diploma in radio broadcasting from Fanshaw College; she is listed as a career politician. HELP!!!!
Great qualifications to run the MOH (read with sarcasm).
Speaking of … I understand the only job Poilievre has had, besides politics is a brief one with Telus.
Allen Markle says
Can we trust any government anymore, to do or fund what is needed? It has become obvious that these ‘governments’, whether federal, provincial, district or municipal, are working with a shortage of forethought. They have little idea what is needed. They may see the problem, maybe even the reason, but the solution is beyond them.
The feds propped up the country for a couple of years; it needed to be done and that is the federal job. But they were asea as to how to go about it. Let’s just bury it under the money.
Now there is turmoil as to who deserved the money and who didn’t. Some will be clawed back, but the debt is gargantuan.
To attempt to pay for it all, the feds will try to flog the world’s filthiest oil to the US, who is learning not to like it. We sell the US our ‘dilbit’ cheaply; few of our refineries can process it anyway. Then we buy manageable, and more expensive, US oil. Now the rest of the world awaits contamination; once we can get the crap to a coast
And to add to the ecological destruction, the feds are putting together a plan by which they will release about 1.6 trillion liters of poison into our northern water shed. Even the oceans will get their share of the dregs from our tar sand mess.
Mr. Ford has a majority in provincial politics and seems to feel that the people must be happy. He is working on furthering the process of underfunding a health system starving for cash. His ‘for profit’ programs should make seniors shudder. Now he wants more federal money (which the province is likely deserving of), but he is under spending here now. Even another government doesn’t trust this fellow. He is now in the early stages of reducing support for education. Nurses and doctors are old hat. Let’s slag on teachers for a while.
District is just an additional, half-assed layer to government, and few seem to know the purpose it serves. But it cost a great deal of money, that the towns could use themselves.
But although local council might be able to repair an intersection or two, they can already find funding for pickleball courts, so really they don’t need money. They cobbled together a park that sports more rocks than a cemetery and is about as inviting. And they spent money to get someone to formulate a plan for the design. Then they, the council, decided they knew what was needed all along!
People are turning away from elections because voting doesn’t seem to be producing leaders. Just other people who wonder if they know what they are doing, though they want you to feel they do.
But can they be trusted or believed.
Not from where I live.
But have a look around and judge for yourself.
Anna-LiseKear says
Mr. Markle; Doug Ford is Mike Harris, volume 2. There is no surprise here.
Those who lived through the Harris Conservative years are merely experiencing “deja-vu”.
Did anyone really expect otherwise?