Ontario Health Coalition plans a May 30 protest. 'We're very close. If people don't care about their health care it's going to happen and that's why we have this campaign. We've had this for a couple of years now. We have stopped some elements of what the government wants to do'
Stu Campaigne
April 30 2024
As an arm of the Ontario Health Coalition, the local chapter worries about the continuing effects of privatization on the health care system and is ramping up its ongoing campaign to pressure Premier Doug Ford's government to turn back before it's too late.
Henri Giroux represented the North Bay and District Health Coalition as he spoke from the public library auditorium on Monday. Giroux highlighted the major points of the province-wide action fighting against "Plundering public health for profit," and outlined the campaign to see two million leaflets distributed across Ontario by the assorted health coalitions, culminating in a protest on May 30.
"If we don't stop this, it's going to be like that," Giroux said about the Canadian health care system's devolution into something approaching the tiered American profit-based model. "We're very close. If people don't care about their health care it's going to happen and that's why we have this campaign. We've had this for a couple of years now. We have stopped some elements of what the government wants to do. Now it's getting worse and worse, they should be putting more money into public health care than private. We're getting closer to the American. Exactly. That's what's going to happen."
The Health Coalition is adamant the Ford government is giving hundreds of millions of dollars to for-profit corporations to privatize health care instead of expanding services in Ontario's public hospitals.