No. 18
April 13, 2026
• Farcical Federal By-Election in University--Rosedale
• Rotten System of Appointing "Star Candidates"
• Liberal Insistence on Peddling Fraudulent Solutions to
Serious Problems Facing Society
• University--Rosedale for Palestine Gives
Call to "Resist Liberal Stronghold"
Ford Government's Handout of Public Funds
to Private Surgical Clinics
• April 25 Actions Against Ford Government's Anti-Social Restructuring Across Ontario
• North York Family Health Team Workers' Strike Achieves Acceptable First Contract
• Ontario Paramedics Call for Increased
Funding
for Emergency
Services
Farcical Federal By-Election in
University--Rosedale
How the Liberal Party of Canada has gone about selecting their candidate in the University--Rosedale by-election called for April 13, what she stands for and the purpose she is to serve in the Carney government is very instructive as concerns the corruption of what are called Canada's democratic institutions and the electoral process. Despite their officially stated aim of giving rise to representative government, the more it goes, the more the facts reveal that those in positions of privilege and power exercise the decision-making power which has been usurped by supranational narrow private interests. The pretense that elections are a people's choice has become a farce. In the case of the electoral system which is supposed to be the mainstay of giving the people a say in how the country is governed and by whom, not even vestiges of the participation of the people remain. The decision-making process regarding who chooses what candidate for election and why is not only unrepresentative of the people in whose name it is carried out -- it is as anti-democratic as anti-democratic gets and seen to be so.
Despite this, those with positions of power and privilege are very pleased with themselves as they restructure the state in a manner which rids it of any vestiges of what has hitherto been called democratic governance. This is what the appointment of the Liberal candidate in University--Rosedale reveals. In the case of University--Rosedale, Elections Canada records show that she was appointed by the leader of the Liberal Party. He is no doubt very pleased with himself that he has a "star candidate" who will be a great addition to his Liberal team which is tantamount to a murder of bankers and narrow private interests in which Big Pharma, private insurance concerns, for-profit medical equipment and technology providers figure large. Despite the fact that she was appointed and no consultations or nominations were brought forth from constituents, the records show that the nomination meeting took place on January 31 starting at 4:02 pm and ending at 4:02 pm. In other words, it took less than 60 seconds. Cynical indeed!
The example of the Liberal candidate in the University--Rosedale by-election illustrates very well how decisions also bypass what at one time were local party riding associations through which local party members nominated their choice of candidate to be the MP in their riding. Nomination meetings were held using a democratic procedure to decide the riding's choice of candidate. This process had over the years become increasingly corrupt with candidates and their backers vying for nomination by stacking meetings, compiling fraudulent lists of non-existent new members and the like. Rather than making sure the system was renewed on a modern democratic basis, today riding associations exist mostly in name only, as fundraising machines at best, but mostly in the form of private contractors which run algorithms which target "voters." They have replaced volunteers whose job has always been to "get out the vote."
It illustrates one of the principal features of the credibility and legitimacy crisis facing the democracy and governments in Canada, which is their method of decision-making which is unrepresentative of the people in whose name it is carried out. It also faces the problem of being seen as anti-democratic because today decisions taken bypass parliament altogether. They are made by a Prime Minister and his Cabinet -- with the ministers mostly from the private sector chosen for their role in restructuring the state by literally putting it into the hands of billionaire corporate interests.
Over the years, the decision-making processes, always exercised in a manner designed to keep the people out of power, have become so visibly, blatantly, self-serving and corrupt, their practitioners and advocates are incapable of producing anything which can remotely redeem themselves or justify what they are doing.
Rotten System of Appointing "Star Candidates"
A good illustration of how the anti-democratic method of selecting and promoting candidates works is the way the candidate standing for the Liberal party in the April 13 University--Rosedale by-election was chosen, who she is, what she stands for and her possible intended use should she get elected. It is important to keep this in mind when looking at the credentials of the Prime Minister's choice of candidate to replace the former Liberal "star candidate" in University--Rosedale, Chrystia Freeland.
Freeland was a "star candidate" when she became MP in 2013. She is a former Canadian Deputy Prime Minister, Finance Minister and Foreign Minister, a known architect and champion of the former Nazi collaborators establishing themselves in power in Ukraine in 2014. In September 2025, Carney appointed her as his special representative for the reconstruction of Ukraine.
The likelihood that the University--Rosedale seat would become vacant first appeared in November 2025, when Freeland was appointed as the next Warden of Rhodes House and Chief Executive Officer of the Rhodes Trust based at Oxford University in the UK.[1] Freeland starts the new posting on July 1 but was forced to vacate her seat on January 9, before moving to the UK, after she took a position on January 5 as economic development advisor in the pro-Nazi regime of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. This essentially put her in a conflict of interest by serving two national governments at the same time.
How different is the current candidate Carney has nominated to take Chrystia Freeland's place in terms of the interests she serves?
Dr. Danielle Martin, is also considered a "star candidate" who will be a "shoe-in" to win the riding for the Liberal party. She is promoted as a champion of Canada's health care system in which care is publicly funded, as opposed to the U.S. system where everyone has to fend for themselves. She is a family doctor, founder of Canadian Doctors for Medicare, and has served in leadership roles at Women's College Hospital, the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto, the Wellesley Institute and Humber River Hospital.
When
Mark Carney, not the University--Rosedale Liberal riding association,
announced her candidacy, the announcement included a quote from Dr.
Martin: "For more than twenty years, I have served the people of
University--Rosedale as a family doctor and a hospital and university
leader.
I'm ready to bring that same work ethic and determination to be a
strong voice for this wonderful community as your next Member of
Parliament. I'm running because our community and our country are
facing a critical moment, and leaders from all walks of life need to
stand up for our values. I am
excited to work with the Liberal team on the issues that matter, both
locally and across the country."
In appearance, Dr. Martin's credentials portray a health care program which puts Canadians at the centre of its concerns. It is all made to sound very convincing, with emphasis on expanding family health teams and reducing wait times for a family doctor. It talks of sorting out the shortage of doctors and nurses by providing incentives for doctors and nurses to work in rural areas, and streamlining foreign credential recognition for newcomers. Keep in mind that the shortage of doctors and nurses in the public health care system was and continues to be the result of cutbacks implemented as an integral part of the anti-social offensive to restructure the state in favour of private contracts. It also refers to improving access to youth mental health hubs and substance use services and upgrading digital health records so patients and providers can more easily share information.
The Wikipedia rendering of Dr. Martin's curriculum vitae says: "Martin completed her bachelor's degree in science from McGill University and her MD at the University of Western Ontario. She also holds a master's degree in public policy from the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. Currently, she is the Chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine (DFCM), University of Toronto. Previously, she was the vice president, medical affairs and health system solutions at Women's College Hospital (WCH), and the founder of the WCH Institute for Health System Solutions and Virtual Care (WIHV). She is also a family physician in the Family Practice Health Centre at WCH, and professor in the Departments of Family and Community Medicine and Health Policy, Management and Evaluation and School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Toronto. In 2016, she was awarded the CIHR-IHSPR [Canadian Institutes of Health Research-Institute of Health Services and Policy Research] Article of the Year Award for her work on the estimated cost of universal public coverage of prescription drugs in Canada."
Newspaper sources say she gained national recognition in 2017 when she publicly supported Bernie Sanders' Medicare for All Act in the U.S. and spoke to a U.S. Senate committee at his invitation in September 2017. She had testified at a U.S. Senate committee investigation on health care systems, specifically regarding issues such as single-payer and multi-payer systems and wait times in March 2014. Following that she was courted to run as a candidate by various parties, at the federal, provincial and municipal level.
In 2006, she started the organization Canadian Doctors for Medicare. She won the Canadian Medical Association award for young leaders. In 2013, the Toronto Star called her one of 13 people to watch. She has been interviewed on CBC's The National and other media.
She wrote a book entitled Better Now: Six Big Ideas to Improve Health Care for All Canadians, published in 2017. Despite the language about the need to enhance community care, reduce wait times for surgeries and to access family doctors, and the like, it is important to take note that the entire kit and caboodle is about putting health care into the hands of private for-profit providers. The state contracts those private for-profit providers and pays them more for services rendered than a properly renovated modern state-of-the-art public system with professional personnel at every level would cost.
The "Six Big Ideas" are:
"1: The Return of Relationships: Ensure relationship-based primary health care for every Canadian
"2: A Nation with a Drug Problem: Bring prescription drugs under Medicare
"3: Don't Just Do Something, Stand There: Reduce unnecessary tests and interventions
"4: Doing More with Less: Reorganize health care delivery to reduce wait times and improve quality
"5: Basic Income for Basic Health: Implement a basic income guarantee
" 6: The Anatomy of Change: Scale up successful solutions across the country."
All of it is marketing lingo which makes it appear as if a public system is being financed. In fact it is Big Pharma and corporations running private health care services and digital technology which are put in charge of the health of the people.
A search for articles that Dr. Martin has written turned up elaboration of the above six big ideas. The most recent is an article in the Ottawa Citizen from August 10, 2024 co-authored with Dr. Sarita Verma and Dr. Jane Philpott. Philpott was Health Minister in Trudeau's cabinet at a time when billions of dollars were channeled to private corporations in the name of enhancing health care, seniors' care and dental care. In October 2024, Philpott was appointed by Doug Ford to head a task force on connecting all Ontarians to primary-care doctors within five years. According to the article, Ontario could provide primary care for all Ontarians through team-based care provided by doctors, nurses, pharmacists, social workers and others. These teams would also be linked to social services and to local universities and colleges for training.
The marketing campaign for this candidate is clearly designed to sell the image of a caring Carney government whose only aim in life is to make Canada Strong for its people. However, it would not be surprising to see Dr. Martin become a member of his cabinet or one of his advisory committees advocating centralized health care spending in a manner which favours specific pharmaceutical companies, digital services, for-profit primary care units etc. All of these have already revealed how health care matters and human resources are decided based on the profit motive. Protests against this are becoming increasingly vociferous as Canadians, Quebeckers and Indigenous Peoples demand a system which is not under the control of the private sector.
Note
1. The Warden of the Rhodes Trust is a position which in 2024 commanded a "compensation package of approximately $340,848, plus an additional $64,832 in other compensation." The Rhodes Scholarship is given to those deemed to be the best and brightest who will make good point-persons of those states which are part of the former British Empire. It is named after the racist architect of apartheid South Africa and Rhodesia, today Zimbabwe.
Students in Oxford and people across Britain have been demanding the removal of the statue of this racist from in front of Rhodes House for some time. Most importantly, they strongly oppose the racist values the scholarship promotes, today under a modern guise, all the better to serve what the British imperialists and their Commonwealth and other partners are up to at this time.
Liberal Insistence on Peddling Fraudulent
Solutions to Serious Problems
Facing Society
Dr. Danielle Martin, the Liberal candidate in University--Rosedale, is promoted as an experienced and trustworthy advocate for the need for all Canadians to have access to a family doctor and good primary health care. She has a history of advocacy, and the media have helped the Liberals present her as a worthy star candidate who will be a great asset to a Liberal majority government. What precisely she is advocating for is at times repeated but not questioned, not discussed, not put under public scrutiny.
Dr. Martin, in a 2025 interview for a Canadian Health Care Coalition podcast, was asked her opinions about the plans of the Ford government to increase access to family physicians. She replied that she was very hopeful about this development. She also stressed the need for better administration of family medicine practices, pointing out that family doctors spend some 19 hours a week doing "administrative work." She had nothing to say about the rampant privatization that the Ford government's plan entails or the often negative consequences of which there is ample proof.
Even
as repeated Liberal, Conservative and social democratic governments at
both the federal and provincial levels have stopped providing the
system of public health care with the funding it requires, they present
themselves as great defenders of what they call medicare. They ignore
the advice of
medical professionals, from surgeons, to family doctors, to nurses,
nursing assistants, orderlies, ambulance drivers, maintenance staff,
engineers and Canadians themselves who have provided plans which address
the need to renew the public health care system on a modern basis. They
only see fit to
promote advocates of some form or another of privatization. Everyone
knows this. In Canada, health care is not a right with governments
duty-bound to provide it with a guarantee. Dr. Martin herself touts the
view that providing health care is a "Canadian value" which
distinguishes Canada from the
U.S.-style health care which depends on an individual or family's
ability to access a very corrupt insurance system.
No amount of smooth talk about how public health care is a core value of Canadians and Quebeckers changes the reality that people are waiting years for surgery and that people are dying waiting to be seen in emergency departments. Nor does it change the fact that rampant privatization of what has never been more than a semi-public system is taking more and more funding out of the system and turning it into pay-the-rich schemes. It is instructive to note that the Ford government has used former Liberal MP and Minister of Health Dr. Jane Philpott as a "non-partisan" adviser for the plan to add family doctors in Ontario and to Chair Ontario's Primary Care Action Team (PCAT).
According to government propaganda, the "Primary Care Action Plan," is supposed to provide everyone in Ontario with a family physician but the "Action Plan" is vigorously opposed by health care unions, community organizations and health care advocates including the Ontario Health Coalition because it is based on privatization of services through a shift of public funding to private clinics, redirecting over a billion dollars a year from public hospitals. It is not only a matter of diverting public funds into private hands for private profit, but a fundamental problem of who is taking the decisions which make it so.
The
first requirement in guaranteeing the right to health care is to ensure
that the human resources needed – health professionals and workers -- are
educated and trained, provided secure employment and that they are
properly appreciated and cared for. The wages they receive and their
working
conditions are concrete evidence of the kind of society Canada is, of
the values it espouses. It is not a mystery. Hospitals,
seniors' care facilities and home care systems which do not have the
aim of providing highest quality care on time on a modern
people-centred basis do not pass
muster. Privatization of health care and seniors' care where human
beings are reduced to the status of "clients" must be banned. Starving
the system of the funds and modern means it requires in order to pay
the rich, must be banned.
A model based on starving the health care system of funds cannot improve care. There is long experience that "efficiencies" in health care under neo-liberal governments are based on depriving people of services, not improving them. These private clinics look like U.S. "health management organization" (HMO) models of integrated corporate "care." These take decision-making out of the hands of the doctors, nurses and other health care professionals together with that of their patients and put it into the hands of corporate entities.
Far from being a fantasy, health care is already rationed in many ways, including by long wait times for care, and by decisions which are not even discussed or known to the public. Wait times are reduced by putting people on lists to be put on waiting lists. It is cynical, open to corruption and discrimination in the name of high ideals. It is known that, all too often, the severe shortage of oncologists means that in many places patients are triaged on the basis that those with a lower chance of a positive outcome go to the end of queue, or are simply given no attention whatsoever. It is common practice and families cannot hold anyone to account because they exercise no control over those who establish this way of doing things in the name of high ideals.
The Liberal government's share of health care spending has dwindled to around 20 per cent of public funding, while all public funding covers only about 70 per cent of health care costs. Liberal illusions that the federal government has plans to provide the health care system with the funding and resources required to guarantee the right to health care are just that – liberal illusions that they can get away with it. It is up to the people to show them that they cannot.
University--Rosedale for Palestine Gives
Call to "Resist Liberal
Stronghold"
On March 30 the constituency-based group, University--Rosedale For Palestine, issued the following call to residents to make their votes count in the April 13 by-election by resisting Carney's militarist and pay-the-rich agenda:
"On April 13,
University--Rosedale is one of three ridings with a
chance to resist Carney's agenda of genocide, militarism and austerity.
"With Carney's Liberals just two seats [this is now one] away from the unchecked power of a majority government, the three by-elections scheduled for April 13 (in University--Rosedale, Scarborough Southwest, and Terrebonne in Quebec) really matter!
"University--Rosedale constituents are joining forces with neighbours across the downtown Toronto ridings to let residents know that we have a historic role to play and the chance to reject the Liberal stronghold and keep Carney in check!
"We need volunteers from across the city to send a clear message to Carney that the public opposes his policies. Sign up to poster, flyer or canvass with our team, and fight for an alternative to Carney's Canada!
"Visit actionnetwork.org to join our efforts!"
In a previous Instagram post on March 18 they stated:
"We see through the Liberal strategy of running so-called 'progressive' candidates, such as Dr. Danielle Martin, while enacting devastating policy changes, and are ready to turn the page on University--Rosedale's Liberal stronghold.
"Dr. Martin is running for Carney's Liberals who are:
- Increasing military spending
- Divesting from and dismantling public services
- Cutting essential services for refugees
- Strengthening systems of deportation
- Doubling down on arming war crimes and genocide
"Have you seen Dr. Martin and her team canvassing in your neighbourhood? Pressure her to pick a side: investing in public services or funding war and arming genocide!
"University--Rosedale rejects the Liberals' divestment from public services to fund militarism, genocide and destruction."
Ford Government's Handout of Public Funds
to Private Surgical Clinics
A Cautionary Tale
Toronto demonstration against Ford government's wrecking of public
health care,
March 16, 2026
The Ford government in Ontario is engaged in systematically wrecking the public health care system with a massive restructuring in all aspects. Since coming to power in 2018 the Ford government has cut hospital budgets, overseen the almost complete privatization of seniors' care residences, restricted wages of health care workers and opened more and more health care services to private for-profit operators, including agency staffing and private clinics for diagnostics and surgeries.
Beginning this year, four Ontario facilities are being funded by the provincial government to provide hip and knee replacements. These facilities already offer or are positioned to offer privately-paid procedures alongside publicly-funded ones. A patient's publicly-funded surgery will be done in a clinic that is aggressively marketing faster access or "enhanced" options to those who can pay.
On
December 8, 2025 the Ford government issued a news release announcing
that it was investing $125 million over two years in four new
"community surgical and diagnostic centres licensed to deliver
orthopedic surgeries." It announced that four new licences would be
issued in early 2026 to deliver
orthopedic surgeries for hip and knee replacements. The announcement
was made at OV Surgical Centre in Toronto, one of the four. The other
three licences go to Academic Orthopedic Surgical Associates of Ottawa
(AOAO), Windsor Orthopedic Surgical Centre and Schroeder Ambulatory
Centre.
The provision of public funds to private surgical clinics for hip and knee replacement surgeries follows on the Ontario government's privatization of cataract surgeries and diagnostic testing which, like the current funding for private orthopedic surgeries, was touted as the solution to wait times. People were assured that surgeries and procedures would be covered by the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP), that patients would need only their OHIP card, never a credit card, to access care.
The Ontario Health Coalition has documented the experience of Ontarians who had cataract surgery in private clinics and reports, "Patients are being lied to at the private clinics about wait times in public hospitals to convince them to pay outrageous charges. They are being told that OHIP-covered surgery has poor outcomes or is substandard to manipulate them into paying on average $3,500–$4,000 per eye at private cataract surgery clinics. They are being convinced that lenses that are not related to cataract surgery are somehow required for good outcomes for that surgery. Seniors on fixed incomes are having their savings wiped out, being forced back to work in retirement, or taking loans to pay for their surgeries." Patients in private diagnostic clinics are also "upsold," told that they should pay for consultation with a dietician in relation to a colonoscopy, for example.
Besides enriching the owners of the private clinics, public funds provided to private surgical centres are funds not provided to public hospitals and drive increased costs and longer wait times for critical treatments. Over the years, many studies have confirmed that clinics established for private profit receive substantially higher funding than that provided for the same surgeries in public hospitals. Health policy researcher Andrew Longhurst's report prepared for the Parkland Institute in Alberta entitled Operation Profit: Private Surgical Contracts Deliver Higher Costs and Longer Waits, confirmed those findings, including longer wait times for urgent surgeries such as colo-rectal cancer surgery.
"Public hospitals," Longhurst reported, "are being starved of staff and funding, while private providers receive inflated payments for the lowest complexity surgeries." The opening of private surgical centres which cherry pick the least complex cases worsens shortages of anesthesiologists and surgical nurses in the public system, increasing wait times for the more complex cases. Urgent surgeries are postponed and operating rooms sit empty.
Ongoing investigations are taking place in Alberta, revealing that higher payments to private clinics are just the tip of the iceberg. Evidence of corrupt dealings in awarding contracts to private surgical facilities has already been brought to light, despite every effort by the United Conservative Party (UCP) government of Premier Danielle Smith to cover up what it is doing. The Smith government fired the CEO of Alberta Health Services in February 2025, when she persisted in investigating conflicts of interest in procurement and fraudulent payments, such as guaranteeing payments for two-day stays when the patients had no overnight stay in private surgical facilities. The RCMP and Auditor-General both have ongoing investigations, and the former CEO is suing the UCP government. This shows how restructuring of the state opens the door wide for corruption and removes any accountability and transparency while funds mainly from the working people paid as taxes are increasingly funneled to private interests.
The Alberta government has also passed Bill 11 which legalizes private insurance through individual or employer-sponsored plans for medically necessary services. This is intended to open the floodgates for access to "user-pay" surgery in these private clinics, and for other yet to be identified health care services which might include specialist care and even family physicians. This shows the direction to greatly expand two-tier health care once private clinics are built and equipped at public expense.
As with Alberta, the Ford government's pay-the-rich schemes provide guaranteed public funds to private corporations along with the ability to market medically unnecessary products and services to patients directly, while contributing to the destruction of the public health care system.
It is up to the workers and people of Ontario and Canada as a whole to join the Quebec working people by persisting in the fight for renewal to deprive governments beholden to the oligopolies including Big Pharma, suppliers of medical equipment, digital technology and the like of their power. Empowering the people is a matter of smashing the silence on the potential and proven dangers, moral failings, and dismal consequences of propping up decision-making structures where warnings are ignored with dismal consequences. Canada requires institutions, both for accountable governance as well as those which provide health care on a modern human-centred basis, founded on the principle that health care is a right with guarantees.
April 25 Actions Against Ford Government's Anti-Social Restructuring Across Ontario
The Ontario Health Coalition is organizing actions against the
privatization of health care in cities and towns across Ontario on April
25. Details are available here.
On the same day local community organizations, environmental groups and others are holding the second day of FIGHT FORD protests, some of which coincide with the health care actions, organized through social media. For information: Facebook.
North York Family Health Team Workers' Strike Achieves Acceptable First Contract
The nurses,
nurse practitioners, dieticians, social workers, pharmacists,
technicians and other workers that
make up the 44-person staff of the North York Family Health
Team, won a significant battle to defend their rights and uphold the
dignity of labour in their 13-week strike that
ended in January. A press release from the Ontario Nurses' Association
on January 13 reported that a first collective agreement was
ratified by 84 per cent of the workers and included an acceptable wage
increase.
The North York Family Health Team is one of the primary care teams that the province is promoting as the solution to ensuring that everyone has access to primary health care.
The strike began on October 20 after the North York Family Health Team refused to offer a wage increase to the workers in spite of having received additional funding from the province specifically to increase wages to address the crisis of recruitment and retention. In June 2025, Health Minister Sylvia Jones had announced that $142 million of the $235 million announced for primary health care teams would go towards recruiting and retaining workers, including through wage increases. The North York Family Health Team used the funds not for workers' wages but to cover a budget deficit.
The North York Family Health Team was established in 2008 to serve 48,000 patients and now provides primary care for 95,000 across 21 locations. The workers, most of whom have worked there for over a decade, joined the Ontario Nurses' Association in 2024 and began negotiations with the employer for a collective agreement. In the course of negotiations the employer offered a wage increase of zero per cent. This, after wage freezes from 2009 to 2016 and subsequent increases below the rate of inflation. In 2024, when workers received a one per cent increase, the executive director received a significant salary increase.
Health care workers across the province have been fighting for their rights and dignity and for the health care services that communities need. Throughout their strike the workers had the support of patients and physicians, workers and the community. They joined their picket lines, wrote letters, signed petitions and put pressure on the Ford government and the Primary Care Action Team headed up by former federal Health Minister Jane Philpott, to enforce the funding guidelines.
The government claims that the mandate of the Primary Care Action Team is to address the fact that over 2 million people in Ontario do not have a primary care provider. Workers in the community care sector are paid significantly lower wages than their counterparts in hospitals. They are fighting to achieve wages and working conditions that are acceptable so that they can do their work and live with security and dignity.
Ontario Paramedics Call for Increased
Funding for Emergency
Services
Paramedics across Ontario are calling on the province and local governments to increase funding for emergency services, to train and hire more paramedics and implement the solutions to the staffing crisis proposed by the frontline workers.
Niko Georgiadis, Chair of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Ambulance Committee of Ontario which represents about 8,000 paramedics and communications officers across 24 services, says that "Ontario's paramedic workforce is in the midst of a crisis driven by chronic understaffing, burnout, and a growing volume of calls for emergency medical care." In a press release on January 22, the union points out that paramedics across the province are reporting escalating workloads and deepening mental health impacts. Workers stretched thin by mounting call volumes and short staffing are facing burnout and injuries and illnesses including post-traumatic stress.
In the Niagara Region, for example, calls to Niagara Emergency Medical Services increased by more than 60 per cent between 2020 and 2024 -- from 60,408 to over 100,000 calls -- while over the same period staffing grew by a net total of 61, a combination of paramedics and dispatchers. The consequences for patient care are matters of life and death. In 2017, dispatchers could assign a response unit within two minutes for life-threatening emergencies in 88 per cent of calls. By 2024 that figure had dropped to 54 per cent. For sudden cardiac arrest calls, assignment rates within two minutes fell from 90 per cent in 2016 to 33 per cent in 2024.
CUPE reports, "According to the Ontario Association of Paramedic Chiefs, in 2023 the province needed 1,388 paramedics but only hired 997. The number of paramedics needed has continued to grow as multiple paramedic services have reported record call volumes. At the local level, regional data and union reports show chronic understaffing has left some ambulance services unable to consistently meet service demands, with unfilled shifts and off-road units reducing availability for emergency responses." Workers forced to work overtime, short-staffed and foregoing meal and rest breaks suffer exhaustion and many leave, deepening the crisis.
Authorities are not increasing funding or involving paramedics and their organizations in working out solutions. Instead they are proposing increased regulation and the creation of a regulatory College of Paramedics that would standardize licensing across the country so that workers could more easily move between provinces. The proposal for a College was rejected by the province in 2016 and was recently revived by the Eastern Ontario Wardens' Caucus.
Workers reject efforts to divert from the human-centred solutions that are needed, to increase wages and improve working conditions and the hiring of more paramedics and mental health supports. This is what is needed so that paramedics can do their jobs safely and provide the emergency health care services that the society needs.
(To access articles individually click on the black headline.)
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca