Ontario Health Coalition protests in Owen Sound, Kincardine Saturday

Posted: September 27, 2025

(September 26, 2025) By: Staff, The Sun Times

Owen Sound’s city hall will be the setting for an Ontario Health Coalition protest on Saturday.

The local Ontario Health Coalition (OHC) contingent will gather at the municipal office (808 2nd Ave. E.) at 11 a.m. on Sept. 27 to protest the Ford government’s move to privatize healthcare, according to OHC executive director Natalie Mehra.

“The Ford government is privatizing our public hospitals in a move that is costing patients thousands of dollars and taking away from our local public hospital services. Everyone’s help is needed to pressure them to stop it,” Mehra said in a statement.

There will also be an OHC protest at Kincardine’s Davidson Park beginning at 11 a.m.

Brenda Scott is the local organizer for both the Owen Sound and Kincardine OHC protests. To reach Scott, email greybrucehc@gmail.com, or call 519-375-5812.

Protests are scheduled to take place across the province on Saturday, including in the GTA, London, Hamilton, Kitchener, Tavistock, Sarnia, and other areas.

The OHC stated that this past spring, they submitted a formal complaint to the Ford government, providing details and proof of payment from 50 patients who had been charged illegally and unethically in private clinics. The Ford government has neither required reimbursement from the patients nor stopped the clinics, according to the OHC.

“The hardship caused by these user charges in the private clinics is exactly what the Canada Health Act and Ontario’s Public Medicare laws were set up to prohibit,” said Mehra. “We have held press conferences with patients who have been extra-billed, written letters, asked for meetings with the minister and premier. They know this is happening, but unless public pressure gets strong enough, they are not only failing to stop it, they are going to expand it.”

The Ontario Health Coalition is a network of patient advocates and public interest groups representing over three-quarters of a million Ontarians and more than 500 organizations concerned about protecting and improving public healthcare.

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