Connect  |  Newsletter  |  Donate

EVENTS: On to Ottawa Trek! November 28 Train Protest

Posted: October 8, 2026

(October 8, 2026)

On-to-Ottawa Trek

Protest
Saturday November 28, 1 p.m.
Parliament Hill, Ottawa

Trains, buses, caravans are being planned. Scroll down for info.

Mission MeetUp for Leaders of Organizations
Friday November 27, 1 p.m.
Location TBA

Invited are all those who can represent organizations that advocate for patients, non-profits and NGOs, faith organizations, unions, seniors’ organizations, social service and community groups, ethnocultural organizations, student groups, women’s groups, anti-poverty organizations. Leaders at every level (local, provincial, national).

Get on the trains to Ottawa Saturday, November 28:

We have chartered VIA train cars from Toronto, Kingston and Montreal to Ottawa and return. You can book your seat here. Train ticket costs are covered by us, but please don’t cancel.

Here are the times
Kingston to Ottawa: 9:02 am departure — 11:21 am arrival
Return from Ottawa to Kingston: 6:03 pm departure — 8:10 pm arrival

Montreal to Ottawa: 9 am departure — 11:05 am arrival
Return from Ottawa to Montreal: 4:05 pm departure — 6:04 pm arrival

Toronto to Ottawa: 6:32 am departure — 11:21 am arrival
Return from Ottawa to Toronto: 6:03 pm departure — 10:48 pm arrival

Please note: If you have already registered, please do not re-register. If you are not sure if you have registered, please email us at info@ontariohc.ca to confirm if you have already registered. It is a lot of work to go back and clear duplicate registrations, so please reach out to us if you have any questions.

Arrange a bus for your membership or your community

Please email us if you are able to fund and book a bus to take people to Ottawa for Saturday November 28 for the big protest, and/or Friday November 27 for the leadership meetup.

Join or start a caravan from your community

We are organizing caravans with volunteers from everywhere possible, even across the country.

  • Toronto, Oshawa, Cobourg, Kingston, Smiths Falls, Perth, Ottawa: A caravan will leave Toronto on Thursday November 26, stopping for media events and for others to join in Oshawa, Cobourg, Kingston, Smiths Falls and Perth and arriving in Ottawa that night. Email us at info@ontariohc.ca  with the subject line “Toronto to Ottawa Caravan” if you want to join in. We need to know what town you are in and your email and phone number.
  • Grey Bruce either along Hwy 7 or across country to Ottawa: Tentatively a caravan will leave from Grey Bruce County (likely Owen Sound), stopping for media events and for others to join along the way. It will likely take 2 days to get to Ottawa and include a stay over along the way. Email or call Brenda Scott for more information 519-375-5812, GreyBruceHC@gmail.com
  • Northern Ontario/ Southwestern Ontario: Discussions are underway to organize caravans from possibly Sault Ste. Marie (through Sudbury, North Bay and down the Ottawa Valley — contact Al Dupuis for more information 613-808-7710, AlgomaHC@gmail.com) and from Southwestern Ontario — more information to come next week. Please let us know if you are interested.
Donate

If you have air travel points that can be used to purchase a flight for someone else, we need to help bring in our colleagues from across Canada. Please email us at info@ontariohc.ca

If you can donate to help pay for this enormous effort, please do here. No pressure! If you cannot, we appreciate and want you involved.

Accommodations

This is a grassroots effort. We can’t pay for accommodations for thousands of people but next week we will provide a list of residences, Air B&Bs or Vrbos and the like, hotels at varying price ranges, and other possible options for accommodations for those who want to come. (The trains will go to Ottawa and back the same day and we have those covered.)

What is the attack?

Working with the private for-profit health insurance industry, Alberta’s government passed a new law launching a full-frontal attack on the fundamental principles of Canadian Public Medicare. Without exaggeration, this is it. They are attempting to bring down public health care in Canada, bring in U.S. and create a “market” for private health insurance corporations. Alberta’s patients will suffer the most first, but it threatens the whole country in very short order if we don’t stop it.

  • The Canada Health Act protects patients by banning user fees for doctors & hospital services. Under Alberta’s law, that is gone. It is replaced with the ability to charge patients out of pocket for cancer and other diagnostic tests like MRIs and CTs, orthopedic surgeries for hip and knee replacements, shoulders, gynecological surgeries, eye surgeries and much more.
  • The Canada Health Act’s requirement that all provinces provide public health insurance (OHIP and the equivalent in other provinces)?
    Replaced with private for-profit workplace insurance plans and direct charges for patients for diagnostic tests and surgeries. To be clear, this new law throws wide open the doors to private insurance corporations — including the U.S. ones — to move into Canada. That is its very point.
  • The fundamental principle that all Canadians be provided health care based on our medical need, not how wealthy we are?
    Replaced with the ability for those who can afford it to pay and jump the queue. For the sick, injured and elderly the pressure will be to pay or wait longer. Everyone who can’t pay will be pushed back.

Alberta is arguing that Quebec has allowed user charges for patients for primary care, saying why should they be treated differently? It should never have happened in Quebec where it has been a disaster — Quebec now has the second worst access to primary care in the country. Now Alberta’s Danielle Smith government has launched a more egregious and aggressive attack on single-tier public medicare. If the federal government doesn’t uphold the Canada Health Act, the next province will just argue the same thing. When could they ever do so?

If the federal government does not uphold and enforce the Canada Health Act now, it becomes meaningless and we lose it. If U.S. private insurance companies are able to flood into Canada, we will have an almost impossible time stopping them.

Alberta’s Friends of Medicare has asked the federal government to help protect them and Alberta’s patients by upholding and enforcing the Canada Health Act. The polling shows that as Albertans learn what is in the new law, they oppose it.

Mark Carney doesn’t want to talk about health care. We all understand why. But he must. Millions will suffer if he and his government do not uphold and enforce the Canada Health Act.

More details coming next week. Thank you everyone for doing all you can.

The fight is on
Either we choose Canadian public health care or we lose it
and end up with a U.S. health insurance takeover & U.S. style health care.