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Former Essex MP Calls for Halt on Bills 175 and 161
Posted: July 5, 2020
(July 4, 2020)
By: Gord Bacon, AM800 CKLW
The Ontario Health Coalition is calling for the Ford government to halt two key pieces of legislation.
The Ontario PC’s are being called out by the coalition for trying to sneak Bills 175 and 161 past the legislature during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bill 175 is supposed to focus on home and community care.
But Windsor Health Coalition Chair Tracey Ramsey says it will actually privatize care homes and remove oversight.
“We have days left to stop Bill 175 and push the Ford government to address the emergency staffing and care crisis in long term care urgently,” she says.
Ramsey goes on to say Bill 161 will erode another right from patients and families.
“It limits the ability of Ontarians to bring class action suits against corporations such as the for profit long term care homes that have been negligent and caused so many unnecessary deaths during this pandemic,” says Ramsey.
The former Essex MP with the New Democratic Party says the pandemic exposed existing weaknesses in long-term health care that cost lives.
She says neither piece of legislation will improve that broken system.
“The choices the Ford government is making do not reflect the priorities of the vast majority of Ontarians,” she says. “We cannot allow community care to be privatized, fragmented and left in the hands of a majority for profit chain companies with no oversight.”
Ramsey says the Ford government will attempt to push both Bill 161 and 175 when the Ontario Legislature resumes Monday.
The Ontario PC’s says the legislation is meant to reduce “red tape” and modernize the delivery of home and community care.
