(January 22, 2026) by: Allan Benner, St. Catharines Standard<\/p>\n
Ontario Health Coalition\u2019s executive director says legislation recently approved in Alberta undermines Canada\u2019s public health-care system and sets a precedent that could embolden other provinces to do the same.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s one of several \u201cexistential threats\u201d to public health care across Canada, including Niagara, Natalie Mehra said while addressing Niagara District Council of Women members during an online meeting Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Mehra said it might not be too late to stop the privatization of health care here and across the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have lots of cause for hope,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
However, she said, \u201cmuch more needs to happen if the fight back is going to be commensurate to the level of the threat that we\u2019re facing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mehra said Alberta\u2019s Health Statutes Amendment Act, which received royal assent Dec. 11, defies the Canada Health Act by establishing a two-tier system that allows doctors to charge fees at for-profit clinics for medically necessary procedures, while also working in the public system. It also opens Canada to U.S.-based private insurance corporations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat legislation, for the first time since the inception of public medicare in Canada, actually defies the Canada Health Act. It contravenes completely the Canada Health Act,\u201d she said. \u201cIt sets up the legislative framework to bring in private health insurance and two-tier health care legally in Alberta.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mehra said \u201cthe whole legislation is written to create a market for private health insurance in Alberta, and thus in Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said the Canada Health Act ensures all Canadians have equal access to health care, regardless of their income, while user fees and extra billing of patients for medically necessary services are not permitted.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of those provisions are contravened by this law,\u201d Mehra said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe suffering and inequality that led to the creation of public medicare in the first place in this country will re-emerge. It means that other provinces that are like-minded may follow suit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once private health insurance companies move into Alberta, \u201cI think we\u2019d be very naive to think they would stop at the Alberta border,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a crisis. This has never happened before and we are going to have to fight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, she said, privatization is being implemented in Ontario, though it\u2019s occurring incrementally through increased investment in private clinics, expanded contracts for long-term-care providers and a recent agreement with Grifols, a for-profit multinational pharmaceutical company, allowing the company to pay for plasma donations.<\/p>\n
She said Ontario\u2019s public hospitals are at risk, too, calling it the \u201cmost serious and urgent threat.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mehra said the provincial government is investing $300 million for new private clinics, adding some \u201care essentially hospitals.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re large \u2014 they have multiple operating rooms, they have diagnostic suites, the whole nine yards. This is the privatization of Ontario\u2019s public hospitals.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said all of the potentially profitable medical procedures are being moved out of public hospitals \u201cinto the ownership and control of private for-profit clinics.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s tens of thousands of diagnostic tests and surgeries that they\u2019re talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said this is occurring at the same time Ontario is dealing with a \u201cprofound\u201d shortage of medical staff and hospital underfunding.<\/p>\n
But while Mehra called the shortage of physicians and other health-care professionals \u201ca huge problem,\u201d she said recruiting people to this area shouldn\u2019t be difficult.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn all these years we\u2019ve heard in Niagara that we can\u2019t get staff \u2014 utter nonsense,\u201d she said. \u201cYou live, like I do, in the most populous part of the country, in the most populous part of Ontario and you live in a beautiful area. It\u2019s attractive for people to settle in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mehra said hospitals could find the staff they needed if \u201cthey provided working conditions that were reasonable for staff.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they wanted to, they could do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Instead, she said staff shortages are often used as an excuse to cut services and downsize hospitals.<\/p>\n
Despite assurances that public health care is being preserved, she said \u201cthe privatization machine marches on in this province.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, she said there is hope.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll across Ontario we\u2019ve saved services. We forced governments to improve funding. We\u2019ve forced things to the top of the agenda,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Mehra said the coalition hopes to reach more than a million Ontarians through the distribution of leaflets in the coming months, as well as health-care workers and patients, to ensure they know about the threats public health care faces.<\/p>\n
She said similar campaigns in the past have been \u201cincredibly effective.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to build a fight-back to save the Niagara hospitals and other places where public hospital capacity is being closed down, downsized or otherwise undermined,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She said the coalition is working on organizing a \u201crolling 10,000 person protest,\u201d an initiative that would bring out 1,000 protesters at each of the 10 most hard-hit communities in the province.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will also fill the galleries (at Queen\u2019s Park) again, as soon as the legislature resumes at the end of March to stop the closure of our public hospital services \u2026 and demand answers from the health minister,\u201d Mehra said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fight back in Ontario is on.\u201d<\/p>\n