{"id":6685,"date":"2018-10-09T10:00:35","date_gmt":"2018-10-09T14:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca\/?p=6685"},"modified":"2019-01-24T12:00:17","modified_gmt":"2019-01-24T17:00:17","slug":"rally-12-p-m-tuesday-october-23-queens-park-toronto-outside-ontario-legislature-please-join-us-and-tell-doug-ford-that-we-need-to-rebuild-and-improve-our-public-health-care-no-cuts-and-pri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca\/index.php\/rally-12-p-m-tuesday-october-23-queens-park-toronto-outside-ontario-legislature-please-join-us-and-tell-doug-ford-that-we-need-to-rebuild-and-improve-our-public-health-care-no-cuts-and-pri\/","title":{"rendered":"Rally 12 p.m. Tuesday October 23 Queen’s Park Toronto (outside Ontario Legislature) — Please join us and tell Doug Ford that we need to rebuild and improve our public health care: NO cuts and privatization!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Bus Sign-Up Sheet<\/a><\/strong><\/div>\n
Bus registration form<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n
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Please scroll down to download Rally poster and memes in French and English<\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n
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Economist Mike Moffatt from Western University has tallied up what Doug Ford has proposed to cut. The total is a whopping\u00a0$22 billion that Doug Ford proposes in cuts<\/span>\u00a0from provincial revenues over three years. That means that we would lose $22 billion from the money that our province uses to fund health care, education, roads, transit, and all our social programs. In context, the Harris government of the 1990s — you remember, the government that forced mass hospital closures, amalgamations, privatization and cuts — cut $15 billion (current $) over their first four years. So Ford’s cuts would be worse if we don’t stop them. (Note: we stopped the Harris cuts to health care within a few years.)
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At the same time, Mr. Ford promised to\u00a0end hallway medicine.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>These two sets of promises are contradictory.<\/strong><\/div>\n
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One clue to what’s planned came a few weeks ago when Mr. Ford appointed axeman Gordon Campbell to be his financial guru. Mr. Campbell is the former B.C. premier who cut and privatized hospitals and their services en masse. Under his leadership, user fees for patients ballooned to the worst in the country. As a result of his policies, B.C. is ground zero for health care privatization in Canada, two-tier medicare is rampant, long waits and poor access to care exist throughout the system and, appallingly, Mr. Campbell is helping the private clinics in their attempt to bring down public medicare laws in Canada through a court challenge.<\/strong><\/div>\n
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Mr. Ford has\u00a0no mandate<\/span>\u00a0whatsoever to cut and privatize health care. But given the pro-private anti-public health care people he is surrounded with, we are deeply concerned that they will\u00a0try to foment a fiscal crisis and use it to justify pushing through cuts and privatization<\/span>\u00a0that would devastate our public health care.<\/strong><\/div>\n
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We all know that we cannot take any more cuts. What we urgently need in our province is to\u00a0reinvest, to rebuild our health care — not cuts and privatization.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n
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Sometimes the best defense is a good offense. The best way to protect public health care is to push for what we know we need and<\/span>\u00a0to ensure that this government is afraid to cut and privatize health care<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0We need to set the agenda and make them respond to us.<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n
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Please join us.\u00a0<\/span>A show of strength is vitally important at this juncture.\u00a0<\/span>We know that the people of Ontario are with us. No one wants more cuts. The overwhelming majority of Ontarians oppose health care privatization. We need to mobilize, to make visible the public demand to improve our public health care. We need to inspire people to stand up and make cuts and privatization impossible. We\u00a0<\/span>can<\/span>\u00a0do this. We’ve done it before. But we need your help.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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You\u00a0<\/span>Can<\/u>\u00a0<\/span>Help!<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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