LETTER
LETTRE
Fund health reform by taxing the 1%
SecondStreet is a well-organized and well-funded right-wing think tank that's pushing to privatize our public healthcare system. Their campaign might be working.
Ontario Minister of Health Christine Elliott made a bombshell comment last month that for-profit private hospitals—which have been banned since OHIP was created in 1973—could be used to solve the healthcare backlog in the province.
With the Ontario election around the corner, we need to make sure political leaders of all stripes know that a well-funded public system is the best policy for all of us—and selling off our public system to the highest bidder could cost them the election.
It’s not just Ontario, governments across the country are deciding how now to fund the backlog of procedures and fill the cracks of our broken healthcare system that the pandemic exposed. We all know that conservative premiers are ready to dismantle our universal healthcare system, and that Doug Ford could start a devastating chain reaction of privatization across the country.
Privatization is not the solution to our chronically underfunded healthcare system which was struggling even before the pandemic hit. What we need is a publicly funded, resilient and robust system that can support workers and patients alike—and taxing the 1% to pay for it.
But right-wing think tanks like the Fraser Institute and now SecondStreet want governments to believe that a private system is the solution—and are providing the political guise for them to dismantle our public system—commissioning biassed polls that suggest private health care is what Canadians really want.
Meg Shannon, The Broadbent Institute
Ottawa