Ford Conservatives’ Cuts and Broken Promises Prove They Can’t be Trusted to Protect and Improve Public Healthcare

TORONTO — Doug Ford’s Conservatives broke their promise to lower wait times and hospital overcrowding shortly after being elected when they moved aggressively to cut a number of key healthcare programs. Like all Conservative governments in non-election years, they put healthcare cuts and privatization ahead of caring for those in need. This time, those cuts made the pandemic worse.

“Doug Ford’s Conservatives have spent their four years chipping away at our healthcare services and healthcare workers in a bid to privatize healthcare,” said Ontario Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca. “They said they wouldn’t make cuts, and even said they would shorten wait times, but under their watch our hospitals and nursing homes were crushed by staffing shortages and deep cuts to LTC inspections.”

“Recently, Conservative Health Minister Elliott spoke openly about the need for greater for-profit private involvement, including private hospitals, in the delivery of essential health services. Now, more than ever, we need to stop the Conservative healthcare privatization plan,” Del Duca added.

Doug Ford’s Conservatives made the following healthcare cuts since 2018:

• According to the FAO, the Government is underfunding the health care system by $3.5B between 2020-21 and 2023-24

• 2019-2020: $466M underspent in health care

• 2020-2021: $3.5B underspent in health care

• Cut $335M from planned increase for mental health in first budget

• Year before the pandemic, the Ford government only fully inspected nine out of 626 long-term care homes (less than 2%).

• Planned to cut Public Health budgets by $200M annually but reversed after public outrage

• The province spent $284 million less than planned between Oct. 31 and Dec. 31, 2020 on its 34 local public health units and Public Health Ontario

• $93M cut to LTC in Nov. 2020 budget

• Cut two LTC home funds that amount to a $34M cut to LTC home programs, services, equipment and facility maintenance (June 2019).

• Q1 2021: 2.7B unspent in COVID funds

• 11 months into Ontario’s fiscal year and $1.6B of Ford’s COVID-19 Relief Program budget remains untouched. 

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