February 13, 2025

Grey Bruce Health Coalition drives election pressure

The Grey Bruce Health Coalition, a volunteer-driven non-partisan organization committed to strengthening Ontario’s healthcare system, ensuring adequate primary, emergency and hospital care and opposing privatization of the system, has been busy during Ontario’s election campaign drawing voters’ attention to healthcare system deficiencies and calling on candidates to explain how they would defend and enhance the system.

On Saturday, February 8, this coalition, in partnership with the Greater Toronto and Brampton Caledon Health Coalitions, held a rally in Orangeville in front of the constituency office of Ontario’s Minister of Health, Sylvia Jones, decrying the Ford Government’s creeping privatization of the province’s healthcare system and protesting the government’s response to a range of healthcare shortfalls. On that cold afternoon, over a hundred vociferous but orderly protestors crowded the sidewalk on both sides of Broadway adjacent to Jones’ office, carrying homemade signs and banners, and encouraged by the almost continuous din of passing drivers honking their support for the protestors. “The public’s support kept us warm that afternoon — it energized us,” said Norah Beatty of Kiowana Beach near Meaford, Co-Chair of the Grey Bruce Health Coalition. After listening to a number of speakers, the chanting protestors proceeded for a few blocks to Sylvia Jones’ campaign office to continue the demonstration.

With a nod to rhyming poetry, chants voiced by the crowd included:

“Sylvia Jones hear us shout, Ontario patients want you out!”

“Doug and Sylvia, Sitting in a tree, C - U - T - T - I - N - G,”
“First comes hospitals then LTC, Nothin' left for you and me.”

As Grey Bruce Coalition Co-Chair, Norah Beatty was one of the event’s speakers. In her remarks she slammed health system privatization and underfunding and their effects on rural areas in particular. She went on to say that a thousand people in Walkerton recently lined up in a blizzard to sign up for access to a family doctor, 20% of the population of Grey Bruce have no primary care affiliation, and government officials (including the Minister of Health) have blamed doctors, rather than government policies, for many of the primary care shortfalls. Said Beatty, “I never want to see the day when Canadians have medical debt, go bankrupt or go without quality care. Words are cheap. Look at the actual record of the Ford Conservatives. Vote wisely to save public healthcare in all corners of Ontario.”

Brief but energetic speeches were also made by representatives of the Greater Toronto Health Coalition, the Brampton Caledon Health Coalition, the Orangeville & District Labour Council and the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) Hospital Division. Nathan King, a Shelburne resident and teacher, also spoke.

The Grey Bruce Heath Coalition’s activities continued on the evening of Monday February 10 when it sponsored an all-candidates’ meeting focused on healthcare at the Durham and District Community Centre in Durham. Brenda Scott, Co-chair of the Coalition, initiated and led the organization of the event. She was assisted by The Save The Durham Hospital Committee, a group created to protest the removal of inpatient beds from the Durham hospital and the replacement of its 24/7 emergency department with an emergent/urgent care clinic with daytime hours only.

A crowd estimated at 175 attended. West Grey Mayor Kevin Eccles expressed greetings from his municipality at the meeting’s outset. Candidates in the riding of Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound who attended and spoke at the meeting included NDP candidate James Cameron Harris, Liberal candidate Selwyn Hicks and Green Party candidate Joel Loughead. Each candidate spoke for three minutes, then candidates answered questions that attendees had submitted at the beginning of the meeting. Candidates for lesser parties were provided with a table at the event to display their pamphlets and were given the opportunity to supply written submissions. In keeping with the Progressive Conservative Party’s dictum in this election that its candidates should not attend all-candidates’ meetings, the local Progressive Conservative candidate Paul Vickers did not attend, but provided written comments that were read at the meeting.

As well, Coalition volunteers continue to distribute the Ontario Health Coalition pamphlet “Situation Critical” during the campaign. Ten thousand pamphlets have been printed, said Norah Beatty, and they are being distributed to newspapers and at public meetings and in restaurants and other publicly accessible facilities across Grey and Bruce counties. She says one of the most promising places to distribute the pamphlets are the waiting rooms in car dealerships, where people have the time to read the pamphlets thoroughly while their vehicles are being fixed. “If only our government would fix our healthcare system as efficiently,” said Beatty.

As well, the Grey Bruce Health Coalition and the Climate Action Team Owen Sound are co-sponsoring an all-candidates’ meeting on February 24 at 7pm at the Harmony Centre in Owen Sound. Although the focus is health and climate, questions from other areas of interest to the audience will be answered. All citizens of Grey Bruce-Owen Sound are encouraged to attend.

The Grey Bruce Health Coalition continues its advocacy, throughout and beyond the election, through its Facebook page and web page and through appearances once a month on Murray Calder’s phone-in radio show on CFOS in Owen Sound.

 

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