Niagara Falls MPP says Bill 60 the most dangerous piece of legislation he’s ever seen

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Published May 9, 2023 at 9:36 am

Niagara Falls MPP Wayne Gates called Bill 60 "the most dangerous piece of legislation I have seen in my four terms at Queen's Park."

The battle of private versus public healthcare has begun at Queen’s Park as the Doug Ford Conservative majority pushed through Bill 60 yesterday (May 8).

The bill will open the doors to privatized for-profit healthcare to Ontario, ostensibly to ease the burden on overcrowding emergency wards across Ontario.

Opponents of the bill, including Niagara Falls MPP Wayne Gates, says this is the beginning of a slippery slope towards the private medical services model offered in the USA.

“Make no mistake – Bill 60 is the most dangerous piece of legislation I have seen in my four terms at Queen’s Park,” said Gates, who also represents Niagara-on-the-Lake and Fort Erie. “This Bill will worsen the staffing crisis in hospitals, opens the door for massive conflict of interest issues and corruption, and threatens our public system.”

“(Former Saskatchewan Premier) Tommy Douglas (considered the father of universal healthcare in Canada) would be rolling in his grave today if he saw what Doug Ford is doing to health care. I will always stand for publicly-funded, publicly-delivered health care.”

The concerns of opponents to the Bill is that already over-burdened nurses and doctors will leave hospitals for private clinics, causing a dependence on the for-profit healthcare.

Yesterday, Ontario Nurses’ Association President Erin Ariss said the union, which represents some 68,000 nurses across the province, laid out its concerns at a committee studying the bill.

“This government chooses to ignore nurses, which our public health-care system heavily relies on,” Ariss said. “Bill 60 draws fed up staff out of our public system and exacerbates the staffing issues already faced by our public hospitals.”

New Democrat Leader Marit Stiles said the legislation will create longer wait times, leave emergency departments shuttered and increase exhaustion for already-stressed health-care workers.

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