Nurses Vote

Ontario’s health staffing shortage is dire. It is the direct result of underfunding by the Ford Conservatives and employers who balance the books at the expense of front-line care. Every day, nurses and health-care professionals are undervalued, disrespected and told to do more with less – even when it hurts their patients, residents and clients. Many are leaving their jobs in frustration because they can’t provide the care patients need and deserve. 

Did you know? 

• Ontario needs to hire at least 25,000 (net) RNs to meet the national average. 
• For every ten nurses the Ford government hires, six leave their jobs. 
• For every extra patient a nurse takes on, a patient’s chances of dying increases by seven per cent. 

To improve our health-care system and ensure patients get the high-quality, timely care they need, we must elect a government that will implement staffing ratios and fair wages across all health-care settings. 

Budgets are about priorities and the Ford Conservatives have showed Ontarians time and again that public health care is not theirs. Our public health-care system needs consistent funding to support our growing and aging population. Despite this, the Ford Conservatives have underfunded our public health-care system to the tune of billions of dollars. Sectors like primary care, home and community care and long-term care need better funding or else we’ll continue to see service cuts, closures, long wait times and a worsening quality of care. 

Did you know?

• Health spending per person in Ontario is the lowest in Canada, at $4,889 per person and 15.5 per cent below the average of other provinces. 
• Even during the peak of the pandemic, the government refused to spend $1.7 billion in dedicated health funding. 
• Between 2017 and 2024, reported transfer payments from the government to private Independent Health Facilities increased by 37 per cent. This money should have been used to support Ontario’s public health-care system. 

Ontarians want their public taxpayer money invested in front-line health care, not private nursing agencies, for-profit health care, and hyperinflated executive salaries. 

Nurses and health-care professionals demand better. They will fight for a provincial government that will fully fund our public health-care system so that everyone can get the timely, high-quality care they need and deserve.

While the Ford Conservatives defund and deny issues in Ontario's health-care system, they are funneling public taxpayer dollars to their already rich buddies who want to turn a profit. Ontarians deserve a government that will protect and improve our public health-care system, not sell it off. Private, for-profit health care will allow wealthy people to jump the line, worsen the staffing crisis and cost taxpayers and patients more. 

Did you know? 

• Between 2017 and 2022, the number of surgeries performed in private Independent Health Facilities increased, while surgical activity declined in public hospitals. 
• During the pandemic, for-profit long-term care homes had 78 per cent more resident deaths compared to non-profit homes. Ford continues to reward for-profit homes by granting them licenses to operate. 
• Shoulder surgeries at private, for-profit clinics charge four times more than public hospitals do. 

Access to health care should not depend on what is in your bank account. To ensure everyone has access to high-quality, timely care, nurses and health-care professionals will fight for a provincial government that will stop private, for-profit health care.