Sarah MacFarlane 

Throughout Doug Ford’s term as premier, he has been criticized for attempting to privatize health care. It's been a bit of a mixed bag, admittedly.

While the PCs have allowed more private entities to perform more operations, these procedures were all covered under the province's universal insurance plan, known by the acronym OHIP. It's something Ford has been insistent about in the face of criticism — Ontarians, he has grown fond of saying, will always pay with their OHIP card, not their credit card.

The prevalence of hallway healthcare — patients being treated not at hospital beds but in the hallways, waiting rooms or other spaces in provincial hospitals — has also become a lightning rod for the PCs.

Ford campaigned in 2018 on a pledge to “end hallway healthcare” by ensuring Ontarians can visit general practitioners and free up emergency centres. But fast forward seven years and his opponents say the crisis has gotten worse.

Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie has made it a focal point of her campaign, promising to ensure every Ontarian can access a family doctor within four years of her becoming premier.

Here's where the parties stand on this issue.

Health care is ranked as a top priority for voters, alongside Canada-US relations, affordability and housing, and it’s the one where Ford has the most weakness. It’s also now considered a crisis in the province, with more than 2.5 million Ontario residents without a family doctor, emergency rooms overcrowded and wait times extended.

A report from the Financial Accountability Office (FAO) of Ontario found that Ontario’s health care spending per capita was the lowest in Canada, which has been a trend since 2008. Research from the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) shows the impacts of this.

 to direct government attention and investment toward key areas. In the report, Dominik Nowak, OMA president, said “chronic underfunding has put the future of Ontario health care in jeopardy. This is why doctors are putting forth solutions that the government must enact immediately to tackle our most severe challenges.”

OMA forecasts that by 2026, 25 per cent of Ontarians won’t have access to a family doctor, and according to an Ipsos poll conducted on behalf of OMA, 89 per cent of Ontarians are concerned about the future of the province’s healthcare system.

According to OMA data, the province needs at least 3,500 family doctors, and about 40 per cent of those currently practising will reach retirement within five years.

Due to staff shortages and a lack of funding, wait times and closures are also increasing at emergency centres. Between July 2022 and June 2023, emergency departments across Ontario temporarily closed a total of 203 times in 23 different hospitals, the OMA reported.

The same conditions are impacting wait times for lab tests, medical imaging, specialists and surgeries; in 2023, 10 per cent of patients waited 153 days or longer for an MRI, which is 60 per cent longer than they waited in 2018, according to the OMA.

The six-pillar initiative from the OMA advocates for more funding and doctor-led strategies, advocating for more attention from the provincial government.

Instead, Ford’s messaging has focused on protecting Ontario from the tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump, which has allowed him to steer clear of his record in healthcare and pay more attention to looming threats from the south.

“There is an argument to be made that he hasn't done enough that his priorities are elsewhere. Healthcare is one of the two vulnerabilities that he likely has — the other being housing,” said David Coletto, pollster and founder of Abacus Data. “He's demonstrated things like putting beer in convenience stores, and the amount of money he had to spend to do that, which could have been better spent on helping everybody get a family doctor.

“Healthcare is one of his vulnerabilities, and if the election was about either of those, he wouldn't have as smooth a ride to probable re-election as if he makes it about affordability or Trump.”

Throughout the campaign trail, the Ford PCs have remained the clear favourites among polls, but since the leaders’ debate on Monday, “what was once a very large lead over the Liberals and NDP has tightened to just 13 points among committed Ontarians,” according to a poll from Abacus Data.

While approvals of Doug Ford and the provincial government went up to 42 per cent in January right after Trump’s inauguration and Ford’s response to threats of tariffs and annexation from the president. But approval dropped down to 38 per cent by Feb. 6, and again by 4 per cent right before the debate.

The same poll found that 36 per cent of voters listed health care overall as their top priority. Dealing with Trump’s tariff threats is up 5 points to 36 per cent, now effectively tied with housing and health care.

Increasing the number of family doctors was most important for 16 per cent of voters, while 12 per cent prioritized safe and accessible long-term care homes.

Among those who rank healthcare as the top vote driver, the Liberals are ahead of the NDP by 10 with the PCs in third.

Liberal strategist John O’Leary said with less than two weeks left before Ontario goes to the polls, Ford might have to double down on his messaging rather than try to get back on his feet with health care.

“I think that he is counting on a torpedoed approach here, like ‘stay on message, stay focused’ on what the case that he is prosecuting, which is, ‘I am the best to — as he says — protect Ontario and stand up to Trump’,” said O’Leary. “At this stage, it's kind of too late to try to pivot and change his story around health care.

“I think he needs to really try to seal the deal on his ballot question, rather than attempt to play into the ballot question the opposition is trying to.”

That said, voters could benefit from some “humility” from Ford, O’Leary added.

“He needs to be honest with voters about keeping his eye focused on the big things, including health care,” he said. “That would just resonate well with the public, and they would benefit from some more humility that the record has not been a success thus far.”

That said, PC strategist Thomas Gendron said the Ford government cannot be named solely responsible for the current health care crisis — nor is it a situation with an easy fix.

“I don't think the Ford government is getting the credit they're due for attempting to tackle the challenge that's in front of them. Health care does not change overnight, and while Ford has been in office since 2018 it's also very much swept under the rug, in my opinion, the fact that he has managed the entirety of COVID,” explained Gendron. “Not only that, but he was elected initially to end hallway healthcare. So things were already in dire straits back at that point.”

It’s the result of an “overburdened” healthcare system, Gendron said, that has broken down over time even before Ford inherited it. And it can be difficult to address issues with that system when so much provincial funding was allocated towards managing the pandemic. That’s not to mention the aging baby boomer generation that is putting more stress on a system that has not fully recovered from COVID-19.

“We have unprecedented demands on our healthcare system that just haven't really been touched upon and were not built out. This needed to be talked about 20 to 30 years ago, and while it was discussed, no movement occurred because the bill was too hot,” said Gendron. “And now we've been left with a system where all the money's been spent on COVID and we have to be even smarter with it, while trying to make that tangible impact happen.

“It's a tall order, and regardless of the party stripes, I think that all the parties are looking at the problem from different perspectives and have a very good approach to how they're trying to make it occur, by looking at either innovative solutions and technology or investing in healthcare workers or in infrastructure,” he continued. “There just isn't a one track solution that any party can smack a Band-Aid on.

“There isn't an easy fix for this magnificent problem that we've created over decades of lacking the political will to make anything meaningful happen.”

A day before he announced the snap election, Ford announced $1.4 billion in new funding, which will help a team lead by former federal health minister Dr. Jane Philpott implement its plan to create 305 primary care teams throughout Ontario, which the government says will connect 300,000 more people to family doctors this year.

On the campaign trail, Ford has promised targeted recruitment and retention strategies for health care in northern and rural communities. He has also pledged to expand the centralized waitlist program for surgical and diagnostic services and enhance digital tools for physicians. He has also extended the program to deploy physicians to emergency departments that are at risk of closure until March 31, 2025.

Ontario Liberal leader Bonnie Crombie’s 

 centres access to family doctors and universal, publicly-funded healthcare.

Her plan includes eliminating loopholes that allow corporations to bypass the Canada Health Act, ensuring medically necessary care is covered by OHIP, and clearing surgical backlog without the use of private centres.

The Liberal platform also promises support for healthcare workers, including fair pay and burnout support, and recruiting more family doctors. Crombie’s healthcare plan involves investing in expanding hospitals, ensuring paramedic availability and reducing wait lists, as well as ensuring after-hour support so that emergency departments can be used solely for emergencies.

Long-term and home care for seniors is also prioritized, along with prevention of chronic illnesses through public health investments and shutting down the Ford government’s Bill 7, which allows the placement of patients into long-term care homes without prior consent or permission. The Bill allows placement coordinators to authorize admission of patients into a home and disclose personal health information without the consent of patients.

Crombie’s campaign pledges to end hallway health care by paying nurses and personal support workers more and ensuring wage parity among those professions across the entire system, including in long-term care and home care, as well as give all Ontarians access to a family doctor within four years by significantly expanding the health team network and recruiting thousands of family doctors.

“It definitely feels like everybody is recognizing healthcare in the campaigns; it's too big a provincial political pie to ignore entirely,” said O’Leary. “But I think Crombie has made this a bit more of a central, essential, strategic pillar of her campaign here, and it has given a lot of lift to local candidates in places where a local ER has closed. And some of that is being driven by the work that she's doing to erode trust in the government, particularly on healthcare.”

Coletto said the “key question: for the Liberals — “who are now solidly in second place when it comes to popular support” — is whether they can encourage NDP or Green Party supporters to band together with Crombie in order to stop another Ford government.

On the NDP side, Leader Marit Stiles has vowed to legislate safe nurse-to-patient ratios, end reliance on private nursing agencies and hire at least 15,000 nurses over three years at a cost of about $1.5 billion. She has also promised to open a full-service hospital in Welland with a 24-7 emergency department and restore full services to the urgent care centres in Port Colborne and Fort Erie.

The NDP campaign says a government led by Stiles will ensure every Ontarian has access to a family doctor by recruiting and supporting 3,500 new doctors, reduce administrative burden on doctors, introduce more family health teams and shorter specialist wait times, and increase the number of internationally trained doctors, at a total cost of $4 billion.

But she’s also been focussing a lot on education messaging, and O’Leary said the NDP needs to “sharpen the perspective” in order to “make the sale” in the voting booth.

Meanwhile, Green Leader Mike Schreiner said he would cancel the Highway 413 project and redirect the money into ensuring everyone has a family doctor, providing equal pay for nurses, doctors and PSWs no matter the health-care setting and covering mental health care under OHIP.

PC strategist Thomas Gendron said the Ford government cannot be named solely responsible for the current health care crisis — nor is it a situation with an easy fix.

Top of mind: In search of a family doctor

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