"Ford expands use of Independent Health Facilities (IHFs), non-hospital sites performing surgical operations. /2
Pointing out that 97% of current IHFs are for-profit entities, the Ontario Health Coalition described Ford's privatization push a "bombshell" during a pandemic. It predicted IHFs would take only profitable patients, leaving difficult procedures to the public system. /3
Capitalizing on disruption to public healthcare, Ford/Elliott accelerate privatization by contracting out Covid testing to Switch Health, on whose board sits Harperite Rona Ambrose;
Scarce PCR tests retail from $160 to $350 as Ford seeks to expand private sector... /4
...healthcare;
To the surprise of no one, Ford designates Shoppers Drug Mart as the site for asymptomatic Covid testing, creating potential spreader events while driving traffic to his corporate BFF.
Loblaws, Doug’s corporate BFF, buys a chain of physiotherapy clinics.../5
...for $845M as part of a plan to turn its SDM subsidiary into a healthcare provider.
Large developers, many of them prolific political donors, collectively own at least 3,100 acres of prime real estate near the proposed Bradford Bypass, and stand to benefit if the highway is buiit. Five of the developers have close ties to Premier Ford’s government through .../2
..insiders and former party officials now acting as lobbyists. One of those lobbyists was the chair of Transportation Minister Caroline Mulroney’s 2018 PC leadership campaign;
The Bradford Bypass would bisect the Holland Marsh and cross 28 Lake Simcoe waterways, yet is.../3
..exempt from environmental review;
Apr 5, 2022, Minister of Greenbelt Highways Caroline Mulroney awards first contracts for bridge construction along the controversial Bradford Bypass. The transport boss ludicrously contends in an era of $2 gasoline that the artery will.../4
Ford falsely accused NDP MPP Sol Mamakwa, (Cree FN-Sioux Lookout), of vaccine queue-jumping in a racially tinged attack in Mar 2021. Reaching a new hyperpartisan low in QP, Ford, under cover of parliamentary privilege, dabbling in slander, bellowed: "The member (Mamakwa .../2
..flew in to get his vaccine. So thank you for doing that and kind of jumping the line. And I talked to a few chiefs that were pretty upset about that, for flying into a community that he doesn't belong, but that's here nor there.”
Mamakwa said the premier’s comments... /3
..demonstrated a lack of compassion and respect for First Nations. “I was floored."
Ford initially refused to retract the false charge, but relented a day later when it was learned Mamakwa had been invited by Muskrat Dam chiefs to attend an on-reserve vax clinic to ../4
In lockstep with the Ottawa anti-mandate occupiers (and his own daughters) Ford blurted out his contempt for Covid measures in a Feb 15, 2022 presser rejecting vaccine passports, 3rd shots and indoor capacity limits: "We are done with it," said the science-challenged premier.../2
Truthy Ford then proclaims "Vaccines don't matter," masks are unnecessary and it is "time to live with Covid," sending shockwaves through the medical community and the 85% of the population who are fully vaccinated;
Jan 21, 2022 spike in ICU cases sees Ford and MOH Elliot .../3
..resort to spin by introducing 2 new stat categories, "incidental" Covid and "direct" Covid, confounding both experts and the public. Ford doubles down in March: "We’re trying to be clear with folks, a person can have Covid but it’s because their heart stopped beating.." /4
May 2019, Slasher Ford's cuts force Hamilton to end a $3.5 million program that subsidized tens of thousands of affordable child-care spaces. Standard condolences and deflection from the Cons consisted of a "promise" of future new child-care spaces in schools and tax credits../2
.... for parents. Upshot is kids/parents lose out on a benefit in service of Ford ideology that says moms should stay home.
Ford's shocking cuts to Toronto Public Health in 2019, pre-Covid, are still rippling through education, threatening to destroy a school nutrition.../3
.. program relied upon by at least 200,000 school children;
Ford's fantasy boast of 3,000 ICU beds is universally called out by medical pros still angry at the electioneering premier for encouraging the end of masks. The capacity "doesn’t exist and it never existed...” /4
A Hamilton-area PC candidate spills the beans and admits the decision to skip a local all-candidates’ meeting was made by Boss Ford's operatives in the PC party, and not him. “We get direction on a day-to-day basis on what we’re going to do,” said former CFL'er Neil Lumsden../2
.."running" in Hamilton East-Stoney Creek. “I was told that on the (May) 25th, we’re not participating at this point, so that’s the way it is.”
Ford's MPPs failed to appear for debates on a frequent basis in the 2018 campaign, and observers see the same no-show policy in '22../3
Threw of the 4 candidates in Sudbury took part in an online debate May 11, but the Ford candidate was absent;
In a City News spot check of 34 local debates happening across the province, 22 PCs did not participate, while 10 Green Party candidates failed to show. /4
Despite overwhelmed and underpaid nurses and HCWs, Ford won't revoke his Bill 124's 1% cap on public sector wage hikes passed in 2019, pre-pandemic;
Ford’s omnibus Bill 106, the Pandemic and Emergency Preparedness Act, will undermine nurses’ and healthcare professionals'.../2
..rights, including in collective bargaining, says the Ontario Nurses' Association;
A Feb 3/22 meeting with the nurses over pay rates ends in deadlock; 8 days later, Ford makes a lowball offer of $763M, ultimately accepted by his "indispensable" practitioners (Doug’s empty../3
..words), to cover a 2-tranche $5K retention bonus paid before and after the Jun 2 vote. The skinflint premier's offer amounts to abt $1.40/hr based on a 2-yr pandemic and a 50-hr work week, as he denies a demand for an increase in salary for the female-dominated sector. /4