03/06/2026
"In the last six months alone, the Ford government has announced almost $300 million for 61 new private clinics, a number of which are large scale facilities -- essentially private hospitals.
According to government projections, these clinics will redirect more than 1.2 million patients away from public hospitals for treatment.
At the same time, most of Ontario’s public hospitals have been pushed into deficit by deliberate underfunding by the Ford government. They are being forced to cut staff and services (already stretched beyond what is possible). Ontario funds its hospitals at the lowest rate of any province in the country.
The privatization Ford is undertaking is unprecedented. Since the inception of public hospitals and the 1973 ban on private hospitals, no government has expanded private clinics like this.
The majority of the new licenses are for private for-profit facilities and a number of them are owned by for-profit chain corporations.
If we don’t stop them, their own projected goal is to redirect 50% of the surgeries from public hospitals to private (for-profit) facilities.
The scale and scope of hospital privatization planned by Ford will undermine, perhaps fatally, our public hospital system."
- Ontario Health Coalition
More info: www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca/index.php/briefing-twin-threats-to-public-medicare/