Milton NDP Blog

This came across my desk today from Charlie Angus. Pharmacare and Dental Care are huge but there is much more in the agreement. ... from Charlie Angus   Here are some of the other elements that we put in place: A three-year rollout for national dental care for families earning less than $90,000 Passing the Canada Pharmacare Act by the end of 2023 Bringing forward legislation on long-term care standards for seniors Extending the rapid housing initiative Re-focusing the Rental Construction Financing Initiative on affordable units (under 80% AMR) and using 80% AMR or below as definition of affordable housing Moving forward on launching a Housing Accelerator Fund Implementing a Homebuyer’s Bill of Rights and tackling the financialization of the housing market by the end of 2023 Including a $500 one-time top-up to Canada Housing Benefit in 2022, which would renew in coming years if the cost of living challenges remain Through introducing an Early Learning and Child Care Act by the end o...

Horwath will force a vote in the legislature on her plan to hire hundreds of health workers for the North “At the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre you typically have to wait a whopping 19 long hours to be admitted." The Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre alone currently has over 25 vacancies for full time doctors. Thunder Bay paramedics say code black events, where there are no ambulances available, are now a regular occurrence, as the short-staff ambulances encounter short staffing at the hospital, which can leave paramedics sitting with a patient in the ambulance bay for hours at a time. The pandemic has revealed how stretched thin the system has become over many years. The Liberal government of Steven Del Duca and Kathleen Wynne froze hospital funding for years and cut 1,600 nurses. On top of cuts and underspending, Doug Ford has made the staffing shortage worse with a low-wage policy, driving staff away. Horwath and the NDP will force a vote in the legislat...

  The number of hospital beds in Ontario remained unchanged for the last 20 years (through Liberal and Conservative governments) but Ontario’s population grew by 3 million. Now Ford plans to cut the extra beds put in place for the Pandemic despite Ontario Hospital Association recommendations to keep them. A million Ontario residents are waiting for surgery but Ford is only addressing the delays that exceed medical guidelines! So if you are waiting for surgery the government isn’t going to do a thing about it until your situation becomes critical. Here are the OHA Recommendations for budget 2022. For the 2022-23 fiscal year, annual year-over-year base operating pressure:  3.5% ($735 million)  Dedicated funding to reduce the massive backlog of procedures and services.  Continued reimbursement for COVID-related expenses and lost revenues   2022/23 to be a “learning year” to determine which of the COVID-related expenses and lost revenues plus inflationary cost...