Defend Public Healthcare

Despite the headlines, the Ontario deficit is not truly up $3.1 billion -- or at least not yet.  What is true is that, despite slower growth in the economy than planned, government revenue is up $2 billion more than planned in the spring Budget and spending is up hardly at all ($702 million on a total planned spend of $247 billion -- or about a quarter of one percent). So, for designated spending, the deficit is actually down almost $1.3 billion. Instead the government has nominally put larger amounts into its line items for its so-called reserve and contingency funds. Money that it may or may not spend.  It added $4.5 billion to these vague funds in this past week's Fall Economic Statement, bringing their current balance to an unprecedented $7.1 billion.  Yet almost none of the existing contingency and reserve funds set up in the spring Budget have been used  - even after seven months of the fiscal year.   The government has come to rely more and more on ...

Health sector  expense for 2025/26 is projected to be $5.658 billion higher than as reported in the government's Third Quarter Finances.  Up to the 3 rd Quarter Finances there had been about a billion dollar increase over the health sector Budget plan (with a $664 million budget increase for hospitals and the rest for home care). So, in total, the health sector budget got an additional $6.7 billion added to it since the 2025/26 Budget plan.   This is a significant increase (equal to 2.6% of all program spending for all ministries) that came right at the end of the fiscal year. It shows the Ministry of Finance's Budget planning is way, way off. The health sector  budget (for  the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Long-Term Care) for 2025/26 is now $97.8 billion. In the 2025/26 Budget it was set at $91.1 billion.  So, the total planned increase over the Budget projection is 7.35%.   Health sector 2024/25...

In the lead up to the Ontario provincial Budget, it's useful to flag just how unreliable they have become as a guide to public spending and provincial deficits in recent years under the Ford government.  The government has shown a significant ability to increase funding for public programs and health care programs if the public demands it. The Public Accounts report that total provincial government program expenses for 2024-25 increased by $16.9 billion or 8.7 per cent over the previous fiscal year. That is an increase from $195.2 billion in the previous fiscal year to $212.1 billion in 2024/25. Furthermore, the actual 2024/25 spend was $11.5 billion more than the 2024/25 Budget plan.  The Budget was a very unreliable indicator of actual program spending. A similar scenario played out in health sector funding.  It increased by $6.2 billion or 7.2 per cent over the previous fiscal year. The total health sector spend was also $6.7 billion more than the Budget plan. In...

While Canada has achieved universal public healthcare coverage, that does not mean conservative forces have given up trying to erode that coverage and expand corporate care where it does not currently exist. The battle has become particularly intense in Ontario under the Ford Progressive Conservative government, which is implementing serious cuts to the level of care and moving to bring in for-profit mini-hospitals. Inadequate Staffing.   Less and less of hospital spending is on staff.   Employee compensation as a share of hospital expenditures has consistently shrunk in Ontario. This is not some immutable law of hospital development.  It is in stark contrast with the rest of Canada, where compensation has become a larger share and now accounts for 67.1%. Hospitals in provinces other than Ontario now have 18 percent more staff per capita than hospitals in Ontario. Overall, if Ontario had the same staffing capacity as the other provinces and territories, there would be another...

COVID infections continue to drive up hospital costs and inpatient hospitalizations in Ontario. For the most recent fiscal year (April 1, 2022- March 31, 2023) hospital stays related to COVID cost $1.221 billion, according to new CIHI data.   This is about 4% of total hospital spending, creating a very significant new cost pressure beyond the usual pressures of population growth, aging, inflation, and rising utilization.   Costs for COVID related hospitalizations increased 22.2% in Ontario in 2022/23 from the previous fiscal year, rising from $999 million to $1.221 billion.  That rise is particularly notable as the OMICRON spike of late 2021 and early 2022 had passed by the the 2022/23 fiscal year.   The $222 million increase in COVID hospitalization costs came in the same year as the Ford government cut special COVID funding and, in fact, cut total hospital funding by $156 million.     In total, there were 60,653 COVID hospitalizations...

Despite the current health care capacity crisis, the Ford government plans to cut health care service levels. Hospitals : The news  is bad for hospital services.  The new Financial Accountability Office (FAO)  report   on the government's health care funding plan reports the government plans 3,000 new beds over the next decade.  That’s about an 8.4% increase in nominal capacity.   Measured against need, however, this will mean a sharp decrease in service levels.   The public wants improved service levels, but the opposite is planned. That "increase" won’t come  even   close to covering off increasing demand for services due to population growth, which according to provincial government projections  will be about 15%. The demands on health care will be much more than this, however, due to a rapidly aging population.  Health care needs are very sensitive to age.  People 65 and over use most of our hospital bed days...

Women's wages caught up to male wages when broader public sector (BPS) wages grew but when BPS wages were suppressed, the wage gap grew.  Women comprise 74% of the Ontario education, health care, and social assistance workforce.   A strong female majority is present in all three of these sectors but is especially marked in health care and social assistance, where 762,800 women work.   These three industries account for 31% of all women employees in Ontario. So what happens to these workers has a big impact on women. For men, it's a different story -- education, health, and social assistance account for only 9.89% of all male employment in Ontario. So, overall, males are much less affected by what happens in these sectors. Source:  Statistics Canada.  Table  14-10-0022-01  Labour force characteristics by industry, monthly, unadjusted for seasonality (x 1,000) These three industries are the great bulk of the provincial broader public sector or ...