NDP pushes motion to force CEOs to testify on their profit-making health care businesses

OTTAWA—A motion from the NDP will force CEOs of for-profit corporations trying to replace Canadian Medicare with a cash-for-care model to come to Ottawa to explain their plans—like the CEO of Loblaws.

“Conservative premiers and Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives are scheming to tear down public health care so CEOs can start billing people for care, and sucking up public money, too,” said NDP Health critic Peter Julian (New Westminster—Burnaby).

“This favour to ultra-rich CEOs has already started to hurt everyday people. Doctors and nurses in our hospitals are being poached by private facilities, and hospital operating rooms sit empty while emergency rooms are overrun and understaffed. For-profit corporations have already started billing people. The message families are getting right now is: pay up or wait at the back of the line.”

By taking money out of public hospitals and funnelling it to for-profit clinics, Ontario Premier Doug Ford has caused hospital operating rooms to sit idle the majority of the time while patients in pain wait, according to a study from the Ontario Health Coalition. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has started moving hospitals out of public hands. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has done nothing to stop it, even calling Ford’s move “innovation.”

Companies like Maple, whose owners include Loblaws, are skirting or ignoring the Canada Health Act to bill people for doctor’s appointments and surgeries.

“Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives would pour fuel on the health privatization fire, cutting-and-gutting health care so their big business buddies can make a profit off people,” said Julian. “Justin Trudeau is too weak to stop them—but the NDP is ready to fight.

"Canadians and the NDP believe in public, universal, free health care. We believe that you and your family deserve the best care, no matter how much is in your bank account. CEOs like Lobaws’ CEO needs to come tell Canadians why they’re working to ruin that.”

Poilievre’s Conservatives previously voted to cut funding for surgery and emergency room wait times, and his Chief Advisor Jenni Byrne owns the company that is the lobbyist for Loblaws—which is profiting from health care privatization.

BACKGROUND

Notice of Motion by Peter Julian, MP for New Westminster-Burnaby

That, given the increasing prevalence of privatized healthcare across the country and the difficulty Canadians face in getting the healthcare they need, the Standing Committee on Health undertake a study of at least four meetings on protecting Canada’s public healthcare system against for-profit corporations, and that the committee invite the CEOs of for-profit healthcare providers like Loblaw Companies Limited to testify.