Those fed up with cuts to the Ontario healthcare system will have an opportunity to share their thoughts this morning at a provincial pre-budget hearing.
The Ontario Health Coalition is organizing a demonstration Monday morning in Stratford ahead of scheduled budget consultations.
Co-chair of the London Health Coalition Peter Bergmanis said there was little notice of the hearing, and having missed the December 6 deadline to register to speak, a protest is the best way for locals to share their thoughts.
"This is how we can actually express public sentiment now, we'll gather where the hearing is to be held in Stratford," he said. "It literally is the only area around the Southwest this year that will have the consultation, we're not getting it in London even. So we thought, we'd better rally the concerned citizens."
The coalition has been rallying against the Ford government for years, decrying the underfunding and privatization of public health care services. Bergmanis said it's particularly relevant in this region, as rural hospitals have been particularly impacted by unprecedented emergency room closures in recent years.
His message to province is to start putting money back into the public side.
"We need that injection of real resources to the public hospital system," he said. "Even within the constraints of the current amount of funding we've got, we can at least focus on the public sector, not the private."
The Ontario Health Coalition has been sending communicating this message for years, most recently with a Trojan Horse display that was brought around the province.
Bergmanis said they know the Ford government has heard the message, but it's also about getting regular people on board.
"If the public doesn't grasp, the downright threat to the existence to Medicare in this country posed by his government, we're all sunk. So this is why we keep doing it," he said.
Anyone interested in attending the protest can go to the front of the Best Western Plus The Arden Park Hotel in Stratford for 10:30 a.m.
