Ontario Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca at a March 2 media briefing in Scarborough (Connor Luczka/ XFM news)
The provincial election may be in June, but the race has begun to ramp up already.
In a March 2 media briefing in Scarborough, Ontario Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca announced– if elected– his party will invest in Scarborough’s Health Network. He says their hospital has been neglected under Premier Doug Ford’s government.
“[We] are making a commitment to invest $1.9 billion to help support the planning, the development, the expansion that is so badly needed for the Scarborough Health Network.”
“The people of Scarborough, who for far too long had been left behind, have not had the kind of support in particular over the past four years from Doug Ford and his conservative government, in particular, in areas like health care, and like long term care. This $1.9 billion commitment that we are making today will help expand the bed capacity here in Scarborough by 30%. That’s a huge but necessary investment to make sure that the people of this community have all of the healthcare support that they need.”
“Doug Ford has abandoned the people of Ontario.”
This announcement comes the morning after the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario released their report saying the province has underspent in the health sector.
Over the first three quarters of the 2021-22 fiscal year, from April 1 to December 31, Ontario only spent 39% of their healthcare budget.
They had $2.5 billion in the budget, after revision from the COVID-19 Response program. They spent $999 million. The FAO report also indicated there was “lower-than-expected spending on payments to physicians, provincial drug programs and hospital capital projects.”
Del Duca, when asked about the report, said that this wasn’t the first time Premier Ford has shown he does not care for Ontarians.
“When he had his chance to do the right thing, Doug Ford has actually abandoned the people of Ontario in health care. It’s something that I couldn’t have imagined I would ever see in a province like ours.”
The office of the premier was contacted for comment, but did not get back in time for publication.
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