SUDBURY - Citing health care as the No. 1 concern across Northern Ontario, it factors heavily in the Ontario NDP’s regional platform for the North.
Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles announced her party’s Northern Ontario platform during a media event at Science North on Thursday, flanked by local supporters and area candidates.
The Northern Ontario platform includes hiring 200 family doctors in the North alongside 150 medical specialists, doubling the residency spots at NOSM University and bringing back a midwifery program to Sudbury, “so that families can get the care they need right here at home.”
Travel grants would also be expanded under an Ontario NDP government to help people with travel costs associated with getting medical care.
“I think Northerners deserve better than what they’ve got from (Progressive Conservative Leader) Doug Ford,” she said, adding that although Ford pledged to improve health care, “things got worse” during his tenure.
Further, Stiles pledged to make northern highways safer by widening Highways 11, 17 and 69 (a longstanding pledge by Sudbury NDP candidate Jamie West), and to build the Cochrane bypass. Truck drivers, she said, will also receive the training they need to handle winter driving in the North.
“Respect for Northern Ontario is a critical issue in this election,” Stiles said during a question period with journalists following her announcements.
“Doug Ford wants to exploit the North for his own ends, but he isn’t really putting back in the investment that northern communities deserve and need.”
Expanding upon her party’s health-care pledges in response to a question by Sudbury.com, Stiles said that alongside hiring more doctors, her government would put together a “Northern Ontario-specific strategy” via a northern command centre to “co-ordinate and address a northern-focused approach to that retention and recruitment strategy.”
She also said that mental health and addictions factor into their plans, noting, “addictions is a health-care issue” and that the Crosses of Hope in downtown Sudbury “are a stark reminder that we’re failing those families and those individuals.”
She pledged to increase resources “dramatically” and that introducing more family doctors to the region would directly help, since the first point of contact is typically a primary care provider.
"That's an essential piece of ensuring that people are getting the support they need in their communities,” she said.
Although she commended the HART Hub funding the province recently announced for such things as transitional housing as one means of addressing homelessness and addictions locally, she said that more immediate support for those in need should be available.
“If someone needs support ... they need it to be there right away,” she said. “You cannot wait months or a year.”
During Thursday’s Northern Ontario platform launch, Stiles invited fourth-year NOSM University student Alanna Makinson to speak to reporters and share her support for the NDP.
“Not even someone training to work in health care is sheltered from the primary care crisis,” the future doctor said, noting that both she and her husband know what it’s like not to have a family doctor.
Having spent a year working in Timmins, she said that she has seen firsthand the important work primary care teams do, as well as the consequences that come from not having access to a family doctor.
She said she supports the NDP’s plan “to invest in well-resourced, fully staffed primary health care teams to ensure continuity of care and to keep people out of the emergency room.”
The Ontario NDP appears to be the first party to release a Northern Ontario platform during the current election cycle.
A Progressive Conservative spokesperson told Sudbury.com that they would be releasing their “plan to protect Ontario in the coming days,” while the Ontario Liberal Party did not respond to Sudbury.com’s inquiry.
In addition to Northern Ontario-specific platform points, Stiles pledged to help make life more affordable for Ontarians in general, including a monthly grocery store rebate of $122 for families “who need it the most.”
On Jan. 28, Ford made the call for a snap election, sending Ontarians to the polls on Feb. 27.
Today’s campaign stop marks the first party leader visit to Greater Sudbury this short election cycle, although four leaders will take part in a debate in North Bay on Friday. Joining Ford and Stiles will be Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie and Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner.
During Thursday’s appearance in Sudbury, Stiles said that she planned to focus on health care, housing and the state of schools during the following night’s debate, and “delivering a government that’s really on the side of Ontarians.”
“I think Doug Ford is scared of me,” she said to chuckles from those gathered, adding that he doesn’t show up to Question Period to answer her questions. “I think it’s time for him to face his fears.”