As I write, the news is breaking of major new incursions into the hospital sector by for-profit hospitals. Millions in public healthcare dollars are being funneled into for-profit hospitals to "solve" the crisis that has been allowed to deepen by the Ontario PC government. Once the private hospitals are firmly established as necessary components of a "public" system, the new centralized cabinet-controlled Ontario Health Agency will likely begin allowing the private hospitals to apply to run the Ontario Health Teams that have replaced the LHINs (aka regional health authorities).
Like the LHINs, the OHTs are administrative bodies that coordinate various forms of institutional care, notably hospitals, long-term care and home care. To date, the austerity-burdened public hospitals have undertaken the task of establishing most of the new OHTs.
However, as the Ontario Health Coalition noted in 2019, Ford's massive restructuring of Ontario's health system (the absurd "People's Health Care Act") allows the OHTs to be for-profit entities. It does so by excising any language limiting these bodies to being non-profit and/or publicly-owned.
In short, there is nothing to stop a private hospital from running an OHT as a vertically integrated healthcare operation. Long-term care and home care in Ontario are thoroughly undermined by widespread for-profit ownership and corresponding political power.
Public money for private profits & power
As with long-term care and home care, hospital doors are opening to union-busting, wage suppression, and the transformation of OHIP into a massive welfare scheme for corporations and healthcare profiteers. And hospital and long-term care workers are already banned from striking...Meanwhile, the federal government is opening up a stream of public money for private dental care, which means there is the coming potential of for-profit dental care being integrated into for-profit OHTs. How?
The dental care model being pushed by the NDP and supported by Trudeau is the same outdated fee-for-service model that the Saskatchewan CCF conceded in the 1962 Doctor's Strike against medicare. The fee-for-service model does not excise cancerous healthcare profiteering - and if the profiteers are not wiped out, the mortal threat to public healthcare will metastasize.
The failure of the CCF to abolish doctor profiteering by putting doctors on salary allowed the survival of for-profit practices and their growth into the corporate entities now being promoted by Ford.
Federal Money for Ford
Another twist is Ford's simultaneous announcement that he will accept Trudeau's "strings-attached" healthcare funding offer. How does this even co-exist with the expansion of private healthcare? Perhaps every penny will go to pay the big wage bill that has accumulated from the recently-wrecked Bill 124. With expansion of private health services, why not mollify healthcare workers and the union brass?
We we may also see a variation of the Trudeau-Ford childcare deal in which Trudeau's Liberals have very clearly allowed Ford to channel the federal childcare money into the pockets of for-profit childcare operators - with no retaliatory consequence from Trudeau or his NDP backbenchers.
The Trudeau-Ford Alliance
The Trudeau-Ford alliance cannot be overstated, because it now tangentially includes the federal NDP. After the mutually-damaging blame game of the 2019 federal election and the first year of the pandemic, Ford and Trudeau struck a non-aggression pact in the summer of 2021. Not only did Trudeau refuse to attack Ford to gain seats in Ontario, but Ford's office directed Ontario PCs not to campaign for O'Toole's Conservatives.
After Trudeau held on to a second minority, Ford's second majority was sealed by incursions into suburban and urban centres. Many of these same Ford ridings are critical Liberal seats that have allowed Trudeau to hold on to power despite losing the popular vote in 2019 and 2021.
Corporate welfare & labour cooperation
Another point of common strategic interest has been Ontario's automotive sector. Trudeau and Ford have collaborated closely in providing billions in joint investment (with no equity) in the EV transition of Ontario's auto industry. This includes direct handouts for retooling assembly lines and parts plants, and new investments for new EV-related facilities, such as the $4.9 billion battery factory in Windsor, the $1.5 billion battery factory in Kingston, and recent news of Volkswagon looking at opening a battery factory in Southern Ontario.
Unsurprisingly, Jerry Dias was one of the important figures at the centre of these events. Before his infamous corruption scandal and fall from power, Dias had become publicly close with Ford following a much longer relationship with Trudeau.
The Childcare Dance
A relatively quiet and behind-the-scenes bargaining over the non-profit federal childcare program spanned the pre-election 2021 period through to March 2022, only a few months before Ford's June election.
At the time, it was surmised the long negotiations was Ford balancing the offer against the powerful ties between childcare profiteers and the Ontario PC Party. The profiteers vocally opposed the plan, even refusing to implement it in the summer of 2022 when the money was first available. "Government intrusion" and "violation of privacy" was their bullshit excuse for not opening their books to show where the public money. What's to hide?
Then, in August, only two months after Ford's election, it was announced the Ontario government was removing the barrier to for-profit childcare operators collecting federal childcare money. There was no retaliation from Trudeau or even Singh.
Why?
March 2022
By the way, an enterprising journalist or historian will have a field day with the meaning of March 2022:
- March 11: Jerry Dias announces his retirement as Unifor National President and it quickly emerges that he is being investigated for corruption
- March 22: Singh and Trudeau announce their parliamentary deal
- March 28: Trudeau and Ford announce an agreement on the childcare deal
The consensus
Now, in January 2023, after allowing our public hospitals to reach a new low, Ford turns to the private sector while also reaching out for federal money on Trudeau's terms. Really? Does anyone believe this? Does anyone believe the federal NDP will do a damn thing?
It's the all-party healthcare privatization consensus...