About 170 protesters gathered in Markdale today while Ontario Premier Doug Ford made an appearance in the community.
Two groups collaborated to organize the protest. About two thirds of them were protesting Bill-23 which makes changes to the Greenbelt, and the other third were protesting healthcare privatization.
Ford and Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones were on hand to celebrate the ribbon cutting for the new Brightshores Health System Markdale hospital which will open to patients at 6 a.m. September 24th.
The protesters gathered along the roadside near the hospital entrance.
Eugenia resident Dave Meslin, who co-organized the Greenbelt protest saying, “There’s a lot of concern about that, of course, right now, especially because it’s an irreversible attack on farmland. Once you pave farmland, you can’t turn it back into farmland. So there’s a real sense of urgency.”
He adds, “We just want the premier to know that people are paying attention to what’s happening at Queen’s Park and we’re watching, and a lot of people are angry.”
Campaign Coordinator with the Greenbelt Promise Mike Marcolongo echoed Meslin’s comment saying, “The Premier isn’t reading the room.”
Grey Bruce Health Coalition Co-chair Brenda Scott says her group wasn’t there to protest the new hospital, but rather to take the opportunity to make themselves heard while the premier visited.
“We wanted to make it clear, we’re not objecting to the new hospital,” says Scott.
“We’re looking at the issue of public versus private healthcare,” says Scott who is concerned about private clinics conducting procedures like knee and cataract surgery. Scott is also concerned physicians and health care professionals will move to those private clinics while public hospitals would see a further reduction in staff.
Scott says, “The whole issue, particularly for us small and rural hospitals and their attempts to maintain staff, when there are private facilities that are paying more they’re going to basically bleed staff away from the public facilities. That increases, then the problem with ER closures and all of that because they don’t have enough staff.”
The Grey Bruce Health Coalition and the Chesley Hospital Community Support Group are organizing buses for a protest trip to Queen’s Park September 25th. Scott says so far, about 100 local people will be heading to Toronto to join what she expects will be thousands of other protesters.
Those who would like to be on one of the buses heading there from Grey Bruce can call Scott at 519-363-6306.
