On May 28 the Ontario Health Coalition (OHC) held one of its largest rallies of this year, with more than 8000 people marching from Union Station in Toronto to the Ontario Parliament Building to protest the recent ramping up of healthcare privatization. The rally stretched multiple city blocks as people marched down the street towards the Ontario Parliament Building. Among the attendees were an estimated 1,000 people who traveled to the protest by train from all across Ontario and members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) who just attended their annual convention.
The protest was in response to recent attacks on public healthcare by the Ontario government, which have escalated to a level not seen since the birth of public healthcare in Canada. Ontario has one of the lowest levels of healthcare funding among all provinces in Canada, sitting at $5,861.05 per person annually in 2023. Public hospitals across the province have been forced to run at a deficit and close down record breaking numbers of emergency departments, operating rooms, and urgent care centers due to a lack of funding. The private sector, meanwhile, has been receiving very generous amounts of funding, with private clinics receiving almost $300 million for 61 new private clinics through the second half of 2025.
The protest also takes place amidst the backdrop of the passage of Alberta Bill 11 in December 2025, which marks a huge step towards the full privatization of healthcare in Alberta. The bill makes Alberta the first province to explicitly allow private health insurance for medically necessary procedures, on top of making it significantly easier for healthcare workers to participate in the private sector by allowing them to work in both the public and private sectors at the same time.
As young communists, we should make it clear that these cuts towards healthcare are not about reducing wait times or improving efficiency as bourgeois politicians may suggest. This has already been demonstrated in Britain, where healthcare privatization is a few years ahead of our own and in fact increased wait times and delivered worse care for poor people while rich people used private clinics to queue jump. Meanwhile in Ontario, existing healthcare cuts have already led to 2.5 million people without a primary care provider, and this number could rise to 4.4 million by 2027 according to the Ontario Medical Association.
Rather, the gutting of public healthcare is yet another attempt to open up previously public institutions to profiteering. In Ontario, the privatization of cataract surgeries has led to horror stories of patients paying as much as $8,000 to $11,000 for surgeries that legally should have been fully covered under the Canada Health Act. Patients who get cataract surgeries at private clinics are creatively upsold on things like laser surgery and “special lenses”, which should have been covered under Ontario health insurance. This attempt to squeeze profit out of an institution essential to maintaining the very health of the people, however alarming, is not novel. It is part of the larger trend of neoliberal austerity policy that has been ongoing throughout Canada and many other decaying capitalist nations around the world.
The Canadian bourgeoisie dream of introducing the US healthcare model into Canada both figuratively and literally. Bill 11 allowing private health insurance for medically necessary procedures not only further enables existing private health corporations in Canada to exploit the working class, it is also a massive step towards opening the door for the entry of US private health insurance companies themselves, which have already expressed interest in provincial surgical outsourcing markets. If allowed to enter, these companies would likely become entrenched and impossible to remove thanks to protections provided by trade agreements with the US. The move towards privatization of healthcare in Canada represents yet another move by the Canadian bourgeoisie towards enabling the encroachment of US imperialism into Canada.
Free public healthcare in Canada is a right that was hard won by the struggle of the communist and labor movements. Now, it is a right that will have to be defended from ruthless attacks by health corporations seeking to dismantle it. We as young communists should agitate and organize around the issue of public healthcare, and we should make it clear to the people that privatization of healthcare is an attack on the working class. The healthcare movement is a growing one, and it is one that will be increasingly essential as the attacks on public healthcare escalate. Our fight for a better future for the proletariat must include the fight for their well being!