Thousands of people march to protest Ford’s hospital privatization, Demand he return that funding to our public hospitals

TORONTO, May 28, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- They are coming from towns across the province, where their local hospitals have been pushed into deficit and forced by the Ford government to make cuts. They are coming in the thousands today to protest the Ford government’s plan to redirect hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ dollars away from our public hospitals to private, for-profit clinics/hospitals. “Without question, the Ford government is attempting the biggest privatization of our public hospitals in Ontario’s history, unless we stop them,” said Natalie Mehra, who has been executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition for 26 years through 3 successive governments.

In Toronto:
We are expecting 5,000 – 10,000 people from the city and on the trains.
The first rally and the start of the march are at York and Front Streets across from Union Station at 11:20 a.m.
The police will decide upon street closures this morning.
The march will proceed up York St., across Queen St. to Bay Street. There will be another rally at Queen and York Streets at 12 p.m. Then the march will proceed up Bay Street to College Street, then West to the Ontario Legislature. Health professionals from the University Row hospitals will gather at the Southeast corner of University Avenue and join the march as it goes by.
There will be a rally at Queen’s Park at 1 – 1:45 p.m.

Train cars and blocks are booked from the following towns at the following times: Barrie (South) departs 9:10 a.m., Brampton departs 10:52 a.m., Guelph departs 8:55 a.m., Hamilton (Aldershot) GO departs 10:06 a.m., Kingston Train 1 departs at 7:21 a.m. and train 2: departs at 9:34 a.m., Kitchener departs at 8:36 a.m., London departs at 7:35 a.m., Niagara departs at 6:37 a.m., Oakville departs at 11:01 a.m., Oshawa departs 10:09 a.m., Ottawa departs at 5:21 a.m., Port Credit (Mississauga) departs 10:44 a.m., Windsor departs at 5:35 a.m., Woodstock departs at 6:55 am.

Over the last year, Ford has announced almost $300 million to open 61 new private clinics – the vast majority of them run for-profit. This is on top of Ford’s privatization of tens of thousands of cataract surgeries over the last couple of years. By the government’s own estimation, this new slew of private clinics alone is intended to redirect more than 1.2 million patients – along with the staffing and funding for them – away from public hospitals.

“Today, thousands will be standing outside the Ontario Legislature looking down ‘hospital row’ at world class public hospitals that Ontarians built together, all of which have operating rooms that are closed the majority of the time because they are not given the funding to run them,” noted Ms. Mehra. “Doug Ford is using our tax money to create an infrastructure of private, for-profit hospitals that will bring in American style health care to the detriment of regular people unless we demand in no uncertain terms that he stop and stop immediately.”

At the protest, the Coalition will demand:

1. That the Ford government stop the unprecedented increase in private clinics.
2. That the Ford government return that money to public hospitals and put them back on stable financial footing.
3. That the Ford government commit to a multi-year plan to increase Ontario’s hospital funding from dead last in the country to meet the average of the other provinces.
4. That wait times for patients be addressed by funding public hospital operating rooms and MRIs that are unused and underused across Ontario.
5. A mortarium on the privatization of other services, such as our blood supply system (privatized through Grifols Pharmaceuticals), public health unit functions, private staffing agencies, for-profit pharmacies taking over primary care, privatization of addictions and mental health, and others.
6. Restoration of public access to information and government records, and restoration of democratic processes in the creation of legislation.

For more information: Natalie Mehra, executive director, Ontario Health Coalition, cell 416-230-6402.

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