Earlier this month we finished up the last set of stops on the Save Our Health Care tour. This Campaign to protect, strengthen and expand public health care held 16 town halls across the country from coast to coast.
We had a tremendous turnout at ever stop with nearly 3,000 people attending the town halls. This is in no small part thanks to the countless hours of hard work put in by Council of Canadians Chapters, their members, and allies.
Across the country Canadians of all walks of life shared stories about how important public health care is to them and that is must be based on need, not ability to pay.
We also had the opportunity to hold numerous workshops in each locations on how we can all work within our communities to fight to save our medicare. Council of Canadians members and our allies at CUPE knocked on almost 50,000 doors across Canada, chatting with ordinary Canadians about the current state of our public health care system in and why public health care matters to them. Everywhere we went Canadians expressed a strong desire to maintain our single tier public health care.
Canada is facing an important next step in our medicare history. In 2014, the current health care accord – the deal that sets funding and health care service delivery agreements between the federal and provincial and territorial governments – expired and was not renegotiated. The federal government is ignoring the calls of the provinces and territories to work on a deal, and shockingly announced $36 billion worth of health care cuts which will come into effect after the next federal election in 2015. At each stop we met with major media outlets across the country and raised the alarm online, in print, and on radio generating over 50 articles.
We have already found out that across Canada, once people find out what is occurring,Canadians are not going to stand for these cuts. With a federal election in the near future, all political parties are being put on notice that they must stop these devastating cuts and renegotiate a new health accord. While the tour has wrapped up, we will be continuing to go door-to-door and join with everyday Canadians to protect, strengthen, and expand our public health care.
To watch great two videos made my community members during the tour please see below:
See you on the doorstep in the new year.