Last night’s town hall meeting in Courtenay, BC. Photo by Mike Butler.
Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow spoke in Courtenay, British Columbia last night in defence of public health care.
Yesterday evening, Barlow tweeted:
Fabulous turnout for health care Town Hall in Courtney. BC activists rock!!! pic.twitter.com/gU88ALtqM7
— Maude Barlow (@MaudeBarlow) October 22, 2014
Council of Canadians health care campaigner Michael Butler tweeted:
Wow! Torrential rains and well over 300 people out and more arriving in Courtney #stand4medicare #bcpoli #cdnhealth pic.twitter.com/PwOyM5ouvd
— CouncilofCDNs Health (@HealthMichael) October 22, 2014
He also tweeted Maude’s statements last night that, “we have a right to not allow privatization of health AND demand it be expanded” and that “national pharmacare is a no brainer unless you are in ideologue”. And Council of Canadians Board member Pam Beattie tweeted, “Maude reminds us every generation has had to fight for medicare, we have to fight for it”, as well as Barlow’s message to Stephen Harper, “you are not going to be PM and you are not going to take health care with you”.
The Comox Valley Echo reported, “The Council of Canadians and the Hospital Employees’ Union (the BC health services division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees) [hosted] a town hall meeting to discuss what [federal transfer payment] cuts will mean for British Columbians, and what can be done to support public solutions to make our health care stronger for all Canadians.” Barlow was joined by Paul Moist, the national president of CUPE, Dr. Duncan Etches of Canadian Doctors for Medicare and Barb Biley, Health Accord campaign organizer and Hospital Employees’ Union provincial executive member.
To date, there have been nine other successful CUPE-Council of Canadians town halls in Winnipeg (April 17), Moncton (April 23), Bridgewater (April 29), Regina (June 23), North Bay (June 24), Charlottetown (August 26), Oshawa (September 4), Sault Ste. Marie (September 18) and Campbell River (October 20). Altogether, about 2,800 people have come out for these town hall meetings across the country.
The gatherings are part of the joint CUPE-Council of Canadians Save Our Health Care campaign.
This evening, Barlow and Moist will be speaking in North Battleford, a city about 130 kilometres north-west of Saskatoon, where the Brad Wall provincial government wants to build the public-private partnership hospital. For more on that, please see Barlow to speak against proposed P3 hospital in Saskatchewan and Maude Barlow in North Battleford to keep health care public.
