Ontario’s Tory government has just announced it will create a two-tier healthcare system in the province: one, a private-for profit system which is expected to thrive off the funding and staffing diverted from the public system; and the other, the chronically under-funded and under-staffed universal public system of Medicare which will be further impoverished and in critical condition, if this legislation is not stopped.
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Canada condemns recent attacks on public healthcare and calls its members and friends to join public healthcare coalitions to defend and expand healthcare so it is fully public and universal.
Canada’s collapsing public healthcare repeatedly made cross-Canada news media during the summer of 2022 as emergency rooms closed and exhausted healthcare workers told the public that the system was stretched to the limit. Across the country there are record job vacancies for healthcare workers, record wait times for hospital beds and surgeries and more and more lives are being lost as corners are cut and health services become increasingly inaccessible.
Vaccines are a key component in stopping the spread of COVID-19, protecting people’s health and recovering from the pandemic. The Communist Party of Canada has consistently called on governments to place people’s needs ahead of business interests and take decisive action against COVID-19, including full vaccination, to be achieved through access, education and engagement.
Clearly, however, federal and provincial governments have prioritized profits over people. They have consistently opened up sections of the economy before it was safe – and entirely refused to close others, such as mining – and, in process, have cost lives and facilitated the spread of the pandemic. From the beginning, corporations and their mouthpieces in government have used vaccines as cover for rushing to reopen the economy and return to profits.
Public ownership and international solidarity can defeat COVID-19
The Communist Party of Canada demands that access to vaccines against COVID-19 be regarded as a human right and not a commodity. Vaccines must be made public, mass produced around the world and distributed for free.
The scurrilous and racist attack by Conservative MP Derek Sloan, who suggested in a video on Tuesday that Dr. Theresa Tam “work(s) for China” and should be fired from her job as Canada’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, is hate speech that should be followed up with charges under Canada’s hate speech laws.
Non au renflouement des compagnies!
Alors qu’un million de personnes ont présenté une demande d’assurance-emploi la semaine dernière et que des millions d’autres craignent de ne pouvoir payer le loyer la semaine prochaine, le Parlement a adopté le projet de loi C-13 pour fournir 2000 $ par mois, pendant un maximum de 4 mois, à celles et ceux qui ne sont pas admissibles à l’assurance-emploi. Avec l’augmentation de la Prestation pour enfants et le report du paiement de l’impôt sur le revenu et du remboursement des prêts étudiants, c’est tout ce que les travailleuses et les travailleurs recevront de la Prestation d’urgence canadienne du gouvernement Trudeau, mais cela, pas avant la mi-avril, lorsque les factures et les mensualités à payer vont commencer à affluer.
No To Corporate Bailouts!
While 1 million people applied for EI last week, and millions more worried they couldn’t pay the rent next week, Parliament passed Bill C-13 to provide $2,000 a month for a maximum 4 months to those ineligible for Employment Insurance. Along with increases in the Child Benefit and payment deferrals for income tax and student loans, this is what workers will get from the Trudeau government’s Canada Emergency Response Benefit, but not until mid-April when payments will begin to flow.
In Canada’s big cities, that won’t even cover the rent on a one-bedroom apartment, let alone groceries or utilities.
For those lucky enough to still qualify for EI, the wait-time has been cut, but the benefits remain at just 55% of previous earnings. Not enough to live on for long, either.
La pandémie du COVID-19 menace la santé et le bien-être de tous les peoples du monde, les plus vulnérables étant les travailleurs-euses, les peuples autochtones, les chômeurs-euses, les pauvres et les aîné-e-s. Ça prend une action immédiate de la part du gouvernement canadien et la coopération de la communauté internationale pour sauver des dizaines de milliers de vies et pour prévenir une profonde récession ou même une dépression qui ruinerait la vie de milliers de travailleurs-euses autour du globe.
The COVID-19 pandemic threatens the health and well-being of all the world’s peoples, the most vulnerable being working people, Indigenous Peoples, the unemployed, the poor and the elderly. It will take urgent action by the Canadian government, and cooperation by the international community to save tens of thousands of lives, and to prevent a deep recession or even a depression from ruining the lives of working people around the globe.
We write to add our voice to the 91% of Canadians who urge the government of Canada to introduce a universal, accessible, comprehensive and portable single-payer public prescription drug system by expanding the Canada Health Act to include prescription drugs dispensed outside hospital.