Ontario hospital nurses, support, and paramedical staff to deliver “all we want for Christmas” holiday card to Premier at Queen’s Park

Premier Doug Ford has issued his traditional season’s greetings card to Ontarians. This year, Ontario hospital staff have a special holiday card delivery of their own for the Premier with a simple message they want him to take to heart: Respect the Bill 124 decision; don’t appeal.

Hospital nurses, personal support workers, cleaners, and paramedical staff among others along with union leaders from CUPE, SEIU Healthcare, ONA, OPSEU/ SEFPO and Unifor will deliver their ‘all we want for Christmas’ large-size holiday card at Queen’s Park.

While season’s greetings focus on merry and bright, it’s hard for front-line staff at Ontario’s hospitals to feel festive as they continue to struggle with high patient levels, too low staffing, and the continuing exodus of co-workers.

On November 29, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice struck down the Ford government’s Bill 124 – the wage cap law – as unconstitutional. Now, hospital workers want the Premier to accept the court’s decision and drop a costly and disrespectful appeal that will result in more health care staff leaving their jobs. The greeting card that asks the Premier to refrain from appealing the Bill 124 decision is a light-hearted approach to the very serious hospital patient and staff crises Ontario faces, which the PC government has failed to take action to resolve.

In November, CUPE, SEIU, ONA, OPSEU/SEFPO and Unifor, Ontario’s five largest health care unions, joined forces, issuing an SOS appeal to the Premier and health minister to adopt the unions’ solutions to stabilize Ontario’s crashing health care system and retain exhausted staff. Together the unions represent 295,000 Ontario health care staff including those working in more than 100 hospitals across the province, taking the first of collective action to make patients, their families aware that the Ford government is overseeing the collapse of our public hospitals.

In addition to the holiday card drop, hospital workers across the province will be wearing stickers saying “Bill 124 NO MORE” as a visible, silent protest against the PC’s intent to appeal the Bill 124 decision. They are jointly calling for the PC government to invest time and funding into working on staffing solutions along with their unions; not into fighting them in court.