SUDBURY — The NDP would add 300 doctors — 100 of them specialists — in northern Ontario, boost a grant for anyone needing to travel outside the region for health care and open more detox and rehab beds to combat the opioid crisis.
It would also reinstate the in-demand bilingual midwifery program — which was the only one in the country — that was axed by Laurentian University after it was turned to the courts for creditor protection because of its grim financial state.
Leader Andrea Horwath announced her party’s northern platform Monday morning at Bell Park, alongside area New Democrat MPPs France Gelinas and Jamie West.
“People in northern Ontario have been denied their fair share for too long by too many governments,” Horwath said.
Like the PCs and Liberals, the NDP would also restore the Northlander rail service. Horwath said her party would connect it with the Polar Express in Cochrane.
Horwath also said that if elected June 2, an NDP government would expand training in the trades, mining and television/film.
The New Democrats have yet to cost much of their election platform.
All four party leaders will be in North Bay on Tuesday for their first debate, and health care is expected to be a leading issue.
Dax D’Orazio, a post-doctoral fellow in political science at Queen’s University who hails from Sault Ste. Marie, told the Star “it’s impossible to live in northern Ontario and have something positive to say about the health-care system.”
Horwath said people in Thunder Bay can wait 19 hours to get emergency care, and travel hours to get the specialist care they need.
It can take months for northerners to be reimbursed for their out-of-region travel costs — including mileage and hotel stays — so the New Democrats would guarantee a 14-day turnaround.
To ease shortages, the NDP would hire hundreds of doctors and mental health professionals, speed up the accreditation process for internationally trained physicians, open more spots at the newly independent Northern Ontario School of Medicine, and open community health centers in the Kenora, Cochrane and Algoma districts.
Over the weekend, Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford was in the Sault, Thunder Bay and Timmins, and is expected to spend a lot of time up north during the election campaign. He announced $74 million in highway improvements and $75 million to restore the Northlander rail service.
Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca and Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner will release their party’s northern platforms on Tuesday.
Del Duca’s buck-a-ride platform pledge would include the Northlander service, which the Liberals would also reinstate after cutting it while in government. That means someone could ride from Toronto to Cochrane for a dollar.
The NDP says it would also regulate gas prices to help give relief at the pumps, and ensure major northern highways are cleared of snow within eight hours, and widen Highway 69, Highway 11/17 and the Thunder Bay Expressway.
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