The Ontario government is planning to increase its efforts to boost primary care by $1.4 billion, an announcement made on what is set to be the government's last full day before parliament is dissolved ahead of a snap election.
The news came amid a flurry of government announcements Monday, which doled out pledges of hundreds of millions more dollars to support economic development in the north, job training and a project that would secure manufacturing jobs.
Health Minister Sylvia Jones said the government's plan to add more primary care teams is aimed at giving more Ontarians access to primary care by 2029.
Jones made the announcement alongside former federal Liberal health minister Jane Philpott, who since Dec. 1 has been the head of a provincial primary care action team. Jones disputed that Monday's announcement was a campaign promise.
"The plan is in place, that work will continue, and we now have that opportunity to build that excitement," she said.
"Now, there's no doubt that people have been waiting a long time, too long, frankly, to get connected with a primary care practitioner in their community, and I am incredibly proud of Dr. Philpott's team in being able to turn around the proposal and the plan, bringing it to cabinet, getting it approved so quickly."
The plan, with $1.4 billion in promised new money in addition to $400 million already committed, would connect two million more people to primary care and would achieve the government's goal of connecting everyone in the province to a family doctor or primary care team, the government said.
But the Ontario Medical Association says there are 2.5 million Ontarians without a family doctor right now, and the number is expected to rise to 4.4 million in a year.
"We have been fortunate to meet with Dr. Philpott already and we fully support her work and look forward to co-designing a system where every Ontarian has a family doctor," OMA CEO Kimberly Moran wrote in a statement.
"Now, there's no doubt that people have been waiting a long time, too long, frankly, to get connected with a primary care practitioner in their community, and I am incredibly proud of Dr. Philpott's team in being able to turn around the proposal and the plan, bringing it to cabinet, getting it approved so quickly."
Ontario Liberal Party Leader Bonnie Crombie said she is cynical about the timing of the announcement, saying it should have been done in 2018, shortly after Premier Doug Ford first came to power.
Ford is set to call an election Wednesday, nearly 1 1/2 years before the next fixed date in June 2026, saying he needs a mandate from the electorate to deal with U.S. President Donald Trump.
But in the waning days of his second term in government, cabinet ministers fanned out across the province to shovel announcements out the door.
There was a promise to spend $350 million to refurbish GO Transit rail cars in North Bay, $30 million boost to the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation to support economic development in the north, and a $10-million loan to a paper company in Kapuskasing to protect 2,500 jobs, among others.
NDP Leader Marit Stiles said the health-care promise in particular is conspicuously timed.
"Doug Ford and the Conservatives have made the problem worse, not better, and now at the last minute as they’re heading into … an early snap election and they're afraid," she said while making an announcement in Brampton.
"They’re starting to make more promises that they’ll never deliver on."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 27, 2025.
