Media Advisory: Concerned residents mount protests outside Liberal MP offices nationwide for action against the threat of U.S. private health care

TORONTO, March 12, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On Monday, March 16, people across Canada will rally outside the offices of their local Liberal Members of Parliament.

The nationwide Day of Action warns public health care for all in Canada is under unprecedented threat and calls on the federal government to enforce the Canada Health Act.

Health Coalitions have invited the Liberal MPs to join the event, speak to participants, support of the fightback against privatization, and commit to bring this issue back to their caucus in Ottawa as a priority.

Rallies outside Liberal MP offices in Ontario as follows:

• Ajax: Monday March 16 at 12 pm at MP Jennifer McKelvie’s office, 100 Old Kingston Rd
• Hamilton: Monday March 16 at 11 am at MP Aslam Rana’s office, 25 Charlton Ave E
• London: Monday March 16 at 11 am at The Hon Arielle Kayabaga’s office, 390 Commissioners Road W
• Kingston: Friday March 20 at 12 pm at The Hon Mark Gerretsen’s office, 234 Concession St
• Ottawa: Monday March 16 at 12 pm at Prime Minister Mark Carney’s constituency office, 240 Kennevale Dr
• Peterborough: Monday March 16 at 12 pm at MP Emma Harrison’s office, 417 Bethune Street
• Toronto: Monday March 16 at 4:30 pm at MP Julie Dzerowicz’s office, 1202 Bloor St W
• Waterloo: Monday March 16 at 1 pm at The Hon Bardish Chagger’s office, 100 Regina St S

Rallies across the country on Monday March 16 as follows:

• Alberta
  • Calgary: 12 pm MST at MP Corey Hogan’s office, 1717 10th St NW
  • Edmonton: 12 pm MST at The Hon Eleanor Olszewski’s office, 12220 Stony Plain Rd NW
• B.C.
  • Vancouver: 9:30 am PST at The Hon Hedy Fry’s office, 1030 Denman St
• Manitoba
  • Winnipeg: 12 pm CST at Union Centre, 275 Broadway
• Quebec
  • Montréal: 12 pm ET at Minister of Health Marjorie Michel’s office, 1100 Boul Crémazie E
• P.E.I.
  • Cornwall: 11 am AST at Cornwall Town Hall, 15 Mercedes Dr
    

Alberta’s Danielle Smith government has launched an unprecedented frontal assault on the Canada Health Act to end single tier Public Medicare & bring in U.S. private health care. The law brings in private for-profit health insurance, direct billing of patients, queue jumping for those who can afford it pushing everyone else back in line, workplace private health insurance plans and more. It is not “like” U.S. style health care. It is U.S. private health care, and for-profit health care interests are lined up to cash in.

Closer to home, Ontario’s Premier Doug Ford is privatizing public hospitals and is allowing private clinics to charge patients thousands for needed care. By the government’s own numbers, their latest set of private clinics (some of which are essentially hospitals, a number of which are chain owned) aim to redirect 1.2 million patients away from public hospitals. While the government is giving hundreds of millions more to private clinics, it has pushed the majority of public hospitals into deficit in a direct transfer of public resources. Patients are already being charged more than $4,000 per eye in the private cataract surgery clinics that Ford brought in, in violation of our medicare protection laws.

The Health Coalitions are calling on the federal government to:

• Tell Alberta’s Danielle Smith government that its health care privatization scheme contravenes the Canada Health Act and they will face a dollar-for-dollar clawback of federal health care funding if they proceed.
• Require that Ontario stop private clinics from charging patients for medically needed care. The Canada Health Act prohibits user fees and extra-billing of patients, including direct and indirect charges. Thus, no private clinic can require payment for medically unnecessary things (such as extra lenses that do not have anything to do with cataracts) in order to get the medically needed service (such as cataract surgery). Selling queue-jumping for those who have the thousands of dollars available to pay, contravenes the requirement that all Canadians have access to health care based on medical need not wealth.
• Ensure that the carve-out of public health care in Canada under trade agreements will protect the rest of the country if Alberta contravenes the Act. Right now, we all risk losing public health care to U.S. for-profit insurance corporations if Alberta persists.
  

For more information: Natalie Mehra, Ontario Health Coalition executive director, (416) 230-6402.

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