Health Care for All

Lee left a 27-year health care career because she couldn’t watch the Ford Conservatives dismantle Ontario’s health system. From providing cancer care to serving as the executive overseeing patient care at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and President of St. Mary’s General Hospital through the pandemic, Lee saw firsthand how short-sighted provincial decisions impact patients, health care workers and communities.

Ontario’s health system is in crisis. Ontarians are paying more but getting less care – less access to family physicians and specialists, less mental health and home care, less support to stay healthy and prevent illness.

• Wait times for diagnostic tests and treatment have grown, leaving many with nowhere to turn for care but the emergency room.
• Hundreds of nurses are being laid off amid unprecedented demand for care.
• The government broke its promise to fix hallway health care—then stopped measuring it.
• Ontario pays private companies up to three times more than public providers for the same services.
• More than two million Ontarians lack a regular primary care provider.
• Staff shortages force rural and Northern emergency departments to close, leaving residents travelling long distances on unsafe roads for care.
• LTC waits and inadequate home care leave seniors in unsafe conditions or stranded in hospitals.
• Poor working conditions, burnout and inadequate compensation deepen staffing shortages, while frontline workers feel disrespected and ignored.
• Community mental health and addictions care remains underfunded despite rising needs and long waits. A 2025 Auditor General’s report highlighted serious gaps in child and youth mental health care.
• Ontario’s system is also in a deepening financial crisis. The Financial Accountability Office (FAO) projected that Ontario’s health spending will face a shortfall of $2 billion in 2027-28 and $3.8 billion in 2028-29, threatening current service levels. More than 75 hospitals are in deficit, many borrowing to cover daily costs. Community providers struggle to retain staff as budgets fail to keep pace with inflation. The Conservatives’ lack of long-term planning and accountability has left our health system in constant crisis mode, making its challenges worse and more expensive to solve.

Health care is one of the provincial government’s most important responsibilities, accounting for 43% of its spending. Yet for more than eight years, the Ford government has treated health care as a cost burden to manage rather than a precious asset to protect. Strengthening our health system for the long term takes vision, accountability, and the courage to change the status quo.

Lee believes in a high-quality, well-managed, universal health system that serves everyone.

She sees that a strong economy depends on strong health care. Economic growth, productivity and good fiscal management are directly tied to the ability to pay for care. And a weak, underfunded health system leads to an unhealthy population, less productive workforce, and, ultimately, a less prosperous economy. As a hospital chief executive, Lee asked every day how public dollars were helping patients. Her leadership emphasizes preventing illness and addressing the causes of poor health – from strong public health to keep communities healthy and cancer screening, to championing a ban on online gambling advertising. She will bring that same discipline and foresight to rebuilding universal health care.

Ontario’s seniors’ population is projected to grow by 60% by 2040, increasing demand for care. The government has a duty to prepare with a plan that looks beyond election cycles. That plan must be shaped with patients, caregivers and families, drawing on their lived experience to build a system that meets their needs.

In developing this plan, Lee is clear eyed about the costs of rebuilding our health system. As part of her Economic Plan, her government will restore strong fiscal management, starting with a review of the province’s books working with the Auditor General and FAO. The Ministry of Health, and all ministry programs, will be reviewed to determine the value of our investments, not simply the costs.

Lee’s Plan

A six-pillar roadmap for ensuring our universal health system is ready, resilient and strong for the next decade and generations to come.

Revitalizing Ontario’s health system starts with a renewed commitment to universal, publicly funded health care. As Premier, Lee will make health care a priority again, champion innovation and restore accountability. Evidence will guide decisions, and results will be publicly reported. Her plan will address today’s urgent problems, while protecting and preparing universal health care for future generations.

Lee will invest to relieve the unsustainable pressure on health services, restore access to hospital and other essential care, and meet the needs of an aging population. Stronger primary and community care will reduce wait times, prevent avoidable and costly hospital visits and improve health and quality of life.

Her approach emphasizes prevention and early intervention, while addressing the social factors that shape health, including housing and isolation. Lee’s action plan for mental health and addictions will address the root causes of mental illness and addiction and expand public coverage for mental health care, with a focus on young people and seniors.

She will end the Conservatives’ waste and mismanagement including overcharging by private clinics and staffing agencies. And her government will introduce stable, multi-year funding so providers can plan services around community needs.

Together, the six pillars of Lee’s plan will rebuild a publicly funded health system for everyone.

Pillar 1: A Systems Approach to Restore, Rebuild and Modernize Universal Health Care

Address today’s urgent problems

• Stop higher payments for the same care in private settings and require consistent quality standards across all settings.
• Extend provincial coverage for key services that are not fully covered under the Canada Health Act including community-based mental health and addiction, nurse practitioners, and home care.
• Set measurable goals and publicly report on outcomes, including hallway health care, and waits for emergency care, specialists, mental health appointments, and home care.
• Restore essential services with funding that enables hospitals to balance their budgets and meet patient needs.
• Reintroduce predictable, multi-year funding for hospitals and extend to other health services, enabling long-term planning and ensuring funding improves outcomes and value.
• Protect, Respect, and Empower all health professional roles and workers:
  • Stronger workplace violence protections, mandatory prevention plans and enforcement.
  • Increase stable full-time employment and limit the amount of part-time positions.
  • End avoidable nursing layoffs.
  • Implement a comprehensive nursing retention strategy, with incentives to enable experienced nurses to remain practicing.
  • Make meaningful progress toward pay equity across hospitals and the community.
  • Ensure PSW compensation includes benefits, training, travel time and expenses.
  • End discriminatory practices, such as agencies not paying PSWs for travel costs for cancelled appointments.
• Scale what works including preventive care models such as Social Medicine Housing, which combines housing and coordinated supports for people experiencing homelessness who frequently need emergency care.
• Informed by and in collaboration with Indigenous communities and leadership, develop increased access to culturally safe care.
• Make access to health care in French a reality (see Franco-Ontarians: Our Voice, Our Future policy).
• Cultivate innovation as part of the solution to improved care.

Ontario Health Care 2040

Lee will replace the Conservatives’ short-term, reactive approach with a forward-looking, evidence-based strategy that ensures our health system is resilient and ready to care for an aging population, and drives innovation to strengthen universal care for generations to come.

Right after the next election, her government will get to work on an Ontario 2040 strategy, bringing together all sectors, professionals, and organizations to build a future-focused plan together. Many voices will shape the Ontario 2040 strategy, including the Ontario Liberal Party, patients, families, caregivers, stakeholders and communities from every region. It will:

• Enshrine long-term, non-partisan health care planning in law to protect universal health care beyond election cycles.
• Establish hospital funding based on patient volumes, acuity, population growth and inflation to meet the growing demand for care.
• Rebuild universal health care through strong, respectful partnerships with First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities.

Pillar 2: Better Access to Primary Care

• Connecting everyone to a primary care provider is essential, but the Ford government is playing catch-up on a problem it helped create. Under the last Liberal government, 94% of Ontarians had a primary care provider. A Lee Fairclough government will:
  • Deliver team-based care so every Ontarian has timely access to a team including family physicians, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, mental health providers and other professionals through Family Health Teams, Community Health Centres and other team-based models.
  • Enable health professionals to use their full skills within care teams.
  • Reduce administrative burden on family physicians and nurse practitioners through modernized referrals, digital documentation and streamlined paperwork.
  • Establish measurable targets for timely appointments.
  • Remove barriers and disincentives to providing comprehensive care.
• Launch a Health Human Resources Action Plan to coordinate recruitment rather than leave municipalities competing for staff. Prioritize Northern Ontario through “train and stay” programs, support for families settling locally, and incentives to provide both community and hospital care.
• Enable internationally trained health professionals to bring their skills to Ontario patients:
  • Introduce an International Credentials Recognition Act to remove unnecessary barriers to practice for qualified professionals.
  • Go beyond return-of-service requirements by expanding local residency and training opportunities for those committed to Northern Ontario long term.
  • Adopt proven models from other jurisdictions to streamline assessment and licensing.
  • Equip communities to reduce Practice Ready Assessment delays for internationally trained physicians, including Canadians who studied abroad.
• Improve access to specialists by removing barriers for patients and referring primary care providers.

Pillar 3: Support Seniors and Caregivers – A New Vision for Healthy Aging

Ontario needs a new vision to help seniors stay well, age at home and remain connected to their communities, while meeting growing demand for care.

Adults aged 85 and older are Ontario’s fastest-growing group, projected to represent 22% of seniors by 2046. The Dalla Lana School of Public Health projects that 3.1 million adults will be living with a major illness by 2040 – a 72% increase from 2020.

Lee’s Older Adult Health Strategy will integrate home care, community supports, primary care and community mental health services, while expanding access to palliative care at home and in the community. A Lee Fairclough government will:

• Reduce social isolation and support aging at home by expanding Naturally Occurring Retirement Community (NORC) programs. Coordinators will connect seniors with services and support.
• Adopt a “home first” strategy to give seniors the best chance of receiving care in their homes and communities. This would require strengthening community care with predictable base funding covering the full cost of services. Measure results by how well seniors can live safely at home and in the community and avoid institutional care when appropriate.
• Recognize family caregivers as partners, include them in care teams and provide tax incentives for sustained caregiving at home.
• Expand geriatric expertise and use technology to anticipate care needs, including remote monitoring, virtual care and AI-supported tools, particularly for seniors living with frailty and multiple complex conditions.
• Modernize our approach to long-term care for those who require more intensive support, applying the most current evidence of what works. This includes supporting the Butterfly model and other approaches that focus on the emotional well-being and dignity of the person living with dementia.

Pillar 4: Mental Health Care is Health Care

• Expand public coverage for mental health and addiction care through an action plan spanning government and multiple sectors.
• Take a phased approach toward universal access, prioritizing early intervention for young people (14–30) and mental health care for seniors, including dementia-related behaviours. Expand school-based mental health.
• Invest in evidence-based community services that address the interconnected challenges of mental illness, addiction, homelessness and poverty.
• Ban online gambling advertising, building on Lee’s Private Member’s Bill as the first step to prevent gambling addiction and protect young people, particularly boys and young men. Lee’s government will develop a strong policy response on problem gambling to prevent a public health crisis.
• Address the root causes of addiction including through wraparound support to help people recover, and rapidly building supportive housing. Activate an opioid emergency task force, bringing together frontline workers, mental health and addiction professionals, public health, government, people with lived experiences, and other stakeholders to tackle this crisis.

Pillar 5: Invest in Rural and Northern Health Care

Lee will strengthen rural and Northern communities by investing in local services and the workforce needed to deliver them. Her government will:

• End price gouging by private staffing agencies.
• Develop regional workforce plans with providers, Northern Ontario Medical School (NOSM) and training institutions to recruit and retain local talent. Expand satellite campuses and training so people can study and practise close to home.
• Expand essential services, including mental health, addiction care and home care.
• Examine regional hospital planning to improve patient access to hospitals in the same geography.
• Lead a national push through the Council of the Federation for federal investment in remote, rural and Northern health care.

Pillar 6: Unlock Better Patient Service and Outcomes Through Ontario-Made Innovation

• Realize the promise of a common medical record for every Ontarian. Deliver a connected health record for every Ontarian, giving patients secure, timely access to their information at home or where they are, and care teams the information to care for patients throughout their health care journey.
• Spearhead a strategy to harness AI’s capacity to improve outcomes, and the speed and scale of innovation, while protecting against risks such as privacy, data security, and built-in inequities.
• Expand opportunities to develop, test and adopt Ontario-made health technologies.
• Modernize Ontario’s drug evaluation framework so that we can assess the clinical benefits and cost-effectiveness of new treatments, including targeted therapies for cancer and other diseases, and adapt as science advances.
• Help lead joint provincial and territorial drug negotiations to secure affordable prices and better value for public drug plans.