 Duncan Fletcher Conservative Party Markham-Unionville
We need to work with the Ontario government who ultimately administers funding at the ground level, but we have begun wait-time studies that will help and increased the amount designated to health care. In addition I can lobby from within government to get our share of federal dollars for local initiatives. Our current M.P. has an adversarial approach to the current government that has not served us well. I can get past the red tape quicker with earnest input. For me it's a personal goal. My family will benefit too with better local health service.
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 Nadine Hawkins New Democratic Party Markham-Unionville
Jack Layton and I would increase training of nurses and doctors by 50 per cent, and forgive their student loans if they spend their first 10 years in general practice. We would provide free prescriptions and dental care to seniors. We would also provide free prescriptions in catastrophic illness over $1,500 per year, provide home care, and provide long term care. We would reduce poverty thereby also reducing crime and improving health. These better solutions are often followed by parliament, or could be bargaining points in a minority government, or could be achieved within a balanced budget by an NDP government.
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 John McCallum Liberal Markham-Unionville
The GTA, like most of Canada, has an aging population. As baby boomers retire, demands on our healthcare system will continue increasing and governments need to stay one step ahead of that increased demand. 2004's landmark $42 billion Health Accord, signed by the previous Liberal government, was a huge step in the right direction but in our region we continue to have a shortage of doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals. That is why my Party and I are proposing a doctors and nurses fund to increase the capacity of our school system to train more of those professionals as well as direct funding to new Canadians to help them get their Canadian qualifications. Healthcare is not only about treating illness however, it is also about illness prevention. The Liberal Party and I will stop the Conservative Party's privatization of Canada's food inspection system so that families will know their food is safe to eat and our Green Shift will help to reduce our reliance on burning the fossil fuels that contribute to smog and improve the quality of the air we breathe.
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 Allen Small Libertarian Markham-Unionville
The reason for the shortages, ER backlogs etc., is because health care is a government controlled coercive monopoly. Libertarians believe that Canadians should be free to purchase their own health care and use private insurance. Health care providers should charge what they feel is necessary. The cost of this private insurance may not be substantially different than the coercive taxes that Canadians now pay, often for services they do not ever use. But the service would be more competitive, certainly more efficient and suited to the needs of Canadians. Libertarians would cease funding provincial health care programs.
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 Dorian Baxter Progressive Canadian Newmarket-Aurora
The Canadian Medical Association has recently admitted that under the Liberals and now carried on by the Harper government, they purposely cap the number of qualified physicians allowed to be licensed in Canada. I would lobby to lift this cap and immediately seek to arrange appropriate licensing of the many highly qualified new Canadians that are doomed by the present government to drive taxi cabs around canadian streets. There is absolutely no need for six to 10-hour waits in the emergency rooms of our hospitals.
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 Lois Brown Conservative Party Newmarket-Aurora
Canadians value their publicly-funded, universally-accessible health care system. Unfortunately, the previous Liberal government cut health care funding and patient wait times almost doubled. In just two years, Conservatives have made historic increases in health funding and patient wait times are finally getting shorter. We now have signed Patient Wait Time Guarantee agreements with all provinces and territories supported with $612 million to help them achieve these levels. As an elected MP for Newmarket and Aurora I will meet with my provincial counterparts to ensure York Region hospitals receive the highest priority in terms of funding allocation. I will also continue to call for increased funding for new training spaces to address the shortage of doctors, nurses and other health care professionals.
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 Glenn Hubbers Green Party Newmarket-Aurora
Governments keep telling Canadians how they are going to "fix" the health care system, yet many problems are actually getting worse. The state of our health is getting worse, too. One in five Canadian children have asthma. Almost half of us face cancer at some time in our lives. There is an epidemic of obesity in adults and children. We have also focused on treating acute health problems after they arise, and failed to place sufficient priority on preventing illness in the first place. Experts tell us that spending more money does not necessarily produce better results. The Green Party of Canada understands that health is about more than health care. It is about the toxic chemicals that we allow into the environment from which we eat, drink and breathe. It is about prevention. It is about exercise and lifestyles. And it is about the industrial food industry providing a food supply that is not interested in nutrition.
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 Tim Jones Liberal Newmarket-Aurora
One of the unfortunate realities is that people use emergency rooms because they may not have a family doctor or the number of nurses aren't meeting the communities needs. Southlake has done a tremendous job in establishing its Fast Track unit, but, the doctor shortage exists. We will be establishing a Doctors and Nurses Fund that will increase the capacity to train and graduate doctors, nurses, and medical technicians; remove the bottlenecks that currently slow the process of licensing new health care professionals; reward medical students choosing needed specialties such as family medicine, rural medicine, and geriatrics; and proved financial support to assist foreign-trained doctors and other health professionals in obtaining their Canadian qualifications more quickly.
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 Ray Luff Christian Heritage Party Newmarket-Aurora
We have a shortage of 5,000 doctors and 220 million dollars per years is being spent on on offering 110,000 elective abortions in our country's hospitals. Our party would have Parliament declare that the unborn are legally persons just as they declared in 1929 that women are legally persons. If they did this the courts would rule to protect the unborn and would free up beds, money and doctors. Then doctors could do what they are called to do which is to obey the Hippocratic oath. The money saved would be used toward the provision of a $1,000-per-month family tax credit allowance for families where one member can stay home to raise children. This would save us $50 per child in government subsidized day care. In turn this would cause a reduction in youth violence and a reduction in policing and social work case loads; the need for welfare would be virtually eliminated. We also endorse the notion of allowing open competition for OHIP dollars by private health providers. A Good example of this is Shouldice Hospital in Thornhill. We see no problem with private enterprise being encouraged to compete for OHIP funding.
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 Andy Arifin New Democratic Party Oak Ridges-Markham
Universal medicare was first implemented by the NDP in Saskatchewan under Tommy Douglas, which is why I am a staunch defender of non-profit health care. The problem with needlessly long hospital waits centres on the clog’ in both the intensive and regular wards. People who could be receiving their care at home, at community health clinics or at long-term residences are, instead, in hospitals. The solution is to create new spaces outside of hospitals. It is a simple, but effective, remedy because it increases access and also decreases costs (hospital-based care is extremely expensive).
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 Lui Temelkovski Liberal Oak Ridges-Markham
Providing health care to Canadians is a responsibility we share with the province of Ontario. The federal government shoulddo its part tomeet that responsibility, and we will work to rebuild the spirit of cooperation with the provinces that has been lacking under the current government. That is why our party proposes a Doctors and Nurses Fund to reduce the shortages like those York Region is experiencing. The Fund will enable us to increase thenumber of health care professionals by expanding the number of residencies and educational opportunities.We will alsoconfront obstacles that keep doctors from practising, such as bottlenecks in the licensing process and the hurdles foreign-trainedmedical professionals face. Finally, we willoffer incentives to medical students to practise in high-demand areas of medicine -- including family medicine and geriatrics.
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 Wess Dowsett New Democratic Party Richmond Hill
Our ER units have backlogs in part because there aren't inpatient beds to support patients, and in part because thousands of Canadians don't have a family doctor. One reason that there aren't enough inpatient beds is because our health care system isn't providing sufficient long term care or home care that would enable these patients to leave expensive acute care hospital beds and live at home. Patients are stuck in expensive hospital beds because they can't get the care they need at home. The NDP plans to relieve both causes of the problem by investing in training more doctors and nurses and through expanding home care and a drug plan that will make expensive medicines affordable. These plans are consistent with the Romanow Report. If not in government, we will be able to convince our opponents that expanding home care is a good idea because it is very cost-effective way to improve efficiency in our health care system.
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 Chungsen Leung Conservative Party Richmond Hill
Continue to work closely with the provincial counterparts health providers to achieve the respective commitment to manage the overcrowding and ER backlogs. Lobbying to get action on this issue still does not solve it. We need to set realistic and achievable targets with sustainable funding.
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 Dylan R. J. Marando Green Party Richmond Hill
I am proud of the health care system in Canada and I think that many things are done very well in the area of health care. I believe that the universality of health care must be protected and that we must continue to strive to reduce patient wait times. What I do not believe is that simply throwing money at hospitals is the best way to support our health care professionals. What we need is a comprehensive health care strategy that concentrates more on prevention, more on wellness, and more on finding more doctors. A Green government would reduce the burden on our health care system by:
- Substituting our current well-being measurement system- the use of the GDP- with an innovative accounting method called the Genuine Progress Indicator. Because the GPI embraces a more systematic and comprehensive definition of well being it gives our government a better understanding of areas of strength and areas of weakness in our society. Being able to properly respond to areas of social weakness can have the impact of saving our health care system billions of dollars.
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 Susan Kadis Liberal Thornhill
I am pleased to have successfully pressed for funding commitments for the York Central Hospital Expansion and strongly support new health care services for Thornhill residents. It is unacceptable that too many Canadians are without a family physician. Wait times in emergency rooms or for important diagnoses are too long because there aren’t enough nurses or other medical professionals to keep up with the increasing needs. Doctors and nurses are the anchors of our health care system and vital protectors of the health of Canadians. With an aging population we need a plan to ensure greater access to health care professionals. It was a Liberal government that introduced universally accessible health care more than 40 years ago and it will be a Liberal government that will ensure the system is healthy and accessible to all Canadians now and into the future. The Conservative government’s inaction on addressing the increasing physician shortage has had a direct affect on growing wait times in Canada. A new Liberal government will commit $420 million over four years to help provinces meet the goal that virtually all Canadians will have a family physician by 2012.
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 Norbert Koehl Green Party Thornhill
We need to focus more on preventative care and health care services provided by practitioners other than doctors. We first need to eliminate easily preventable illnesses by ensuring that all toxic chemicals are banned from use by industry. As York Region's population increases, we need to make sure that there is an expansion of home support and home care programs to meet the needs of seniors with chronic care needs. We will include alternative treatments that are proven to be effective in what is covered by health insurance to ensure that health issues can be dealt with effectively before they turn into bigger problems. I will work towards increasing the funding of hospitals so that they can hire more staff and have more beds available. These costs are included in the platform bugdget the Green Party released http://www.partivert.ca/files/GP_Budget_Full_DL.pdf.
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 Maurizio Bevilacqua Liberal Vaughan
The riding of Vaughan has benefited greatly by the cooperation that has existed between myself and former Minister of Finance Greg Sorbara. As Chair of the Finance Committee and as Minister of State for Finance, I worked diligently to increase funding to the province of Ontario as it related to health care. A total of $41 billion was transferred to the provinces. I believed then as I do today that more funding is required from the federal government to address the key challenges of Canada's health care system. Too many Canadians, including Vaughan residents, are without a family physician. This is unacceptable. Canadians want to know that they can find a medical professional when they need one. The average age of Canadian physicians is close to 50, which means that Canada will be facing a drastic shortage of doctors and nurses within the next 15 years. At the same time, our aging population will increase the need for medical professionals. A Liberal government will help address the shortage of doctors and nurses by establishing a Doctors and Nurses Fund which will result in more Canadians getting care and shorter wait times.
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 Adrian Visentin Green Party Vaughan
In Ontario, we have very high rates of Cancer, Multiple Sclerosis, Autism, peanut allergies, ADHD, and so on. If we don't start to analyze the root causes of these epidemics and remove them from the economy, out health care situation will only deteriorate. We need political leaders who will act quickly to outlaw harmful chemicals and research the causes of modern diseases. That's exactly the Green Party approach.
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 John Dewar Green Party York-Simcoe
In the mid 1990s, 20 per cent of available hospital beds were eliminated in Ontario. Worse, over half of our nurses were laid off, many to never return to nursing. A vast pool of knowledge and talent cut from out health care system and never restored. Today, two-thirds of our nurses are forced to work under part-time contract work, many without seniority, or a reliable pay check. This during a period when the elderly have become the majority and many are in need extensive health care. Practical Nurses, Registered Nurses, Nurse Practitioners actually do most of the heavy work in the hospitals and they are every bit as important as doctors. Patient health care and recovery is highly dependant on the skills and care given by this undervalued profession. We constantly hear about doctors being is short supply with 5 million Canadians having no family doctor. Therefore access to hospital care is critically important to many families. In order to fix the ER backlog, hospitals need to hire more full time qualified nurses and enpower them to assist doctors to improve care and reduce overcrowding and wait times.
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 Sylvia Gerl New Democratic Party York-Simcoe
One of the most important things that must happen in Canada, but most of all in the more rural areas of Ontario, like this riding, is that the doctor shortage must be addressed. The NDP would hire more doctors and nurses and make sure to make it easier to have foreign credentials recognized here. (When we have doctors working as pizza deliverers, we are doing something wrong.) We would also encourage the training of more nurse practitioners and create more incentives for preventive health maintenance with the hope that long-term, people would avoid the more serious health problems requiring surgery. As the NDP, we see global warming and air pollution as serious issues, and as we clean up the environment, we expect to see a reduction in serious respiratory illnesses. Most importantly, we will stop the erosion of the public healthcare system that may see many more people fall through the cracks before it is better. The Conservatives have turned a blind eye to some horrifying realities. Their wait times guarantee wasn't worth the paper it was printed on.
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 Vicki Gunn Christian Heritage Party York-Simcoe
Part of our problem is a lack of competition. Every Canadian is entitled to have their medical costs paid for. Delivery of service is another matter. By allowing competition, Canadians benefit by improved delivery and reduced costs. In Canada, 106,000 abortions are performed each year. From entering to completion of clean up, the operating room has been tied up for 2 hours for each abortion. That is 210,000 hours of operating room time which could be freed for life saving surgeries. This would clear up the back log plus begin dealing with our impending demographic shift which will have the greater portion of the adult population retired and being supported by our depleted work force. An estimated 4,000 Canadians die each year from hospital infections, according to Macleans Magazine. The spread of illness within the hospital increases the cost of patient care and more available hospital beds are needed. We would lead the way, nationally, to modernize hospital design to include all private rooms. This reduces the number of illnesses passed between patients in hospitals thus reducing health care costs.
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 Paul Pisani Progressive Canadian York-Simcoe
Whether I can lobby effectively to get action is an unknown. What can be done is to determine case by case as they are triaged whether or not ER services are necessary for future reference by those seeking them and to determine alternate resources that exist such as clinics so those coming are in need. Once again maximizing the effective use of what's available is an important component. Facilities must be expanded but they will never meet all demands unless they are responsible demands.
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 Peter Van Loan Conservative Party York-Simcoe
Canadians value their publicly-funded, universally-accessible health care system. Unfortunately, the previous Liberal government cut health care funding while patient wait times almost doubled. Conservatives have made historic increases in health funding and patient wait times are finally getting shorter. We have signed Patient Wait Time Guarantee agreements with all provinces and territories; Implementing the 10-Year $41.3 billion Federal/Provincial Plan to Strengthen Health Care; Provided $612 million in new funding to help provinces reduce patient wait times; Established the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer with $260 million in funding over five years to implement a national cancer strategy; Provided $300 million to protect women from cancer of the cervix; Increased funding for new training spaces to address the shortage of doctors, nurses and other health care professionals; Invested $400 million in the Canada Health Infoway to develop electronic health records and reduce medical errors.
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