Ontario should invest in care services that centre communities not shareholders
If we want to ensure that everyone across the province has access to affordable care services, we must advocate for our government to invest in profit-free care.
Profit-free care services, whether that be childcare, healthcare, or long-term care are provided by organizations that prioritize care over profit. This means zero dollars spent providing services is given to shareholders, no effort is made to cut costs to protect the organization’s bottom line, and most importantly, the services remain in the community in perpetuity instead of leaving once all the potential profit has been extracted.
When profit is prioritized over care, taxpayers pay not only by receiving lower quality services, but also by a higher percentage of their tax dollars going to for-profits who upcharge the government. This means taxpayers can pay more than double to bring in for-profit providers, and much-needed investments for the care sector go unfilled.
This upselling to government is often seen with private nursing agencies, private eye surgery clinics, as well as long-term care facilities. These egregious costs have even led some provinces like Quebec to take drastic measures to ban for-profits from provincial healthcare. Across Canada wherever for-profits have been given the opportunity to enter into the care sector, the results have been detrimental for communities, and expensive for the province.
ONN’s anti-privatization work efforts focus on advocating to government to fully fund the public and nonprofit care sector while also divesting from more costly care services in the private sector.
Care services: What is ONN advocating for?
As part of ONN’s efforts to combat privatization in the sector, we advocate for nonprofits to be prioritized for social infrastructure, such as long-term care and child care, and its expansion. We also advocate for profit-free care services with safeguards such as critical social infrastructure asset lock and transparency.
How are we advocating against the privatization of care services?
- ONN is developing a campaign that showcases the value of the nonprofit sector to our government and our communities entitled The Nonprofit Difference.
- We are working alongside and convening childcare providers across the province to advocate for the best possible implementation of Canada-Wide Early Learning Child Care (CWELCC) in Ontario.
If you have any concerns about privatization in Ontario or are seeking resources please contact ebony@theonn.ca.
Related resources:
- Reflections on the CWELCC 2024 Child Care Funding Formula Discussion Paper
- Nonprofits deliver high-quality, flexible child care choices
Partners
We are grateful to our partner, Atkinson Foundation for supporting this work.
