On Apr. 25, 2026, members of the Waterloo Health Coalition (WHC) organized a rally hosted in Uptown Waterloo Square at 12 p.m. The demonstrations were the first in a planned series of protests across Ontario. Hundreds of rally members called attention to the slow privatization of Ontario’s healthcare system and took a firm stand against it.
“I got into politics because I know we can take care of people and the planet, and that really is the job of government, and I don’t see it happening under this Ford government. We can make decisions and we can make policies that are based on evidence,” Catherine Fife, MPP for Waterloo, said.
The WHC is a non-partisan, volunteer-led group of residents and healthcare professionals across the KW Region. They provide research and coordinate demonstrations locally in an effort to protect public services against privatization. WHC also serves as a community resource to help individuals navigate how provincial policy changes affect local care.
“This is a community where we can be united to make sure everybody has what they need, not a division of has and have nots, where we are united, we support each other, and we work together to make sure that this healthcare system works for everybody,” Fife said.
Members of the WHC and their supporters gathered to increase pressure on the Ontario government to stop its privatization of healthcare. Protesters made their concerns about hospital funding, staffing shortages and the growing role of private clinics very clear.
“Not only are we calling for protection of our private health care, we’re calling for accountability and transparency in this government. We have seen an erosion [with] Bill 5, where they get to take a corporation and make sure that they don’t have any laws that apply to them,” Fife said.
Signs were carried and slogans were chanted as people called on the Ford government to prioritize public healthcare. More than any other Ontario government, Ford’s government has spent more money on for-profit clinics to perform Ontario Health Insurance Plan-covered surgeries. Ford and his health minister have claimed the expansion of private clinics is a cost-efficient way to get more surgeries done and decrease wait times.
“Privatization is a little bit like a single drop spoils everything, and the reason that we’re here today is after eight long years of Doug Ford and his disastrous government, everything has taken 10 steps backwards on any given day,” Aislinn Clancy, MPP for Kitchener Centre, said.
The Ontario Medical Association has pushed lawmakers to create specialized non-profit clinics to tackle the massive surgical backlog that was worsened by the pandemic. Each centre would focus on specific elective surgeries, including replacing knees and hips.
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