Guess what -- Ford has enough money for our new hospital

Province’s $200 cheques could be paying to start construction planning

Premier Doug Ford announcing his cheque scheme.

All politics is local.

That was the credo of legendary American politician Tip O’Neill and it’s a helpful reminder of how to view Premier Doug Ford’s latest $200-a-person cheque gambit.

It’s also a credo that underlies this newsletter, since my focus is on Trent Hills, and I look at stories and issues outside our area and ask what they might mean for where we live. It’s also one that resonates with me because it’s tied to my career. I spent almost 20 years as a reporter and editor at The Toronto Star, which was famous, to the point of ridicule in some cases, for insisting that every story be looked at through the lens of what did it mean to Toronto.

So, when I heard about Ford’s $200-a-person payout, I thought about how the province could be spending that money in Trent Hills. The answer became obvious, as you’ll see. There are roughly 13,000 people in Trent Hills so the math is simple, $200 times 13,000 equals $2.6 million that Ford will be sending to Trent Hills.

Apparently, he’s unable to think of any better way to spend the money than giving it back to us. He doesn’t see anything that needs doing.

While I support efforts to control public spending and ensure our taxes are spent wisely, unlike Ford I actually believe in the importance of government programs and financing them properly.

To me the logic goes like this. The reason humans have survived and thrived is our ability to work as a community. Our ancestors would have all starved to death on the African savanna if each individual had to chase down their own gazelle. Eventually, we learned to work together. Governments, local, provincial, national, and international, are our modern way of working together and meeting our common needs – whether that means replacing the water pipes on Ranney Street, building a new arena, or replacing a small, outdated hospital.

Our community has felt for years that we needed a new hospital but didn’t really know how to go about getting approval for one. But for the past two years, since Eric Hanna was the interim CEO and president, we have been ready. Hanna had been through the process and ensured that we had covered all the bases.

In a move to put pressure on the government to either approve a new facility or upgrade the present one to try to handle current needs, Hanna developed a $15.6-million plan to renovate and expand the emergency department and improve inpatient services. As I wrote in June, through a freedom of information request from the province I learned that the renovation plan had been backed by the Ministry of Health’s east region almost two years ago, but it has stalled at the upper levels of the ministry, which really means the premier’s office. That’s where it still sits.

Current hospital CEO Jeff Hohenkerk says his focus is on getting a new facility not pushing for renovations that might ease the pressure over the next decade.

Of course, our efforts to get approval to start the process of planning for a new hospital, which would require, ironically, about $2.6 million, has also gone nowhere.

I wouldn’t say it has been ignored, but it’s more like my response when my three-year-old grandson asks for an ice-cream cone. I don’t say no, but my answer is often vague, patronizing and doesn’t end with a cone.

More than a year ago, MPP David Piccini was responding to queries about when we would get hospital approval by shaking his head and expressing the government’s shock at how construction costs had ballooned during COVID and noting all the other requests in the pipeline from other communities that need facilities.

Since then, the province has approved several new hospital projects in other cities, a $800-million parking garage for a private spa in Toronto, and started throwing money at a hare-brained scheme to tunnel under the 401.

And now it is giving away $3 billion. So, it is clear that a lack of money is not the reason that we haven’t had a positive answer to our hospital pleas.

Hohenkerk says the premier has assured him the question of when we will get a hospital approved is a matter of when, not if. Hohenkerk no doubt believes him and this makes him happy. Just as my grandson believes me now about the ice cream, but I’m betting that won’t last long. But to someone like me who is entering prime hospital-using age, the when also matters.

I’ve said for the past few years that the only way to pressure the government to build a hospital is to convince the premier’s office that we will all vote Liberal if we don’t get one.

Now, I suspect that our best hope is that we will get a photo op and a grant announcement during an election campaign this spring.

It’s a decision that could easily have been taken two years ago.

Where does this leave us? Unlike Ford and his team, I think there are places in the province that they should be spending our spare $3 billion and the first place in Trent Hills is on a new hospital.

I also believe that actions speak louder than words and that inaction, especially over a period of years, obviously counts as action.

When I get my $200 cheque in the mail, I’m walking up the hill to the hospital and signing it over to the foundation. Maybe if enough people donate we can just start planning and building on our own.

A Facebook post this week by our overwhelmed hospital.

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