Silas: Elbows up for public health care!
June 6, 2025 (Niagara Falls, ON) – Close to 1,200 union nurses from across Canada are staging a public demonstration in Niagara Falls to bring attention to the urgent need to fight creeping privatization in our health care systems.
“Canada’s public health care system was built on the promise that no one should be left behind. Today, that promise is under threat,” explains Linda Silas, President of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions (CFNU). “We cannot stand by while American-style privatization threatens the future of our universal system. Public health care is a Canadian value, and it’s one worth fighting for. Everyone in Canada deserves to know that their health care system will always be there when they need it – no matter their income, their job or where they come from.”
As the single biggest industry in Canada, health care is a vital foundation of Canada’s economy and provides a vibrant source of investment, growth and decent employment. Amidst a trade war with the United States, now is the time to bolster our public health care system and maximize its economic potential.
“The Ford government in Ontario has been privatizing our health care system by stealth,” says Ontario Nurses’ Association (ONA) provincial president Erin Ariss, RN. “From the outrageous cost of using private staffing agencies to draining the public system of funding while handing tax dollars to for-profit corporations that charge more to perform the same procedures, Ontario’s health care is rapidly being privatized.”
Mary Turner, RN and president of National Nurses United based in the United States, underscores the harsh realities of private health care south of Canada’s border, pointing out that privatization has been proven to worsen patient outcomes and access to care.
Silas echoes Turner’s sentiments and warns against the growing two-tier system, where those who can pay receive access to care.
“Privatization is no solution to the pressures facing our health care system,” says Silas. “Nurses have concrete solutions to fix workplaces, improve access to care, protect patient safety and address the nursing shortage that has been left to grow unabated for far too long.”
Nationally mandated minimum nurse-patient ratios are one solution that would give nurses the time and resources they need to do their jobs safely.
“The evidence is clear: safe nurse-patient ratios improve working conditions, nurse retention and – critically – patient care,” says Silas. “Evidence-based safe staffing practices are the kinds of solutions that Canada needs. Not privatization schemes that put profits over people.”
Nurses are expected to start today’s demonstration at 11:30 a.m. on Livingstone Street at Stanley Avenue in front of the Niagara Falls Convention Centre.
“Nurses have elbows up for public health care, and we aren’t backing down,” says Silas. “Together, we are all in – for safe staffing, for safe long-term care, for pharmacare for all, and for public health care!”
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The CFNU is Canada’s largest nurses’ organization, representing 250,000 frontline unionized nurses and nursing students in every sector of health care – from home care and LTC to community and acute care – and advocating on key priorities to strengthen public health care across the country.
For more information, please contact Adella Khan, media@nursesunions.ca, 613‑807‑2942.