Canada’s nurses unions launch message to premiers: No shortcuts to patient safety

Silas: Nurse staffing decisions need to be based on safety

July 15, 2025 (Ottawa, ON) – Canada’s nurses union leaders will be meeting with premiers to discuss nursing as a safety-critical workforce at the upcoming Council of the Federation meetings next week.

“Nursing is the largest safety-critical workforce in Canada, yet nurses are not being provided with the working conditions necessary to protect patient safety. Pilots and truck drivers already have protections around consecutive hours of work – surely patients are the most precious cargo of all,” Linda Silas, president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions (CFNU) said. “Minimum staffing mandates and safe hours of work are about managing risk. In health care, this means managing risks to patient safety. We need to see staffing decisions based on safety, not bottom lines.”

The CFNU is calling on provincial and territorial governments to work collaboratively with the federal government, unions and health employers to implement measures that would support patient safety across the country. Evidence-backed solutions put forth by the CFNU include:

• Minimum nurse-patient ratios to address unsustainable workloads and improve patient care
• Mandated safe hours of work to protect the health of nurses and the quality of care they can deliver
• A pan-Canadian approach to workforce planning data to ensure access to our public health care system is strong for generations to come

“When two in three nurses report that their workplaces are regularly overcapacity, we know health care planning has gone wrong, we know that near-miss errors are a danger to patients. We cannot continue to accept unsafe health care working conditions as the norm, especially when there are known concrete evidence-backed solutions that would turn the tide on this crisis and improve our public health care system for both workers and patients,” Silas said.

Silas will be joined by provincial nursing union leaders at CFNU’s health care policy panel on July 22 in Huntsville, Ontario.

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The Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions (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.