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Re: Toronto Star story of donor’s $203 million to CAMH

October 31, 2024   ·   0 Comments

What a generous gift made by Bruce McKean and to a facility in need of this kind of support—as does the whole, inadequate system of attention to mental health. 

I don’t like to be the skunk at the garden party but when I go into a hospital where every elevator wall, every poster, every flat-screen TV is begging me for dollars, I want to ask, yell, why is health care paid for increasingly by those amongst us who have lots of disposable income? Some want naming rights. It seems every door, every piece of furniture and equipment has someone’s name on it. At my local hospital, the top donors are handing out $60,000 or more. Each category has a title, depending on the size of your gift. Someday in the next who knows when? we will get an MRI. In a fancy press conference, a year of so ago, the Minister of Health (our MPP here in Dufferin Caledon), to much applause, announced that the MoH would fund operating costs. The rest of it, the machine itself, is up to the deep pockets in the riding. THAT is not universal health care. It’s social policy by plutocracy. I am aware that this has been the practice for a long time; still, it needs to come to an end. It is a reflection of a growing gap between our lowest and highest income-earners and who has the ear of political power. 

For years now, we have watched this government siphon off public dollars into private pockets! Why are we not in the streets protesting this? Why is that Ontario has the second lowest per capita funding of health care in the entire country? Where’s the money?  Oh, well, there’s messing with Ontario Place, setting up for-profit surgeries, spending a billion or more so that we can get beer in corner stores rather than waiting one year until the agreement with The Beer Store owners ran out as planned. Then there’s 413—the highway we don’t need:  think of it as Greenbelt disaster chapter next, once again feathering already-wealthy lifestyles of land developers we thought we had sent packing. I could go on, the list is soooo long. Minister, Premier, quit squandering our money. You can keep this household’s $400—your latest attempt to bribe us with our own funds. And please return the licence fee for our mostly-polluting cars. 

Sincerely,

Rev’d LeeAnn McKenna 

Mono

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