MPP Arnott delivers sharp rebuke to McGuinty Government for Minister of Health’s lack of action on Ontario doctor shortage

MPP Ted Arnott has criticized the McGuinty Liberals for their role in the doctor shortage crisis in Ontario. In his statement to the Ontario Legislature on October 2nd, he made particular reference to the conduct of the Minister of Health, the Hon. George Smitherman, who was recently appointed Deputy Premier in the McGuinty Government. The following is the text of his statement:

Mr. Ted Arnott (Waterloo-Wellington): This past week, the Minister of Health and newly-minted Deputy Premier tarnished the whole Government with his disgraceful and appalling performance inside and outside this House.

With bombast, bluster and buffoonery, this Minister has taken no new constructive steps towards solving the Ontario doctor shortage. Instead he has acted more like a “pit bull,” which I thought the Attorney General had banned last year.

First, he blamed the local hospital officials for the emergency room crisis at Grand River Hospital in Kitchener-Waterloo, then he blamed the Members of both Opposition parties, even though today is the third anniversary of the election of the Liberal Party as the Government, and he has been Minister of Health for three years this very month, then last Thursday on CBC Radio he threatened all Ontario hospitals with reductions in their operating budgets if they defied his dictates, after he had said that the Cambridge solution was OK for now but nobody else better do it. Then on Saturday he was quoted by the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, uttering politically slanderous comments against the Member for Kitchener-Waterloo in an unprecedented, unjustified personal attack, entirely consistent with the Liberal Party's nasty and failed by-election strategy in Parkdale-High Park.

Having ignored prudent warnings for months about the emergency room problem and the doctor shortage in Ontario, the Minister would now want people to believe that he is the hero who kept the emergency room at Grand River Hospital open. However, the Record has it right in their editorial of today, when they ask: “why did he not act earlier?”

All in all, an embarrassing debut for the new Deputy Premier, calling into question the Premier’s judgement in making the appointment in the first place.