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NDP blasts Doug Ford’s million-dollar contract to former PC party president

During question period Tuesday,  NDP health critic France Gélinas questioned Premier Doug Ford on his decision to award a million-dollar contract to the former president of the Ontario PC party.

 

Rueben Devlin will be paid $348,000 each year during his three year term – over $1 million in total – to provide advice on the health care system.

“The last Liberal government pushed Ontario’s hospitals to the brink. Hallway medicine and painfully long wait times have become the new normal inside our hospitals,” said Gélinas, MPP for Nickel Belt. “But instead of taking urgent steps to fix it, the premier handed a contract – worth over a million dollars – to one of his friends, the former president of the Conservative party. Why was Doug Ford’s first act in health care an act of blatant political patronage?”

 

Gélinas said $1 million would be better spent hiring nurses and providing more front-line care — not on an advisor with a questionable record.  In 2006, the hospitals run by Devlin had the second-worst death rate in Canada.

 

“While nurses warned of chronic understaffing at his hospitals, he shut down three Toronto hospitals sites and replaced them with just one P3 hospital,” said Gélinas. “Why did the premier hand a million-dollar-contract to his friend instead of investing in frontline health services?”

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