A Commentary By Doug Draper
Ontario’s health minister slipped into Niagara for a few hours the other day, but not so that most of us would know it.
Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews
There were no invitations for the media at large to attend this event to ask the honourable health minister a few questions and the only way I found out about it was after it was over, when someone slipped me a notice on the event that appeared on the Ontario Liberal Party’s website.
Now let me continue by saying that I covered Katie Trombetta when she served, in her role as mayor, on Niagara’s regional council, and I came to respect her and I wish her luck with her first provincial election campaign. And if I could give her a bit of unsolicited advice as someone does a little communications consulting on the side, if she had any photos taken at the cocktail reception of her with Matthews, I would seriously consider not using them on any of my campaign material for this October’s provincial election.
If you’re a Liberal candidate anywhere in Niagara, and you’re going to feature a picture of yourself and this health minister in any campaign pamphlets, you might just as well find out where Debbie Sevenpifer, the president and chief executive officer of the Niagara Health System until she was bounced out of the job this past winter, and have your picture taken with her too.
Come to think of it, there are already enough pictures of Sevenpifer with the Liberal MPP for St. Catharines and cabinet minister Jim Bradley, all while she was still in charge of the NHS, when the hospital emergency rooms were closed in Port Colborne and Fort Erie, and other acute care services were reduced in Niagara’s south end , and while the work went ahead on the new hospital complex for the region in the west end of Bradley’s riding. And I have the impression some of Bradley’s political opponents are thinking about pulling a few of those golden oldies out come election time.
At any rate, there was Matthews this July 20 at a cocktail party in Niagara, all while this region continues to wrestle with a deadly outbreak of C. difficile in hospitals managed by the NHS, and so many citizens in this region who may not be Liberal partisans that would yuk it up for her at a fundraiser, but are citizens of this region just the same, remain seriously concerned about the way our hospitals are being managed and the erosion of quality health care services.
This July 20, on the same day Matthews slipped in and out of Niagara following the partisan Liberal love fest, Hudak’s Conservatives circulated a list of questions that should have been asked of her while she was here. They include the following:
· Why Dalton McGuinty closed emergency rooms in Fort Erie and Port Colborne.
· Why she has all but disappeared during the current outbreak of C. Difficile in Niagara, causing even one local McGuinty Liberal MPP to charge that she was “insulting the intelligence of the people in this area.”
· Why she has failed to clean up problems at the Niagara Health System (NHS) illustrated again this week when Niagara Falls Councillor Joyce Morocco’s husband was told to call an ambulance to bring her in from the hospital parking lot.
· Why she allowed health care dollars meant for frontline patient care to be used for a secret payout to Debbie Sevenpifer, former CEO of the NHS.
· Why she continues to defend her hand-picked appointees at the Local Health Integration Network who held illegal, secret meetings and so-called ‘consultations’ on golf courses and grocery store line-ups.
· Why she built a fancy new building for her LHIN bureaucrats instead of building the new West Lincoln Memorial Hospital.
These are all good questions that will most certainly be asked again and again of Liberal candidates across Niagara as the Oct. 6 election approaches. ….
I would add at least one more; “Since you approved the building of a $1.5-billion hospital complex in the north end of Niagara, in Bradley’s riding – a major acute care facility for this region that should have gone in a more central location in this region for all of its residents – when are you going to promise to build a new acute care hospital for the people of south Niagara?
I’ll bet you that one never came up at the cocktail party.
(We encourage you to share your comments at the bottom of this post and we include here, for your information, a related media release circulated this July 22 by the provincial Conservatives.)
Niagara Families in Need of Progress Report from Health Minister
NEWS:
QUEEN’S PARK – In the latest round of so-called “progress reports” Dalton McGuinty’s Health Minister, Deb Matthews, will hold a press conference at Queens Park today to talk about her governments’ record on Health and Long-term Care. This press conference was originally scheduled to be held on July 14th, but hastily cancelled during a severe break out of C. difficile in Niagara and related deaths.
This breakout was the latest in a series of events in Niagara under the ongoing disastrous management of the Niagara Health System by the McGuinty Liberals that has led to a crisis of confidence in the health care system for Niagara families. However, despite the community’s need for answers the Minister of Health has also failed to go to Niagara to reassure residents that this situation is under control.
However, Deb Matthews did have time to slip quietly into Niagara for a $250/plate Liberal Party fundraiser on Wednesday night. While she was there she never held a single public event to discuss the health crisis facing Niagara families. Deb Matthews’ actions show the McGuinty Liberals are more concerned about politics than dealing with the real health care issues facing Niagara families.
QUOTES:
“Deb Matthews needs to explain to Niagara families why she found the time to show up for a Liberal Party fundraiser, but couldn’t be bothered to hold a public event in Niagara to update Niagara families on what she was doing to get the C. difficile crisis under control.”
— Lisa MacLeod Ontario PC MPP
“The failure of Health Minister Deb Matthews to hold public meetings in Niagara when she was there this week demonstrates a significant lack of leadership of the McGuinty Liberal Government.”
— Lisa MacLeod Ontario PC MPP
QUICK FACTS:
· · Joyce Wester, one of many Niagara residents who rallied to protest the Niagara Health System said, “The public is not stupid. The public can see through the government words and messages. The public knows the truth because we’re smack dab in the middle of the truth and we’re experiencing the truth.” (QMI Agency, July 6, 2011)
· · At least 24 patients in the Niagara region have died in the C. difficile outbreak.
· · Liberal MPP Kim Craitor attacked Liberal Health Minister Deb Matthews saying he “went ballistic” Deb Matthews because she was “insulting the intelligence of the people of [Niagara].” (Toronto Star, July 11, 2011)
Niagara At Large 
She must have come in the middle of the night…..had we in The Yellow Shirt Brigade only known, we would’ve loved to have a welcoming party for her….by now there are probably a lot of overripe tomatoes in Grimsby to greet her with.
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A well kept secret from the Southern Tier,,,,,Maybe she is a wee smarter then we give her credit for.
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I thought I heard a “FEW” remarks made by Andrea Horwath and her collegues during their many visits, meetings and rallies in support of the peoples of Southern Niagara including the Yellow Shirts. She arranged seating and meetings at queen’s park and yet as usual all we hear or read aboutin “ALL” medias is what Craitor or Hudak is saying or doing.
This is disturbing yet we do not mind being called “Left Leaning” because it was the “Right” that is selling the common folk of this province, and this country down the river of lost dreams.
I might be censored for this but it is the truth and I try to live by the truth regardless!
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As publisher of Niagara At Large, I feel I must respond to the comment by Joseph Somers.
Mr. Somers notes that all “we” hear or read about in “All medias” is what Kim Craitor, the Liberal representative for Niagara Falls, and Tim Hudak, the Niagara area MPP and leader of the opposition Conservative Party, have to say.
If “All medias” includes Niagara At Large, I must take exception to this.
Anyone who is a regular reader of Niagara At Large or has just discovered us and wants to scroll down 50 or 200 stories posted here over the past six months to a year, could hardly argue that the Ontario NDP has not been heard here. In fact, NAL has posted numerous media releases from NDP leader Andrea Horwath and members of her caucus that never saw the light of day in the daily or weekly newspapers in this region or anywhere else. We’ve given so much space to the NDP that we have had some of our readers who are non-partisan or have partisan ties to the Liberals or Conservatives, accuse us of being a venue for the NDP, which we are not.
I have also drawn their attention to the fact that we have included a good deal of news, including uncut media releases from the Liberals and Conservatives, on this site, as well.
If Mr. Somers or anyone else wants NAL to function as a propaganda tool for one political party or another, then I am afraid they have come to the wrong place. Go back to reading the Welland Tribune or St. Catharines Standard.
Doug Draper – Niagara At Large
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I surely do not want NAL to be a propaganda tool for any group political or other and I thank Doug Draper for pointing that out to me as well as others who might think differently The NAL has been the “only” ray of light in the darkness that has shrouded the events and happening in the Southern extremes of Niagara Region and Doug Draper has been front and centre in his efforts to unveil the secrets pacts that have been the operating strategy of these public corporations I am aware of your accusers and I “am not one of them” as I respect your integrity as a writer and as a person.
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