It was a curious decision by the media conglomerate putting on the Tuesday’s leaders debate. Limiting viewer questions to six, you’d have thought one of them would have dealt with Ontario’s struggling health care system.
As it was, health care was raised only by NDP leader Andrea Horwath, when she noted the NDP’s wait time pledge in her final summary.
The Ontario Medical Association and Nanos suggest Ontarians were dealt a disservice by the way the conglomerate produced the program. According to a poll taken between May 22-26, more than two-thirds of Ontarians (67.6%) said a strong health care platform would have an impact on their vote.
Further 87.9 per cent said that health care is an important issue to them personally.
We’ve previously noted that politicians consider health care the “third rail” during elections, but clearly there are significant differences in how the parties would approach both funding and organization.
This week CBC’s Vote Compass further noted that more than half of its respondents want the government to spend money on health care even if it means raising taxes.
Asked if health-care funding “should be increased, even if it meant higher taxes,” 54 per cent agreed.
Check out our election page if you would like to see how those differences add up.
OPSEU Diablogue 
Already noted by the Toronto Star, the leaders were invited to a one hour program on the campus of UofT with host Michael Decter. Topic: healthcare. Takers: none. That leaves it up to Dr. Bob Bell. Here’s hoping.