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Ontario aims to get 300,000 patients off doctor wait-list with new clinics

Friday, April 11th, 2025

… the government plans to establish up to 80 new or expanded clinics — featuring teams of doctors, nurse practitioners and other health-care providers — based on postal codes with the biggest need in communities such as Toronto, Durham and Halton regions, Ottawa, and up north in Nipissing and Sudbury… Using postal codes will allow the government to “put some investments in teams in those areas to be able to have that big impact as quickly as possible, recognizing there is need everywhere,”

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Canada unveils new restrictions on work permits for international students, spouses

Monday, January 22nd, 2024

Starting on Sept. 1, the federal government will stop issuing postgraduate work permits to international students who graduate from programs provided under so-called Public College-Private Partnerships, Immigration Minister Marc Miller said… “I’m not the minister of post-secondary education underfunding. I’m the minister of immigration. Clearly in the last decade or so or even longer, post-secondary institutions in Canada have been underfunded by provinces.”

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Hospitals plagued by staff shortages and ER closures under Ford government, auditor general finds

Wednesday, December 6th, 2023

Plagued by shortages of doctors and nurses and persistent emergency room closures, Ontario lacks a province-wide strategy to fix the problems, the watchdog agency said in a wide-ranging audit of government performance… The worsening staff shortages have been fuelled by the Ford government’s Bill 124, which limited nurses and many other public sector workers to maximum annual pay hikes of one per cent, the auditor found.

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Ontario is first province to make mental health lessons mandatory in Grade 10

Tuesday, May 2nd, 2023

Now, the government will be providing consistent, required learning materials on mental health in Grades 7 and 8, including videos and activities about how to handle and recognize stress. In Grade 10, students — as part of the mandatory career studies — will be taught the signs of anxiety and being overwhelmed, and where to go for help. 

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Supporters fight to keep midwifery program in northern Ontario

Monday, April 26th, 2021

… approximately 27 per cent of families who choose midwifery care are unable to access it — and far more so in the north… in northern Ontario, some 60 per cent of midwives are Laurentian graduates, and more than 90 per cent of Francophone midwives practising in places such as Sudbury, Thunder Bay, Hearst and Attawapiskat First Nation… the program was in the black this year and that a petition to keep it going has more than 20,000 signatures.

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Ontario pledges $106.4M for university, college COVID-19 costs

Saturday, March 20th, 2021

The Council of Ontario Universities (COU) estimates its 21 members have spent or lost $1 billion during the pandemic, but found $500 million in one-time savings. It has said there is “an urgent need for sector-wide cost recovery.” … “while this targeted and time-limited investment will help address some urgent and immediate costs, it does not address the significant long-term financial needs of the sector.”

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Province to scrap controversial teacher hiring rule

Thursday, October 15th, 2020

The Ontario government is going to… scrap a controversial hiring rule that gives preference to supply teachers with the most seniority… After years of complaints from boards and principals about Regulation 274 — which essentially forces them to hire from among a small group of teachers who have spent the most time on the supply list… Education Minister Stephen Lecce… prefers that schools hire the best fit for the job.

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School pandemic plans don’t work for working parents, province told

Thursday, July 9th, 2020

Other jurisdictions are thinking outside the box so students aren’t simply divvied into groups and told to attend classes half-days or every other day — and Ontario should be too… The “hybrid” model of in-class and online learning “leaves working parents with young children, single-parent households and low-income families in the precarious position of having to choose between educating their children and their own employment,”

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Ontario to end streaming in Grade 9 and change other ‘racist, discriminatory’ practices

Monday, July 6th, 2020

The Ontario government plans to end streaming in Grade 9 — a long-standing practice that research has found disproportionately impacts Black and low-income students and severely limits their chance of graduating and going on to post-secondary education… The province will also introduce a ban on suspending younger, elementary-school kids — Black students are again disproportionately affected — and improve diversity in hiring and promotions.

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Ontario expands emergency child care to include families of grocery-store workers, truck drivers

Thursday, April 30th, 2020

“While our front-line workers are looking after us, we need to make sure we’re looking after them and their families,” Premier Doug Ford said Wednesday… The workers now to be covered also include those employed in meat packing and other food supply businesses, members of the armed forces, truck drivers, cooks and cleaning staff in health-care facilities and nursing homes, and on-site staff in Ontario’s courts.

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