Catherine Fife MPP, Waterloo

Government of Ontario

Fife Demands Premier Wynne Stop Privatization Plans for eHealth

Published on October 18, 2016

Queen’s Park – During Question Period today, NDP Finance critic and Kitchener-Waterloo MPP , Catherine Fife, demanded Premier Wynne stop her plans to sell off eHealth after her government ordered privatization czar Ed Clark to look into how much the market will pay for the public digital health asset.

“The Premier says she wants to improve digital health care options.  But her Minister didn’t write to Ed Clark asking for ways to improve our public digital health assets. Instead, Premier Wynne’s minister asked Ed Clark to figure out how much money the government could get for selling them off,” Fife said.

“Can the Premier explain why she needs to know how much money she’ll get for selling eHealth in order to improve it?”

The Minister of Health wrote to Ed Clark asking him to figure out the “value of our existing digital health assets.”  He was asking how much they would be worth if the Premier sold them.

“The Premier seems to suggest that in order for Ed Clark to improve our digital health assets, he needs to figure out how much they’re worth on the open market. It doesn’t make sense. Even with Liberal math, it doesn’t add up,” Fife said.

“What is the Premier actually interested in when she looks into how much cash she can get from eHealth and our public digital health assets?”