Code
Black
& Blue
Over 1,650. That’s the number of front-line nursing positions that have been cut from Ontario's health-care system since January 2025. The consequences are impossible to ignore.
ERs are overflowing. Patients are crowded in hallways. There’s more violence, more burnout, and more nurses and health-care professionals leaving the field.
This is not sustainable. The solution is safe staffing.
It’s time to stand up for nurses and health-care professionals. Make safe staffing a priority now.
More cuts means
more problems.
More violence,
more burnout, and
more people leaving
the profession.
Death by
26,000 cuts.
Ontario already has the worst nurse-to-patient ratio in the country. Now, the province is planning to cut funding for another 2,522 nursing positions by 2028-29. That’s on top of the over 1,650 front-line nursing positions cut since January 2025.
Health-care spending is set to slow, leaving the province without the funding needed to maintain current levels of care, let alone improve them.
More cuts won’t make health care safer for nurses or their patients. Ontario needs safe staffing, not more cuts.
Ontario’s already
falling behind
The 2026 budget falls $3B short of what's needed to maintain current service levels.
“Fewer staff, trying to do the same
amount of work, is going to lead to
situations where violence will increase.”
This is what a system that’s under attack looks like.
The photo you’re seeing isn’t staged.
The weapons shown entered a hospital with a single individual who was fed up with the state of our system. They were seized by nurses—not security staff. This incident is just one example of how a broken system is impacting the safety of our nurses.
Dealing with physical and verbal violence is becoming a regular occurrence, even though 31% say they didn’t report it for fear of repercussions.
Fear has no place in Ontario’s health-care system, but that’s exactly what cuts cause.
This is not safe. The solution is safe staffing.
“In order to have safe working environments – you have to have safe patient ratios.”
Understaffing
equals violence
Over the past year alone, 63% of nurses say they've experience physical violence.
Violence.
Burnout.
Wait times.
Declining care quality.
Retention.
Recruitment.
Safety.
Cuts.
The solution is safe staffing.
The facts speak louder than Ford.
Ford says his government has made the largest health-care investments in Ontario’s history. But the numbers don’t lie. Ford isn’t telling the whole story. Our nurses are. It’s time to listen to them, and demand safe staffing now.
Privatization won’t make the cut. Safe staffing will.
$9 billion. That’s how much Ontario hospitals have spent on private nursing agencies in a decade. As Doug Ford’s government underfunds public health care and cuts nursing positions, hospitals are left paying for-profit agencies to fill staffing gaps.
Mandatory nurse-to-patient ratios would ensure there are enough nurses to provide safe care, improve patient outcomes and help retain nurses in Ontario’s public system.
Safe staffing isn’t optional. It’s essential to protecting nurses and patients.
25,000 nurses short. And still cutting.
Ontario is 25,000 registered nurses behind the national average. And the gap could get worse. In 2025, London Health Sciences Centre announced cuts to 288 RN positions, eliminating more than half a million hours of nursing care.
Now, planned provincial funding will support 2,522 fewer nurses by 2028-29. More cuts mean heavier workloads, greater risk of burnout and violence, and less capacity to provide safe patient care.
This is not sustainable. The solution is safe staffing.
Doug Ford Had a Choice. Ontario is paying for it.
More nurses than ever are reporting abuse, burnout, and a negative association with the levels of safety in their workplace. All from a lack of funding and poor ratios. This reality has led to over 130,000 days of work missed due to workplace violence, costing taxpayers over $38 million.
Doug Ford’s policies are actively antagonizing this situation, and the solution is simple: Enforced nurse-patient ratios and practical improvements in workplace safety, not continuous cuts.
Safety in numbers
Nursing ratios – having a safe number of patients for each nurse to care for – are proven to enhance the quality of care patients receive. For every additional patient a nurse takes on, a patient’s chances of suffering complications or dying increases by 7%. But safe staffing also dramatically improves the health-care system as a whole, while protecting front-line workers by reducing violence and burnout.
Better Nursing Ratios =
Enhanced Care + Less Burnout.
Sacramento, California experienced a 69% decrease in nursing vacancies within four years following the implementation of ratios. In Victoria, Australia, the number of employed nurses grew by more than 24%, with more than 7,000 inactive nurses returning to the workforce, after the implementation of ratios.
Retain the Knowledge.
Empower the Future.
25% of nurses in overcapacity workplaces considered leaving their jobs. When Ontario loses its experienced nurses to burnout, it loses that wisdom and skill forever. It doesn’t matter how many new nurses we add, the overall quality of care goes down when experienced nurses leave.
Safe staffing means less burnout and higher retention of our experienced nurses, leading to higher overall quality of health care.
More cuts aren’t sustainable.
The solution is safe staffing.
If Doug Ford wants to “protect Ontario”, we need to start with the people who protect us: our nurses and health-care professionals.
Send your MPP a message in support of Ontario’s nurses.
