Code
Black
& Blue
More than 1,100 front-line nursing positions have been cut across Ontario since January 2025. And every day in Ontario, the consequences become more clear.
ERs are overflowing. Patients are crowded in hallways. There’s more violence, more burnout, and more nurses and health-care professionals leaving the field. Cutting more jobs isn’t the answer. Safe staffing is.
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 a
thousand cuts.
In a province that already has the worst nurse-to-patient ratio, 26,000 more RNs are needed to match the rest of the country. Instead of hiring the nurses and health-care professionals we need, the government is cutting them and redirecting public dollars to private, for-profit clinics.
You don’t fix a staffing crisis by firing staff. You don’t “protect Ontario” by gutting the people who actually protect Ontarians.
It’s time to demand more, not less.
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.”
Under attack in Ontario’s broken health-care system.
Nurses and health-care professionals have become the target for patients and families frustrated by the shortcomings of our overburdened health-care system. It's not uncommon for them to deal with physical and verbal violence, even if 31% of them said they didn't report it for fear of repercussions.
In what workplace is it acceptable to be pushed, spit at, kicked, punched, or strangled? Where insults and threats are hurled at you, but you are expected to continue working without support?
This is what the Ford Conservatives and employers deem acceptable in Ontario.
Understaffing
equals violence
Over the past year alone, 63% of nurses say they've experience physical violence.
Violence
Burnout
Declining care quality
Retention
Recruitment
The solution is safe staffing.
“In order to have safe working environments – you have to have safe patient ratios.”
Doug Ford isn’t listening to nurses.
Ontario’s health-care system is suffering a death
by a thousand cuts, all while the Ford Government continues its goal of further privatizing Ontario's public health care.
Nurses are still leaving the profession in record numbers due to unsafe staffing levels and
workplace violence.
Doug Ford’s numbers don’t add up.
Doug Ford insists he's investing in health care, but the predictions for Ontario’s needs tell another story. In reality, he’s funneling taxpayer dollars to fund private clinics, staffing agencies, and capital projects. We’re all paying the cost.
Fact: Ford’s budget is $3B short on what the FAO estimates is needed this year just to maintain 2024-2025 service levels. Next year, that gap widens to $7.3B.
Leading Ontario to last place. Again.
Since January 2025, more than 700 frontline health-care positions have been eliminated across Ontario. In London alone, planned cuts would eliminate more than 560,000 hours of RN care each year. At the same time, Ontario is on track to face a shortage of more than 30,000 nurses by the end of the decade.
Under Doug Ford, Ontario is moving in the wrong direction. We can’t afford to be in this scenario any longer.
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.
Safe staffing
saves lives.
It’s time to protect nurses and
health-care professionals.
Send your MPP a message in support of Ontario’s nurses.
