Over the last nine months, the Ontario Medical Association has engaged in the most comprehensive consultation in our 140-year history.

We involved people in every part of the province – doctors, nurses, other health-care professionals, community leaders and residents – in a discussion about how to fix the cracks in the health-care system that were exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and how to change the way health care is delivered for the better.

We launched an online survey open to every resident of Ontario so that we could hear all points of view. We asked people to tell us their health-care priorities and how health care in their community can be improved. Almost 8,000 people from hundreds of communities large and small and in every region and riding in the province took part.

Ontarians overwhelmingly want better health care. More than one-third of those who answered our survey said that improving local health care was more important than any other issue facing the province. Half said health care should be given the same high priority as economic recovery.

Ontario’s doctors have listened. We are leading the way forward with a plan that was developed from the grassroots up to create a more integrated and sustainable health-care system for all Ontarians.