From Queen’s Park Insider to Healthcare Casualty: Former Aide Trapped in OHIP Gridlock

Charles MacDonald worked at Queen’s Park. He still wasn’t equipped to deal with Ontario’s health care system

Sept. 19, 2026
By Steve Paikin Contributing Columnist

Steve Paikin is a contributing columnist at the Star and the host of “The Paikin Podcast.”

Charles MacDonald’s nickname is “The Hero” and it’s not hard to see why. In January 1990, when he was 16, the car he was driving skidded on black ice in eastern Ontario near Prescott, was rammed by another driver, and burst into flames. MacDonald sustained burns to 85 per cent of his body. His family was told he’d be dead in two weeks. Somehow, after dozens of surgeries, he survived, but it’s taken decades of myriad encounters with health care systems to remain alive. Now, at 54, MacDonald is in the midst of a bureaucratic foofaraw with the Ontario health care system which, if it persists, could result in the amputation of one of his feet.