April 2, 2026
by Iris Gorfinkel, Contributor to the Star
Iris Gorfinkel is a family physician and clinical researcher in Toronto.
Last week, a woman in her 70s told me she’d waited 21 hours in the ER with a worsening cough before being sent home with puffers that hadn’t helped. She isn’t unusual. In January, patients admitted to Ontario hospitals from the ER waited an average of 20.3 hours — more than two and a half times the eight-hour target. If you think that’s bad, Ontario’s 2026 budget all but guarantees ER waits will get worse.
The 2026 budget promises hospitals a one-time $1.1-billion infusion — including up to a 4 per cent increase in base hospital funding. The problem? It falls far short of the system-wide investment that’s required. Even that was likely an underestimate because the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario’s (FAO) 4 per cent benchmark was calculated before the price increases resulting from U.S. tariffs and rising fuel costs.
Ontario Hospital Association president Anthony Dale warns that Ontario’s hospitals are grappling with a “billion-dollar structural deficit that is growing rapidly.”
Budget 2026 isn’t belt-tightening — it’s fiscal policy designed to fail.
Read more at the Star.com (Pay wall)
