Former Liberal health minister to lead Ontario’s new Primary Care Action Team

A former federal Liberal health minister will lead the Ford government’s new provincial Primary Care Action Team, which aims to connect people in Ontario to primary care within the next five years.

Dr. Jane Philpott will serve as chair and start the new role on Dec. 1.

“There’s no one I trust more than Dr. Philpott with her considerable experience to keep moving us forward and get us across the finish line of connecting everyone in the province to more convenient primary health care within the next five years,” Health Minister Sylvia Jones said in a release on Monday.

“Doing so will have enormous benefits for people’s health and wellbeing, as well as the province’s health care system by reducing pressures on emergency departments.”

According to the Canada Institute for Health Information, 90 per cent of Ontarians have access to a regular health care provider.

The province said it wants to “close the gap” for the remaining 10 per cent of people in this province who don’t have access to a primary health-care team.

“Our goal will be for 100 per cent of Ontarians to be attached to a family doctor or nurse practitioner working in a publicly funded team, where they receive ongoing, comprehensive care, and people can access that care in a timely way,” Dr. Philpott said in a statement.

The Ford government said Dr. Philpott will draw on an interprofessional model of primary care that she designed with colleagues in the Frontenac, Lennox and Addington Ontario Health Team.

According to the province, the plan will include ensuring better service on weekends and after-hours, reducing administrative burden on family doctors and other primary care professionals and improving connections to specialists and digital tools.

Dr. Philpott previously served as minister of Health and Indigenous Services in Trudeau’s government but resigned in 2019 in the wake of the SNC Lavalin scandal and is now a professor at Queen’s University.

Her appointment comes as the province faces ongoing criticism over Ontarians not being access a family doctor in this province.

It was also announced on the day legislature resumed after an unusually long summer break, and returned in the midst of intense speculation that Premier Doug Ford will call an early election.

The next fixed election date isn’t until June 2026. But Ford has left the door open to calling one next year, giving his own caucus members a December deadline to decide if they will run again.

Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria also introduced a bill aimed at tackling gridlock in the GTA.

 Sarkaria has announced that his bill will include facilitating construction 24 hours a day, accelerating property acquisitions and an environmental assessment for Highway 413 and requiring municipalities to ask the province for permission to install bike lanes when they would remove a lane of vehicle traffic.