All parties should support more money for healthcare, says MPP McGarry

Cambridge MPPKathryn McGarrysaid it's important for all political parties to support the Liberal government'sincreased funding forhealthcare.

McGarry announced Cambridge Memorial Hospital would receive $1.99 million of the $822 million the province is investing in hospitals in 2018-2019.

• Kitchener hospitals to get $11.6M in provincial cash
• Ontario Liberals promise $822M in new funding to boost hospital care

"I fully believe all three parties should be ensuring that they are investing and also voting for a budget that contains the investment of healthcare," she told CBC News.

"Traditionally, both opposition parties have voted against the budgets that contain these increases and I find that shocking."

However, Kitchener-ConestogaMPPMichael Harris feels today's announcement falls short.

"Today the Liberals spent our money to put on local photo-ops, promising millions for hospital funding wait times that their government allowed to grow, and yet failed to even once acknowledge the close to six-year wait for delivery of twice-promised funding for critical EP services to serve the people of Waterloo Region," Harris said in a release.

Taking budget forward

The announcement came less than a week ahead of the Liberal's budget is released next Wednesday.

"Once we are able to vote on that budget, after the usual debate in the legislature, we will be passing this budget and there will be that $822 million extra in the 2018-19 hospital budgets across Ontario," she said.

That means even if there is a change in government as a result of the June election, that money will still go through.

However, McGarry notedthere is a fear that initiatives likeOHIPPlus could be cut if there is a change in government.

"With billions of dollars of cuts in the budget, it has to come from somewhere," she said."The biggest spending the Ontario government spends on is healthcare."