Ontario Health Coalition

CODE RED: A People’s Summit to Save Public Health Care & Large Rally with Car Cavalcade

July 21, 2025 at 10:30 AM -
July 22, 2025 at 2:30 PM Hidden Valley Resort 1755 Valley Rd Huntsville, ON P1H 1A8

All events are free and lunch is provided at the Shadow Summit.

CODE RED: A People’s Summit to Save Public Health Careand Large Rally with Car Cavalcade at the Council of the Federation Monday July 21 and Tuesday July 22

All the provincial and territorial premiers from across Canada will be in Huntsville for their annual meeting hosted by Doug Ford this year at Deerhurst Resort just outside Huntsville near Algonquin Provincial Park from Monday July 21 – Wednesday July 23.

At the same time the Health Coalitions from across Canada — alongside patient groups, seniors’ organizations, public health care workers, and organized labour — are gathering, rising up, and demanding urgent action to address the health care crisis. We are working in solidarity to support environmental and Indigenous organizations protecting the environment and treaty rights.

We will join together to hold a Shadow Summit just down the road on the first day of the Council of the Federation (Monday). The next day (Tuesday) the Canadian Health Coalition will join us to host a rally & car cavalcade attended by everyone.

Background

As Canada’s premiers meet behind closed doors, our public health care system is in open crisis. Runaway privatization is taking funding and staff away from public health care services. Staffing shortages are a national catastrophe forcing emergency departments to close and leaving health care workers with impossible workloads while patients wait longer and suffer more. Private clinics are violating the Canada Health Act, charging patients hundreds to thousands of dollars for surgeries and diagnostic tests in illegal user fees and extra-billing. Seniors can’t access the care they need. Mental health and addiction services are underfunded, subject to privatization and cuts, or are simply unavailable. Millions still do not have access to family medicine. The implementation of the first phase pharmacare (drug coverage for all) has stalled.

All this is happening as billions are poured into militarization and border enforcement — billions earmarked for Donald Trump’s priorities while the urgent daily health care needs of people are not being addressed.

This Shadow Summit is a call to action. While our political leaders talk about new “nation-building” plans, those things that have created equity and a more just society in our nation-building over the last century – a world class public health system, environmental and labour protections, the first steps towards reconciliation with First Nations and Indigenous Peoples – are at risk. If the only pressure our governments feel comes from Donald Trump and the corporate agenda, we will lose them.

It is our obligation to stand in support behind First Nations and Indigenous peoples who are fighting to protect their treaty rights, finally achieve access to clean and safe water, and get the health care services their communities need.

We reject expanding war budgets and gutting regulatory protections while patients and health care workers are left to beg for care. We need to mount countervailing public pressure to demand funding for public health care, an end to rampant privatization schemes led by the governments in Ontario and Alberta, and true public solutions to the crisis.

Access to universal, comprehensive public health care is a core foundation of any just economy. Any government that claim to prioritize the economy while ignoring the collapse of health care has lost their moral compass.

Now is the time to stand up for public health care and the values it represents: equity, compassion, dignity, and care for all.

Canadians overwhelmingly support our public system. It’s time for governments to listen — and act. 

Hosted by the Canadian Health Coalition, Ontario Health Coalition & the Ontario Federation of Labour

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Shadow Summit, Car Cavalcade & Rally

Monday July 21 – Shadow Summit 
at Hidden Valley Resort, 1755 Valley Rd, Huntsville, ON P1H 1A8 (next door to Deerhurst Resort where the Premiers are meeting).

  • 10:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. Opening plenary

Updates on key issues from the Canadian Health Coalition, the BC Health Coalition, Manitoba Health Coalition, Nova Scotia Health Coalition, Ontario Health Coalition, a coalition representative from Quebec, and others.

  • 11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m. Workshops (see below for list & registration)

Presenters leading the workshops in the morning and afternoon include representatives from the BC Health Coalition, Canadian Health Coalition, Manitoba Health Coalition, Ontario Health Coalition, Council of Canadians, representatives from other provinces with expertise in what is happening in their health care systems, the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition and mental health advocacy organizations, Indigenous organizations, patient advocates, doctors with expertise in pharmaceuticals and pharmacare, experts on laboratory privatization, health professionals from across Canada, union leaders and care workers from health are unions across the country, and others. 

  • 1 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. Lunch (provided on site without cost to participants)
  • 2:30 p.m. – 4 p.m. Workshops (see below for details)
  • 4 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. Closing plenary

Quick briefing about plans for the rallies and car cavalcades the next day.

  • 8 p.m. – 11 p.m. Bonfire on the front lawn, close to the beach

Tuesday July 22 – Rallies outside the Premiers’ Meeting, Car cavalcade, Roadside action on Highway 60, Leafletting

  • 12 – 2:30 p.m. Car Cavalcade & Rallies – Gather outside the parking lot of the Hidden Valley Resort and be ready to leave at 12 p.m. Marshalls will show you where to line up cars and buses. We will make a car/bus cavalcade up the hill then stop and rally outside Deerhurst (shortly after 12 p.m.) where the Council of the Federation is meeting, then car cavalcade down Highway 60, through Huntsville, and back up Highway 11 to final very visible rally at corner of Highway 11 & Highway 60. For buses and cars planning time to leave to go home, we will be finished between 2 and 2:30 p.m.

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Details and Registration

Please register by filling out the registration form attached as a document and below in this email. Then, email it to info@ontariohc.ca.

If you are bringing in a bus for the rallies & car cavalcade on Tuesday, July 22 please skip to Section II.

If you are coming to the Shadow Summit and events on Monday, July 21, please fill in section I. (If you have a bus coming for Monday, July 21, please also fill in Section I.)

SECTION I.
Registration for Events and Activities on Monday, July 21

Please fill in this section if you are coming to the events on Monday July 21. If you are coming only for Tuesday July 22, skip down to SECTION II.

Please indicate the activities you are registering for by putting an “x” between the yellow brackets like so: [x]


SHADOW SUMMIT
at Hidden Valley Resort, 1755 Valley Rd, Huntsville, ON P1H 1A8

[  ]  10:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. OPENING PLENARY

11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m. WORKSHOPS (choose one):

[  ]  Breaking Medicare: The evidence from across Canada on for-profit clinics’ impact on public hospitals and two-tier Medicare

[  ]  One step forward… The fight to implement & expand public pharmacare across Canada

[  ]  Put the care back in health care: Status of efforts across Canada to win improved care/staffing standards in long-term and continuing care and staffing ratios in hospitals

[  ]  Health care that is truly for all: the efforts to secure health care as a human right, including for migrant workers & people denied health care due to their immigration status

[  ]  Home and community care: what are the best models and lessons in home care reform across Canada to emulate?

[  ]  1 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. LUNCH

2:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. WORKSHOPS (choose one):

[  ]  Re-Publicizing Medicare: Turning around privatization across Canada
From Alberta’s labs to Saskatchewan’s
long-term care to the rollback of private clinics in various provinces, where and how privatization is being defeated across the country.

[  ]  Health care for profit: the privatization of primary care & virtual care
Telus Babylon, Shoppers Drug Mart, Maple… names we have never associated with health care have taken over virtual care. Primary care also is being privatized. What is happening and the issues that arise from it.

[  ]  The opioid crisis, the attack on harm reduction & the privatization of mental health & addictions

[  ]  The fightback against for-profit staffing agencies across Canada: where we are at & what’s next
Quebec, Manitoba and New Brunswick have announced action. This workshop will look at where things are at and what our movements are doing.

[  ]  Help to create floats and visuals for the mass rally

[  ]  4 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. CLOSING PLENARY


EVENING EVENTS MONDAY JULY 21
[  ]  8 p.m. – 11 p.m. BONFIRE & SOCIAL on the front lawn, close to the beach

Registration Form

Name:
Organization:
Email:
Phone:
Street Address:
Apartment/Unit #:
Postal Code:
City:
Province:
**Please make sure you put an “x” beside the activities that you want to attend on Monday, July 21 (see the yellow highlighted areas above)

SECTION II.
Bus registration for Car Cavalcade and Rallies Tuesday, July 22

Contact Name:
Organization:
Email:
Phone:
Name of Bus Captain (person on bus who will be key contact):
Bus Captain’s Cell #:
Bus Captain’s Email:
How many seats on the bus (approx.):
Estimated time of arrival at Hidden Valley Resort parking lot:

When we receive your bus registration, we will send a bus package with all the information you and your bus driver will need.

List of Accommodations Nearby

We have gathered some potential accommodation spots in the Huntsville area. The events would start at 10:30 am on Monday July 21 and end at 2 pm on Tuesday July 22, to give you an idea of the timing when deciding on accommodation.

We are aware that some folks have booked Air BnBs such as a $500 cabin that’s on Fairy Lake with 5 rooms ($100/person). Also, there are entire cottages to rent next to Deerhurst on Fairy Lake if you look on the map and would like to stay at one of those locations.

Little cabin resorts

Hotels and inns

*****PLEASE NOTE OUR NEW EMAIL ADDRESS – info@OntarioHC.ca *****