ABSTRACT
Between 2001 and 2006, the Ontario Health Coalition (OHC) consisted of eight unions and a wide variety of community organizations, including seniors’ organizations, the left-nationalist Council of Canadians, and approximately thirty-five active local health coalitions situated around the province. The dual strategy of political pressure through the New Democratic Party and unions’ social agitation in the community successfully opened the state to popular influence—for instance, securing universal health care. For the OHC, the royal commission was both a threat and an opportunity. It was a space the privatization lobby could use to try to break universal health insurance, but OHC participants suspected that the commission could also be used to build a movement that could fortify Medicare. The OHC began the Public-private partnerships (P3) campaign in the two cities where the P3 hospitals had been proposed, and its capacity was shaped by the presence of volunteers in those cities.
