provincial government Archives

This is why greedy pharmacists are costing taxpayers millions of dollars

March 11, 2019

This past week, Global News’ investigative team published an explosive investigation detailing how some pharmacists are making big bucks by scamming the Ontario Drug Benefit Program out of millions of dollars.

The ODB pays for medications for Ontario’s most vulnerable: children, the elderly and those on social assistance. When a qualified patient fills a prescription, they either don’t pay anything or pay a few dollars, and ODB covers the rest.

The program costs the province more than $5.4 billion a year.

Pharmacists bill the province every two weeks for medication dispensed to ODB patients and are paid shortly afterwards.

Dishonest pharmacists over-bill by tacking extra drugs that they never dispensed onto these bills so that they are reimbursed for more drugs than they have sold. Untold millions earmarked for the sick and needy end up in their pockets.

Read the full article at Global News

They say they suffered ‘cruel and sadistic’ abuse as kids at Ontario training schools — and the government paid them to keep quiet

December 8, 2017

The Ontario government has secretly settled hundreds of lawsuits alleging historic sexual, physical and emotional abuse by teachers and staff at provincially run schools for troubled youth, a Star investigation has found.

Staff and teachers were accused of sodomizing students, forcing them to perform oral sex, and pushing them to engage in “scrambles,” a sort of fight club where students were encouraged to beat one another.

Investigators devised sting operation to arrest Quebec MNA, Radio-Canada says

October 26, 2017

Quebec’s anti-corruption unit (UPAC) used a text message to trick a sitting MNA into a situation that led to his arrest, according to Radio-Canada sources.

Guy Ouellette was arrested Wednesday in connection with UPAC raids but has not been charged. He has since temporarily resigned from the Liberal Party caucus.

The Sûreté du Québec officer-turned-politician is considered to be a suspect in an investigation into information leaks, Radio-Canada says.

It’s believed someone disclosed information to the media about a confidential UPAC investigation into Liberal Party financing, an investigation that involved former premier Jean Charest and former party fundraiser Marc Bibeau.

Reevely: Hiding billions in hydro debt ‘unacceptable,’ Ontario’s auditor general says

October 17, 2017

Hiding billions of dollars the Ontario government is borrowing to lower electricity bills for a few years will cost hydro users an extra $4 billion, the province’s auditor general reported Tuesday morning.

Maybe worse, Bonnie Lysyk said in a special report on the Liberals’ “Fair Hydro Plan,” the tricks the government is using throw doubt on all the province’s books. The government, citizens, auditors and giant institutions that lend the province money are pretty much operating in a post-truth universe, where what the Liberals say is going on with Ontario’s finances has begun to drift from any previously understood shared reality.

Solitary confinement violates charter right to life, liberty, security: lawyer

August 28, 2017

VANCOUVER — Solitary confinement is a cruel and inhumane punishment with “truly horrific” consequences including severe psychological harm and suicide, a lawyer said Monday in arguing the law allowing the practice in Canada must be struck down.

Joe Arvay, representing the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association and the John Howard Society of Canada, delivered closing arguments in B.C. Supreme Court in a legal challenge of the use of indefinite isolation in prisons.

Health-care, harm reduction workers call on Ontario to declare opioid emergency

August 28, 2017

TORONTO — More than 700 doctors, nurses, harm reduction workers and academics are calling on Ontario to declare opioid overdoses and deaths an emergency, as British Columbia did last year.

The front-line workers delivered an open letter Monday to Premier Kathleen Wynne, saying limited resources and poor data are preventing them from responding properly to a disturbing and sustained increase in overdoses.

“The consequences have been clear: lives lost, families destroyed and harm reduction and healthcare worker burnout,” they write.

Hoskins will ‘express concerns’ about patient record software being used to sell drugs

August 3, 2017

Concerned for patients’ privacy and pocketbooks, Ontario’s health minister says he will tackle a new Big Pharma marketing scheme that uses electronic medical records to sell drugs.

Minister Eric Hoskins said he will ask Ontario’s College of Physicians and Surgeons to investigate how electronic vouchers that steer patients to brand name drugs over cheaper generics “may be impacting privacy, accessibility and affordability.”

He said he also plans to “express my concerns” with Telus Health, which inserts the electronic vouchers into its popular electronic medical record software (EMR) used by thousands of doctors across Canada.

Ontario owes teachers, education workers more than $100M for rights violations

June 15, 2017

TORONTO — Ontario is on the hook for more than $100 million and counting to compensate teachers and education workers for violating their rights.

Deals have so far been struck to pay the Canadian Union of Public Employees, the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation and the Ontario Public Service Employees Union.

A judge ruled last year that the government “substantially interfered with meaningful collective bargaining” in 2012 legislation that imposed contracts on teachers and education workers.

‘It is a failure on many levels’: Ontario failing to adequately support the elderly, critics say

June 5, 2017

With thousands of people on waiting lists for long-term care beds in this region, you might expect a new long-term care home in Ottawa to bring some relief.

But the Ontario government’s move to approve a new facility in the city’s west end without adding a single new bed to the mix is drawing criticism and frustration from doctors. It offers a glimpse, they say, into how the province is failing the elderly and not dealing with a growing health-care crisis.

Delta homeowners stunned by huge tax increases

May 31, 2017

Tsawwassen residents Ron and Verna Neufeld couldn’t believe their eyes when they opened their 2017 property tax bill and discovered it had gone up over 25 per cent in one year.

“As seniors on a fixed income, it’s a little bit shocking to get this kind of increase,” said Ron, 85.

Last year the Neufelds paid $3,269.65 in property taxes but this year they’ll be forking out $4,093.98, an increase of $824.

“That’s approaching $100 a month out of our budget. We certainly did not budget for that,” said Ron.