National Day of Action - Participate in our letter writing campaign!

March 16th is a National Day of Action on Alberta's Bill 11, which threatens public healthcare across Canada and creates opportunities for a two-tier healthcare system in Alberta and, if left unchallenged, Canada-wide. The health cards that once united us will be left behind while private, for-profit insurance takes priority. Alberta’s private insurance bill takes us back to the time before Saskatchewan's own Tommy Douglas established universal Medicare, when access to hospitals and doctors depended on what you could afford.

This is American health care at our doorstep. By introducing private, for-profit insurance, Alberta is opening the door to the American for-profit health care industry to permanently reshape Canada’s health system.  Alberta’s private insurance bill violates the principles of Universality and Accessibility set out in the Canada Health Act and will dismantle its core promise that health care must be based on need, not the ability to pay.  When patients are billed at their most vulnerable, there is no choice. It becomes a matter of survival. Those who can pay jump the queue, while everyone else is left behind. 

Doctors and nurses cannot be in two places at once. A two-tier system drains staff from the public system and drives longer wait times for everyone else.

Private insurance corporations have made it clear that Alberta alone is too small a market. Their goal is national expansion. What starts in one province will not stay there. We are asking our supporters to participate in the national letter writing or phone calling campaign to their local Liberal MP, in Saskatchewan that is MP Buckley Belanger, he is located in La Ronge.  There are two ways to participate:

- write a letter to the only Liberal MP we have in Saskatchewan - a sample letter is below, you can sign and mail the letter to the address noted in the letterhead OR email it;

- or you can call his office at:

Ottawa

Buckley Belanger

House of Commons

Ottawa, ON

K1A 0A6

(No postage required!)

Phone: 613-995-8321

You can reach the office of Buckley Belanger at buckley.belanger@parl.gc.ca

Here is the sample letter:

March 16, 2026

Mr. Buckley Belanger, M.P.

House of Commons

Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6

Dear MP Belanger,

We hope this letter finds you well. We are writing to invite you to join us in standing up for the Canada Health Act and the protections it provides to patients. There are thousands of people across Canada concerned about what is happening with Bill 11 in Alberta and we are joining in nationwide action such as this letter, phone calls and rallies.  

A National Day of Action is being held today, March 16th. The threat to the future of Public Medicare in Alberta and across the country is at an all-time high. Alberta’s government has launched a frontal assault on the Canada Health Act to end single tier Public Medicare as a national project and bring in U.S. private health care. We are worried this will spread across Canada as we see unprecedented privatization of hospitals, as well as long-term care, blood services, primary care, public health functions and more across the country.

Alberta’s “Bill 11”, now passed into law, enables doctors to directly charge patients for health care and bill the public health system at the same time. It throws the doors wide open to the Canadian and American for-profit health insurance industries. It affects not only Alberta but risks public health care for all of Canada under the U.S. trade agreements. Under it, doctors choose which patients are charged and for what services. If patients can’t pay, they will have to find a doctor who won’t charge - or wait or go without care. People who can pay will be able to buy queue jumping, pushing everyone else back. Without question, Bill 11 violates the Canada Health Act that requires needed care to be given without user fees or charges. It contravenes the requirement that provinces provide public health insurance for all of their residents. It goes directly against the rights of patients in the Canada Health Act to be afforded access to care based on their medical need, not how wealthy they are; that all Canadians be provided care on equal terms and conditions without financial barriers because those financial barriers cause suffering when Canadians are ill, elderly, dying and least able to pay.

Saskatchewan is the birthplace of Medicare and the hard fought public healthcare privileges we have in Canada, and we must stand up for its continued existence in Canada. We hope that you will join us and help stand up for public health care, our most cherished social program and an intrinsic part of what defines us as a sovereign nation. The situation is urgent and we appreciate your attention to this matter.  

Yours sincerely,