Windsor's Worst Planning Mistake Ever:

 

We'll be paying forever with our taxes (and our lives)

At the Monday, November 9, 2020 City Council meeting, Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens will be introducing a motion to formally support the construction of the new single-site acute care hospital on County Road 42. His goal is to prove to the provincial government that there is sufficient community support for the project to warrant funding Stage 2 planning. This motion follows repeated failed local promotional attempts to conjure up what still remains elusive:  definitive proof of broad public support for the plan. The most recent Mayor Dilkens-driven effort was the six-figure, taxpayer-funded, WindsorEssex Economic Development Corporation (WE EDC) "We Can't Wait" marketing campaign orchestrated by well-known Ottawa lobbyist Crestview Strategy - a campaign that was designed to demonstrate "grassroots" support. Yet this and other efforts have been unsuccessful in generating the groundswell of enthusiastic community support Windsor's Mayor was hoping for. Remarkably, after years of bluster, spin and announcements, this will be the first Windsor City Council meeting where councillors will debate the merits and problems of locating the region's only full service acute care hospital on County Road 42! Strangely, it comes more than 5 years after the rural site was announced to the public as a "done deal" on July 16th, 2015. If Council is voting on this motion tomorrow (09/11/20), why have power brokers for five years told residents that this was ever a "done deal"? But they have done just that. Was it simply to prevent a genuine public debate? On Friday, November 6, 2020, CAMPP published a comprehensive new report, which was sent to all the Windsor City Councillors. Titled Windsor's Worst Mistake Ever: We'll be paying with our taxes (and our lives), the document presents a perspective on the issues that decision-makers and residents may not have previously considered. Incomplete or misleading messaging has continuously flowed from Windsor Regional Hospital (WRH), the City and most recently, WE EDC; information that is shared and amplified by residents on social media. Yet neither the WRH, nor the City, nor WE EDC correct any of it. They allow residents to project and share whatever they imagine the plan will include. Even local mainstream media has amplified and perpetuated many of these false or partial narratives. For example: The two acute care hospital campuses at MET and Ouellette are on the chopping block if this project comes to fruition as planned. The County Road 42 hospital is not another hospital for the region. It will be the only full service acute care hospital in the region.

And what is going to happen to Erie Shores Healthcare in Leamington, an acute care hospital now serving nearly 25% of the region's residents? Will it eventually become an urgent care centre too? This is a sore point for those directing the new hospital plan and a question that remains unanswered. The loudest argument for the County Road 42 site is to address a perceived need for the new hospital to be closer to county residents. But County residents will never have to contribute a dime to the hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure costs that Windsor residents will be paying in perpetuity, despite the monumental loss of hospital-based healthcare accessibility to much of the City. Is this really a fair and equitable plan? We encourage you to read the document.

Read CAMPP's report here

A clear case of "bait and switch" There has never been an opportunity to debate the location of the new hospital at Windsor City Council! In fact, Mayor Dilkens ensured this important debate stayed well away from the Council agenda: December 21, 2015, April 20, 2016: Windsor City Council voted on a tax levy to pay for the 10% local cost of the construction of the new hospital. As you can hear in the short YouTube clip below, Mayor Dilkens made it quite clear the hospital location was not up for discussion. August 13, 2018: Windsor City Council approved the institutional zoning of the County Road 42 site earmarked for the new hospital. At 12:13 a.m. on the night of this nearly 9-hour long Council meeting, Mayor Dilkens remarked: "What City Council could have done, is when the 10% share conversation came up, is to have said, You know what, that's a stinky location. We're not going to fund our 10% share that is required under the act." For all public debate over the location of this large project to have been continuously and deliberately kept out of Windsor Council Chambers until now is atrocious.

Watch this short clip from the December 21, 2015 City Council meeting when Mayor Dilkens stressed the location was not up for discussion.

Thousands of residents have been pleading with Council since 2014 to re-think the plan on the grounds that hospitals belong where people live. Mayor Dilkens has consistently marginalized all expressions of concern, referring to those in opposition to the plan as “a small group” putting the success of the project at risk. As the November 3, 2020 Windsor Star put it: the Mayor will be calling on councillors "to formally support construction of a new acute care hospital at its long-contested proposed location." The article goes on to say his main objective in bringing the controversial issue to council is to call on the provincial government to prioritize funding to move the hospital project forwards. And yet, our increasingly cash-strapped province is far more likely to look favourably on a well-presented hospital plan with genuine and well-informed public support, a plan that solidly addresses the concerns residents have been bringing to their attention for so long and which no doubt are worrisome to the ministry bureaucrats as well.

What city residents have been saying Ever since the notice of Mayor Dilkens' motion appeared on the council agenda last week, local residents have been sending their written submissions to the City Clerk's office. You can read the many letters explaining why the County Road 42 hospital site is ill-conceived in the Council package at this link (starting at page 493). However, to date, not all of the correspondence has been posted on the city's website. We know quite a few people who submitted letters well in advance of the deadline and whose letters are missing -- including CAMPP's official submission. Also noteworthy: Many of the letters supporting the County road 42 hospital location were generated from obvious templates. For example, a search of the term "crumbling" reveals 23 template-letters. Their extreme concern for the physical condition of WRH's buildings ignores nearly $200M in capital investments and expansions in the past two decades. It also flies in the face of the "Accreditation with Exemplary Standing” awarded to WRH on December 30, 2019 for 99.8% compliance with national standards for patient quality and safety. There is no way to tell how many of the writers live in Windsor.  A lengthy list of local residents have signed up to speak at Monday's virtual council meeting. Among those expected to speak in favour of Mayor Dilkens' motion are several WRH insiders, including Gary McNamara (the Warden of Essex County), Lisa Porter PhD (a cancer researcher and Essex County resident), and Stephen MacKenzie, President & CEO of WE EDC. This once again demonstrates how highly manipulated this mutli-year process continues to be, and how genuine voices from the community are muffled and marginalized. Although the deadline was noon on Friday, November 6th, there is a process to allow late delegates. If you wish to sign up to speak, please call 519-255-6432 and ask to have your name added.

Livestream link: Nov. 9, 2020 Council meeting at 12:30 p.m

In their own words: Members of our community comment on the issues this week

"How can there be a motion stating ”the City of Windsor supports construction of a new regional acute care hospital on the land purchased by Windsor Regional Hospital” without any evidence that is true?"

"I have never seen a big decision put to council where the mayor didn't have it all sewn up ahead of time in closed door meetings. I suspect he's done that this time as well, which means hours of delegate presentations will be totally ignored, again. Secondly, it would have been a relatively easy thing to poll the entire city if they really wanted to know what the majority want instead of that weird phone virtual town hall where only some were invited. I'm looking forward to see which councillors, if any, have a backbone."

"In the city or not at all"

"A vote against this motion is not a vote against modern healthcare for Windsor Essex, but a vote in favour of getting it right."

"Taxpayers should not be paying for this campaign."

"Again, those without cars. How are they going to get to their medical appointments, if everything moves out there."