Analysis: Which Ontario party will Scarborough voters trust to rebuild their aging hospital?

On March 2, Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca and six Scarborough candidates unveiled a pledge aimed at winning back the seats this June.

Will it work?

Standing where they could see SHN’s General site, Del Duca promised the hospital $1.9 billion, money to completely redevelop Centenary and Birchmount, SHN’s other campuses, and increase the hospital’s patient capacity by 30 per cent.

“We want to see that advance quickly, recognizing that Scarborough can’t wait,” Scarborough-Guildwood’s Mitzie Hunter added in a later interview.

The pledge, however, is not for the redevelopment plan SHN wants most, one that gives it an entirely new campus plus a rebuilt Centenary.

In 2019, SHN sent Ontario’s Health Ministry three scenarios for redevelopment starting in 2026. Each included Centenary and one other campus.

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At the time, CEO Elizabeth Buller said the hospital, its staff and Scarborough residents they consulted strongly preferred the scenario with the new campus, something also recommended by an expert panel the former Liberal government appointed.

Del Duca’s pledge to rebuild Birchmount and Centenary matches another of the scenarios. (The third, which includes rebuilding the General, was thought unlikely because that campus doesn’t have space to redevelop without shutting down.)

Hunter did not see a disconnect in her party’s pledge, implying the hospital submitted different scenarios the province could choose. “Our support is for SHN’s proposal,” she said.

“We’re not telling the hospital what to build. It’s simply supporting what SHN has as their redevelopment and expansion project.”

The Liberal position removes the difficulty of securing a large empty site for a new Scarborough hospital and may reassure Agincourt or other North Scarborough residents worried Birchmount will eventually close.

The current Progressive Conservative government has not chosen a scenario yet — more than two and a half years after they were submitted — and SHN is pressing for commitment to one before the provincial election call.

Online last month, David Belous, an SHN spokesperson, told Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy and local PC MPPs the hospital was one of the hardest hit by COVID-19 and argued it’s time for the government to invest in redeveloping SHN sites.

“Our hospitals that we have right now don’t even meet the needs of the past,” Belous said.

In an interview last month, Scarborough-Agincourt’s Tory MPP Aris Babikian said meeting the needs of SHN, including short- and medium-term projects and a “brand new hospital” in the longer term, is important to the area’s PC caucus.

He promised “some positive news” soon.

Liberals held all Scarborough seats over their 15 years in government, leading to frustration over the slow pace of projects to replace obsolete and overcrowded hospital facilities.

The party pledged $1.1 billion to SHN in 2018 for capital projects that have not started under the PC government but appear closer to construction.

Hunter suggested criticism of her party’s handling of the aging SHN campuses isn’t justified, considering the Liberals supported the capital projects and gave SHN $5 million to do master planning. “We did very concrete things,” Hunter said.

Doly Begum, Scarborough Southwest’s New Democrat MPP, however, said it’s the Liberals, including Steven Del Duca, that “let Scarborough down.”

People will find it hard to believe the party’s current promise, she said.

Although Begum couldn’t say what an NDP government would do, she said it will be based on what the hospital, experts and Scarborough residents say they want.

New Democrats “would make sure Scarborough gets its fair share of beds and staffing” for its hospital, she promised.

Which party Scarborough voters trust to rebuild SHN may help decide who runs the province after June 2.

STORY BEHIND THE STORY: The future of the Scarborough Health Network will be decided by Ontario's election this June. The Liberals are first to commit to a plan to renew the hospital.