Healthcare and Highways
NDP candidate for Algoma-Manitoulin, David Timeriski, has worked the issues
Timeriski talks healthcare.
It’s almost as though David Timeriski’s entire career led him to this election campaign. With access to healthcare, and the state of northern highways as the top two issues for voters in Algoma-Manitoulin, this active-duty paramedic has some thoughts and opinions to share. And he brought the two issues together recently when he joined this week’s rally for Thessalon Hospital. The protest spilled out to the side of Highway 17, with locals waving signs and banners in subzero temperatures to raise the profile of the issue.
Timeriski on the side of Hwy 17 during the rally to save Thessalon Hospital. Image © Gordon Graham.
Shore Report sat down with Timeriski with just under a week to go before the final vote, with his riding in a dead heat between himself and PC candidate Bill Rosenberg.
“That is the number one issue,” Timeriski says, “the healthcare in Northern Ontario, and rural healthcare in particular. As a paramedic and shift worker for over thirty years, I’ve seen firsthand what’s been developing with less financing from the government to the whole system.”
Fulltime, in-community doctor and nurse shortages have led to an expensive and inefficient system of locum physicians and agency nurses who themselves are increasingly overwhelmed by the demands on their time. An online forum hosted by the Algoma–Manitoulin NDP riding association late last year heard from other health care professionals in the region that working conditions for medical staff are “unmanageable.” According to that forum, Northern Ontario needs at least 400 more fulltime doctors just to meet current demand.
Timeriski on northern roads.
Should the Thessalon Hospital close, that would leave North Shore residents navigating over 150 kilometers of Highway 17 without emergency care access, which would be bad enough were the highways and roads up to snuff. But that’s not the case.
“Everybody is telling me the highways, the safety, the snow removal,” he says, “all these are concerning everybody up and down the North Shore. Our highways could be widened, and we need to shore up the sides of the highway for the horse and buggy carriages.”
Highway 17 has seen a series of recent horrific accidents born of the necessity for cars, transports, and horse-drawn transportation forced to share the same poorly maintained area. And local residents are very concerned about the state of transport inspection and training on our roads.
“Highway 108 and 17 has a truck inspection station,” he notes. “As a child, those lights were flashing all the time for the truck inspections. That station barely operates [now]; there’s no fulltime operations anymore.”
Finally, Timeriski is hearing in his canvassing concerns about the province’s poorly communicated plan the ship radioactive waste to the Agnew Lake Tailings Site northwest of Nairn Centre.
“There was no public consultation,” Timeriski outlines. “There was no mayor and union consultation; there was no First Nation consultation in the local area. They’re not even repairing what they have, and they already have an idea to ‘fix’ it with another problem.”
Like most candidates we’ve managed to speak with, Timeriski is frustrated with the government’s decision to call an election now, but given the opportunity he’d like to join the Northern Ontario team of strong NDP MPPs.
Shore Report acknowledges the North Shore of Lake Huron is the traditional land of the Anishinabek and the Métis Nation. This is Treaty 61 (Robinson-Huron) territory. Anishinabek have lived in the Great Lakes region for thousands of years. Shore Report is very grateful to live and work here.
All written content in this issue is © Shore Report 2025 unless otherwise noted by a writer’s byline.
Extra:
Shore Report managed to get the candidate to comment on maybe the most important issue of the day.