City man’s parking petition reaches health minister

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This article was published 12/12/2016 (3198 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — A Winnipeg man who drew attention to the high cost of hospital parking has now got his pleas on the desk of Canada’s health minister.

An electronic petition started by Collin Kennedy, who has had multiple myeloma for more than a decade, was submitted to the government last week. With more than 12,000 signatures, it is the 10th most signed petition in the House of Commons of the 210 e-petitions completed or underway.

“He did a great job of getting this out there,” said Winnipeg Centre Liberal MP Robert-Falcon Ouellette, who sponsored Kennedy’s petition in the House.

Kennedy first drew attention to the issue last summer when he filled a parking meter with foam outside Health Sciences Centre. He was fed up with paying high parking fees — estimating he had paid $600 for parking to go for treatment at CancerCare Manitoba.

The petition asks Health Minister Jane Philpott to use the Canada Health Act to declare parking at hospitals should be free for patients and their families.

Kennedy told the Free Press Monday night he’s honoured to receive such support from Canadians, and confident the bill will win the support of MPs.

“This is a non-specific party issue which has more to do with the right thing than which party an MP represents,” he said. “They will be asked to debate and vote over what is right.”

Ouellette said Kennedy went to his Winnipeg office about three months ago to ask for help getting the issue recognized in Ottawa.

Electronic petitions have been used on Parliament Hill for a little more than a year, introduced after the last election thanks to an NDP motion that was passed unanimously in March 2015.

There are now 210 e-petitions online, with about 15 currently open for signatures. The others have been presented to the government. The government has about 45 days to respond once a petition is tabled. Kennedy’s has to generate a response by mid-January.

Ouellette said he has spoken to Philpott about it. “She’s not sure what she can do at this point, but I’m also going to be calling all the provincial ministers of health,” said Ouellette.

A Free Press story earlier this year found city hospitals charge from $6 to $20 a day to park, with additional fees sometimes added on in evenings if a driver parks in the daytime and hasn’t left before 5 or 6 p.m. There are parking passes available with cheaper rates but they are not well-advertised.

Earlier this year, the Ontario government ordered hospitals to freeze parking fees for three years and then only raise them by the level of inflation each year after that. Hospitals where the daily maximum is more than $10 have to offer passes at 50 per cent of the maximum daily cost. 

Ouellette said parking fees can be such a hardship for people, it can mean the difference between choosing to go to treatment or putting food on the table. He said when he was living in Quebec City, his son spent a week in hospital with a lung infection and they paid $25 a day for parking.

“I’d park my car a mile away and hike it in,” he said, noting not everyone is able to do that.

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca