Last week, Premier Doug Ford not only confirmed that some highly-paid employees would lose their jobs in the government's health care overhaul, but took a bit of a shot at them.
"The people in the LIHNs, the CEOs that are making the hundreds of thousands of dollars, the big silos they have there, the big executives, presidents and vice-presidents making outrageous amounts of money," he said March 13. "We're going to take that money and put it to the front lines."
But on Friday, Deputy Premier and Health Minister Christine Elliott offered an olive branch to such employees, saying they could potentially be re-hired in different capacities when new Ontario Health Teams are formed.
"It's premature to say that all of those people will be gone," she said. "Those specific jobs will be gone, but it doesn't mean the people will be."
"A lot of the people that are currently part of the LIHNs are doing fantastic work and may well continue."
Last month, Elliott announced 14 local integrated health networks and six other health agencies would merge into a new centralized agency called Ontario Health.
The other major part of the announcement was the formation of Ontario Health Teams, which will be 30 to 50 groups made up of different health-care providers to service various regions around the province and each will be responsible for roughly 300,000 Ontarians.
At the February 26 announcement, Elliott was pressed on what kinds of job losses there could be, but said it was too early to say because it would depend on how the health teams would be formed.
Then on Friday, she said that's where some of the highly-paid laid off employees could end up.
"That's possible, they may be retained in another capacity," she said. "That's not my decision, that's up to the local Ontario Health Teams to decide how they want to constitute themselves."
Elliott was asked if the public should expect any future revelations about more job impacts like that of Ford's from last week.
"No," she said. "Because the next step that's going to take place is for Ontario Health to finalize the criteria for the local teams to apply and then they will start submitting applications based on that criteria."
One of Ford's campaign promises was that not a single public sector job would be lost in his mission to cut the provincial deficit.
But in recent weeks, the government has shifted to emphasize that no front-line positions would be eliminated.