Ontario is spending $3 million to help front-line aid workers fight the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

Premier Kathleen Wynne said Monday that $2 million would go to the Red Cross while another $1 million was being earmarked for Médecins Sans Frontières to treat patients and train health workers.

While there have been no Ebola cases in Canada, doctors and nurses in Ontario have been issued protective equipment and new guidelines put in place as a precaution.

“The threat is low here,” Wynne told reporters at Queen’s Park.

“But we know what a deep crisis it is for the people in West Africa so to help contain this unprecedented outbreak Ontario will support the emergency response in West Africa,” she said.

Wynne urged Ontarians to match the government’s grant by donating money to the non-governmental organizations combating Ebola in Africa.

Health Minister Eric Hoskins, a former aid worker in the developing world, said the funds will go a long way to help.

“There’s an infrastructure in West Africa that unfortunately doesn’t come close to comparing with what we have here,” said Hoskins.

Stephen Cornish, executive director of Médecins Sans Frontières Canada, said the money would help the charity’s Ebola-fighting efforts in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Cornish said with “the collapse of the health care system we now have people afraid to go to the hospital” in many parts of West Africa.

“We have people who have simple diseases like malaria who are dying,” he said.

Tanya Elliott, Ontario director general of the Canadian Red Cross, said the money would also help educate people in the Ebola-afflicted area on how to stop its spread.

Wynne’s announcement came as the legislature resumed for the fall session.

The premier will face questions in the house later Monday about her government’s $309 million bailout of the mostly empty 20-storey MaRS office tower down the street from Queen’s Park.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Despite the controversy, Wynne defended the move.

“The reality is that MaRS has helped 1,400 companies to get started and/or expand — that’s in the order of $3 billion of economic activity,” she said.

Read more about: