Ford government policies, scandals and problems

Here is a comprehensive list of the cuts and canceled programs made by the Progressive Conservatives and Ontario Premier Doug Ford in their first year.

Beer Store

Cancelling the Beer Store contract will have an upfront cost of $1 billion. However, UFCW Local 12R24 also asserts that "Ontarians will pay more for beer and put 7,000 good-paying jobs at risk with the PC government's plan to sell alcohol in corner stores, even though Premier Doug Ford promised no one would lose their job." Let's stop sharing the soundbite about a "buck a beer" because it is not true.

Changes to education funding

Here is a fact check of Ford's statements about the rationale for his education changes and cuts. As you can see, it is mostly hyperbole and lies. You can find tools from Students Say No, ETFO's Building Better Schools campaign, Canadian Federation of Students Ontario, Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation and Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association and L'Association des enseignantes et des enseignants franco-ontariens (AEFO), whose members were hit particularly hard by the cuts.

Read a parent of an autistic child's account of why the cuts will hurt them, a high school teacher's account of the looming cuts to classes, and an IBEW union steward talk about how cuts have impacted his union's ability to help at-risk youth. Here is a more complete list of the cruel cuts to programs which help at-risk youth. There are definitely things which need to be addressed to improve our schools but Ford's proposed changes are based on hyperbole and misinformation.

Cuts to health care

The Ontario Health Coalition has been keeping a running list of Ford's cuts to health care and his efforts to privatize parts of our medical care system.  

Before the election this open letter from Ontario nurse members of the Canadian Federation of Nurse Unions summed up the holes in Doug Ford's promises perfectly.

As advocates for our patients, nurses know that cutting 4 cents of every dollar spent by government will mean at least $6 billion in cuts. Because health-care funding amounts to 42 per cent of government spending and due to the absence of details about your plans, we have to assume this means your proposal to find "efficiencies" will result in $2.5 billion cut from health-care spending. Cutting $2.5 billion in health-care spending is equal to cutting 25,000 registered nurses from the bedside.

Now that he is in power, he is going back on his promise not to cut jobs, and nurses are being laid off and their jobs are not being filled. Hallway medicine is getting worse by all accounts. The Ontario Council of Hospital Unionshas launched a summer campaign to raise awareness about the cuts and the impact this will have on the quality of care. Reach out to them for more information.

Cuts to programs which help poor kids and families

One of the first thing Ford cut, without waiting for the results of the pilot, was the basic income pilot project which was slated to help 4,000 people in three communities in Ontario. The Basic Income Canada Network continues to fight for basic income all. Here are some accounts from the people it helped. The government has also clawed back the transition child benefit, impacting 600 families in the Waterloo region alone. It has also eliminated the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) which targeted assistance to low-income students -- here is a great breakdownof what the changes to OSAP really mean.

Cuts to programs for First Nations communities

Another cut right after Ford took power was the cancellation of the scheduled consultation with First Nations to develop a new curriculum for Ontario schools about Indigenous people. In May, with limited consultation and no clear roll-out plan, the government released a new curriculum with many gaps as Anishinaabe educator Colinda Clyne, points out. This curriculum is for elective not mandatory classes. The government also has also slashed $5 million from the Indigenous Culture Fund and cut 70 per cent of the funding for the Anishinabek/Ontario Fisheries Resource Centre (A/OFRC). 

Cuts to programs which protect the environment

The Environmental Commissioner of Ontario just released a report revealing that over 1,300 tonnes of sewage had been dumped into Ontario waterways in 2018 and setting out ways to protect our water. Meanwhile the Progressive Conservatives announced they were eliminating three provincial watchdogs, including environment, in one short paragraph of their November 2018 fall economic statement. This is just one of many assaults on programs which protect the environment.

There are a lot more cuts. I just don't want to exhaust you with resources. Please read this thorough compliation put together by Flare and find out about the cuts that matter to you. This summer join the people organizing against the damage Ontario's Progressive Conservatives have wrought and don't let the Conservatives win the federal election.

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/activist-toolkit-blog/2019/07/fact-check...

While the Ford government cuts programs for the poor and the middle class, it provides $700 million in subsidies to the richest and global-destroying richest industry in the world - the fossil fuel industry. 

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2019/08/04/premier-ford-cri...

The NDP want Ontario's Chief Electoral Officer to investigate whether the Ford government violated the law by having a third party advertiser act in coordination with a political party or candidate make pro-government newspaper ads about the education labour dispute. 

The Ontario NDP wants provincial election officials to investigate any possible links between the Progressive Conservative government and an obscure group called Vaughan Working Families, which was behind a series of pro-government newspaper ads.

The ads, which ran last weekend in The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, the National Post and the Toronto Sun, echo the government’s language in its labour dispute with the province’s teachers and accuse the unions of using students as “pawns.” The ads appeared just after talks between the government and the unions broke down and teachers vowed to continue an escalating series of one-day walkouts.

A spokeswoman for Education Minister Stephen Lecce – who represents a Vaughan riding – said Mr. Lecce had no role in or any knowledge of the ads before they ran. The office of Premier Doug Ford and the PC Party also issued similar statements.

On Friday, NDP MPP Peter Tabuns wrote a letter to Greg Essensa, Ontario’s Chief Electoral Officer, calling for an investigation into whether Vaughan Working Families was working “in collusion” with the PC government, which Mr. Tabuns said would violate the Election Finances Act.

Under the act, third-party political advertisers are not allowed to “act in co-ordination” with political parties or candidates. The NDP has also raised concerns that the ads ran as two Ottawa-area by-elections are under way. Elections Ontario said Friday it does not comment on investigations.

The name Vaughan Working Families was registered in 2018 by a corporation called Vaughan Health Campus of Care. According to corporate records, the corporation’s president is prominent Toronto-area developer Michael DeGasperis, a donor to the PC Party. Mr. DeGasperis did not respond to requests for comment.

The lawyer who registered the name, who is also listed as a director of Vaughan Health Campus of Care, is Quinto Annibale, a large donor to the PC Party whom the Ford government has named vice-chairman of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario.

In a story published online Thursday evening, the Toronto Star reported that invoices for the ads had been sent to the offices of Mr. Annibale’s Etobicoke law firm, Loopstra Nixon LLP. The law firm’s address is also the listed address for Vaughan Health Campus of Care. Full-page ads would typically cost tens of thousands of dollars each.

Mr. Annibale did not respond to requests for comment. On Friday, the law firm’s managing partner, Allan Ritchie, issued a statement saying that Mr. Annibale serves on the board of Vaughan Working Families/Vaughan Health Campus of Care in his personal capacity. The statement said the views expressed by the group were not those of the law firm or its staff, which hold a “wide variety of political opinions.”

Mr. Tabuns acknowledged he had no evidence that the government was involved in co-ordinating the ads. But he said the situation warranted a probe.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-ontario-ndp-calls-for-inv...

In Ontario the Ford government has had long-term care home owners pushing it to eliminate annual inspections of these homes. CBC National reported tonight that many such Ontario homes have not been inspected since 2017 0r 2018, basically since Ford has been elected. 

This of course has helped greatly increase the number of deaths at long-term care homes as those homes failing to meet regulatory conditions no longer had to worry about facing sanctions until the death toll mounted. 

Ontario’s long-term care homes are pressing the Ontario government to get rid of mandatory annual inspections as part of its focus on cutting red tape.

Groups that represent the province’s long-term care homes have long asked for an end to annual inspections for all long-term care homes and reducing regulations that they say place an undue burden on an already stressed sector. The head of one of two major organizations says she is optimistic the province is listening to those concerns. ...

It is a possibility that worries Jane Meadus, staff lawyer and the institutional advocate with the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly. Regulations covering long-term care homes are there for a reason — in some cases because of previous harm done to residents — said Meadus.

“Inspecting long term care homes that provide care to vulnerable seniors is not red tape. It is something that is necessary.”

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/long-term-care-homes-want-end-...

The Ford government's "enhanced plan to fight COVID-19 in the province's long-term care homes" is completely inadequate. It's restriction that care workers can only work at one facility is only for 14 days, does not cover workers who come from temp agencies and does not come into effect until April 22nd. Furthermore, it does not raise long term care workers pay or benefits or benefits or the part-time nature of many of their jobs, which has helped create high turnover rates and poor quality care. It also does not return to the 'resident quality inspections' at care homes that were key to catching 87 per cent of infection control violations, as noted in the previous post.

The plan also includes risk and capacity assessments for all homes as well as enhanced training and education for support staff who are working in these facilities. These new measures complement an emergency order issued Tuesday that limits long-term care home staff to working at only one facility in an effort to prevent the spread of the virus.

This was welcome news for the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario (RNAO), Ontario Nurses' Association and NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, all three of whom had been calling for staff to be restricted to a single facility. They argued that unless the province ordered employers to keep the same staff, the virus would continue to spread to those most vulnerable.

However, Fullerton clarified that the order is not indefinite, and will expire 14 days after it was issued. “This is a temporary measure to allow for a reduction of the spread of COVID-19.”

Staff members who do work at multiple facilities will be allowed to take a leave absence to accommodate the order, according to Fullerton.

Furthermore, The temporary emergency order will only come into effect on April 22, in order to give long-term care homes enough time to prepare. ...

Horwath said the new measures are not good enough. “We are concerned that there are huge loopholes in that emergency order. It still does not cover, for example, people who work for temp agencies that can be assigned to various homes,” Horwath said.

The plan also did not address the issues of workers being grossly underpaid and workers still doing part-time hours, Horwath said.

“I guess a baby step is better than no step whatsoever. But Mr. Ford’s passion needs to be followed up with action that’s actually going to hit the mark.” Horwath said it is also unacceptable that these measures won’t go into effect until next week. She said the province should have undertaken these measures to protect residents of long-term care homes weeks ago.

“Everybody knew long-term care was in a crisis,” Horwath said. “And so here we are now in the midst of this crisis, and it shouldn’t be another week.”

https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-launches-plan-to-fight-covid-19-in-be...

While Ford has looked shaken at his TV presentations because of the impact of COVID-19, especially with regard to the large number of deaths at seniors care homes, his government is a major part of the problem.

This scandal also includes former Premier Mike Harris who privatized a large part of Ontario's care home system and now is the chair of the private sector's Chartwell Retirement Residences.

The private sector care homes are also major contributors to the Progressive Conservatives. 

It took the pandemic to break an already compromised system. In Canada, almost half of the approximately 1,000 deaths from the virus as of April 14 occurred in long-term care homes. In Ontario, where I live, as of April there were 14 COVID-19 infections in 114 of 626 facilities.

At a news conference, Ontario Premier Doug Ford looked shaken. He said, among other things, that he would make it illegal for individuals to work in more than one care home simultaneously, a situation which potentially allows the virus to either enter or leave the premises with those workers.

But Ford has been a big part of the problem. Having people work in multiple locations has become commonplace primarily because the corporations that own for-profit long-term care homes hire workers part-time so that they can pay them poorly and avoid providing benefits. Until now, the Ford government has turned a blind eye to this. As well, the previous Liberal government was set to raise the minimum wage in Ontario, a move that would have helped many long-term care workers. Yet one of Ford's first acts when elected in 2018 was to cancel that planned increase.

Ford has much to answer for. The CBC reported on April 14 that in 2019 only nine of the province's 626 homes received a comprehensive resident quality inspection, or RQI. The CBC reviewed reports from the last five years for all homes in the province. They found that most received RQIs in 2015, 2016 and 2017, but that number dropped to just over half in 2018 and to only nine in 2019. To be blunt, that means that under Kathleen Wynne's government there were a good number of comprehensive inspections, but Ford cancelled almost all of them. ...

Mike Harris, who was Ontario's premier from 1995-2002, responded to growing waiting lists in 1998 by announcing that more than $1 billion would be spent to create 20,000 new spaces. When the contracts were awarded for construction of beds, 68 per cent of them were handed to the private sector. Three giant companies, Extendicare, Leisureworld and Central Park Lodges, received 40 per cent of the contracted spaces. The public was to pay for building facilities to be owned and operated by corporations to enrich their shareholders.

Provincial election finance records showed that between 1995 and 1999 for-profit long-term care companies donated almost $340,000 to the Ontario Conservative party. That did not include thousands of dollars donated to the provincial leadership campaigns of Ernie Eves, Tony Clement and Jim Flaherty.

One of the biggest players in the private sector long-term care field is Chartwell Retirement Residences. Mike Harris now sits comfortably as the chair of Chartwell's board of directors and according to Unifor, another union in the sector, Harris pulls down $237,000 a year for this part-time job. Meanwhile, Unifor, says the company pays only the minimum wage to many of its front-line employees.

The 2006 NUPGE report says that the long-term care model promoted by Harris drains the profits from care into the pockets of owners and shareholders. The public sector model provides better care and keeps people safer than a for-profit system governed by the same market forces that motivate software developers, cable companies and fast food chains. Yet, Harris and some other premiers consistently pushed privatization. But the exploitative practices in the privatized for-profit sector have also had a negative and cascading effect upon the quality of care for clients, not to mention the wages and working conditions of care providers.

https://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/pulpit-and-politics/2020/04/covid-19-ex...

The following news release from the Ontario Health Coalition outlines the desperate situation in Ontario's long-term care homes, which has been facilitated by the Ford government's actions.

In some ways, long-term care was a COVID-19 storm waiting to happen.

The virus is most deadly to elderly people and those with pre-existing health conditions — the main demographics for long-term-care facilities, which across the country have been ravaged by COVID-19.

But government decisions have made it worse. Combine the pre-existing risk with the chronic understaffing and underfunding that have plagued long-term care in Ontario and across the country, and you have the makings of an accelerating disaster. ...

In a few horrifying cases, medical staff have abandoned their long-term-care jobs, leaving the sick to die and the living to suffer. And even with the best care possible, residents have died alone, their family members not allowed inside to say goodbye.

But the long-term-care outbreaks have been especially bad in Ontario, while some provinces have been weeks ahead in making key moves to address the crisis. ...

The problem struck British Columbia first, as a cascade of cases and deaths at North Vancouver’s Lynn Valley Care Centre caught national attention in March. The province has made several critical moves since then.

B.C. barred long-term-care staffers from working at more than one facility on March 27. Many have part-time hours at multiple workplaces, and must work at several to make ends meet. But the practice, flagged as a problem after the deadly SARS outbreak in 2003, has also allowed for COVID-19 to spread rapidly between care homes.

The Ontario government says it has acted quickly and often to stop the spread of the virus in long-term care. But B.C. acted weeks earlier, and critics say key problems should have been addressed a month ago. #onpoli

Days later, B.C.issued a six-month order requiring care homes to top up those workers’ wages. (Quebec, which has also massively struggled with long-term-care outbreaks, topped up long-term-care staff wages earlier this month as well).

Ontario didn’t issue an order barring long-term-care staff from working at multiple facilities until Wednesday. It doesn’t take effect until April 22, lasts two weeks and leaves a loophole for temp staffers.

“Restrictions much tighter than these should have been put in place weeks ago,” Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said Wednesday.

And though Premier Doug Ford originally said he’d top up Ontario’s notoriously low wages for such workers, the province has since deferred that to the federal government and encouraged long-term-care homes to give staff full-time hours. ...

The non-profit Ontario Health Coalition said in a statement Friday that the province’s actions fall short of what’s needed.

“We are increasingly frustrated with the disconnect between the statements of the premier and what is actually being put into the regulations, directives and guidance issued by his own government,” executive director Natalie Mehra said in the press release.

“We are inundated with calls and emails from families with loved ones in long-term care and staff in the homes, crying, afraid, furious about the lack of testing, even in homes with outbreaks.”

Doris Grinspun, CEO of the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario, said the province should have acted a month ago, when her organization first raised concerns. She also said there is much more that remains to be done.

“No one gives us back time,” Grinspun said in an interview Thursday. “We can only do the best we do with the time we have left, until there is a vaccine.”

https://www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca/index.php/long-term-care-is-now-th...

 The Globe and Mail is reporting 70% of Ontario's Covid-19 deaths, are in long-term care homes. 

The Ontario Nurses’ Association (ONA) have gone to court, to seek "an order compelling three long-term care homes owned by Rykka Care Centres to comply with provincial infection control and health and safety standards," because the care homes have kept those sick with Covid-19 alongside the healthy. The ONA is also challenging the government's Public Health Ontario statement that "nurses treating residents in long-term care homes with COVID-19 should use surgical masks rather than the N95 version."

In Ontario, almost 70 per cent of all deaths have occurred in long-term care, according to the latest data. Provincial health officials said Wednesday 447 long-term care residents, as well as a staff member, have died of COVID-19. The province has recorded 659 deaths in total, and there have been outbreaks in 127 long-term care homes. ...

Mr. Ford said military personnel will support the “day-to-day operations" of the homes, including co-ordination and medical care. He would not identify the five homes. David Williams, Ontario’s Chief Medical Health Officer, later said the province was looking for about 250 personnel. ...

Mr. Ford’s call for military aid came the same day the Ontario Nurses’ Association was in court, seeking an order compelling three long-term care homes owned by Rykka Care Centres to comply with provincial infection control and health and safety standards. The ONA accuses the homes of keeping residents sickened with COVID-19 among the healthy, causing the virus to spread. The association also alleges that the homes “severely limited” staff members’ access to proper personal protective equipment, including N95 respirator masks.

One of the homes, Anson Place Care Centre in Hagersville, west of Toronto, is among the hardest hit in Ontario with 27 deaths. Of the 74 remaining residents, 44 are sick.

Ian Dick, a lawyer for Rykka, told Ontario Superior Court Justice Edward Morgan that Anson Place is exempt from a provision requiring sick residents to be segregated from healthy ones because it is a small home.

The Ontario Ministry of the Attorney-General intervened at the hearing to defend policies governing the appropriate use of N95 masks in long-term care homes.

On March 10, Public Health Ontario said nurses treating residents in long-term care homes with COVID-19 should use surgical masks rather than the N95 version.

The ONA’s chief executive officer, Beverly Mathers, says in an affidavit she was “shocked” by Public Health Ontario’s advisory on masks.

The other two homes owned by Rykka are Eatonville Care Centre, the hardest-hit long-term care residence in Toronto with 36 deaths as of Wednesday, and Hawthorne Place Care Centre in North York.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-ontario-joins-quebec-in-s...

The situation is not improving in long term care facilities in Ontario as the Ford government continues to fumble the ball. 

Ontario has recorded a significant spike in the number of new COVID-19 cases as the death toll in the province surpassed 1,500.

The province confirmed 477 new cases of the virus on Friday, the biggest single-day spike since May 2, bringing the total number of patients in Ontario to 19,598. Ontario also recorded 63 new COVID-19-related deaths, bringing the total to 1,540. ...

According to Friday's epidemiological summary, of all deceased patients in Ontario, seven were between the ages of 20 and 39, 66 people were between the ages of 40 and 59 and 388 people were between the ages of 60 and 79.

People, who are over the age of 80, continue to be the hardest hit group. So far, at least 1,079 people in this age group of have died.

There are currently 234 COVID-19 outbreaks at long-term care homes, according to the province. 

https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-records-significant-spike-in-covid-19...

The Ontario NDP is demanding a public inquiry into the long-term care crisis in the province. 

In an interview on CBC's Power and Politics Ontario NDP Leader Andrew Horwath and Mark Zigler, who was the lead lawyer in the Wettlaufer Long-Term Care, discussed the crisis. Horwath noted that  "More than 1,200 long-term care residents in Ontario have died from COVID-19 out of a total of 1700 deaths in the province, and that there are outbreaks in more than 200 facilities across the province." Here is the youtube video of the interview(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaYvdPMEcuw)

Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath. (File). 

TORONTO, Ont. - With COVID-19 outbreaks in more than 200 long-term care homes across the province and more than 1,200 deaths, the official opposition is calling for answers. During a special sitting of the Ontario Legislature on Tuesday, NDP leader Andrea Horwath asked if the government will launch a full public inquiry into the situation in long-term care, both during the COVID-19 pandemic and decades before.

“The system is definitely broken,” Horwath said at Queen’s Park. “Will he (Premier Doug Ford) put partisanship aside and commit to a full independent public inquiry so we can learn what went wrong and how to fix this deeply broken system.”

Ford said there is going to be a review of the system that he says has been broken for decades and it will be up to the entire Legislature to fix it, but he did not commit to a public inquiry....

“Families with loved ones in long-term care are demanding answers and deserve a full public inquiry that will give them those answers,” Horwath said. ...

Opposition members also raised concerns regarding access to proper personal protective equipment for front-line workers in long-term care facilities. ...

“On Friday the premier insisted that PPE was available to frontline staff and personal support workers, but even as he was saying that, there were government plans to water down access to PPE,” Horwath said. “Will the premier make public the exact type and amount of supplies of PPE that are available.”

The NDP referred to a memo issued by the Ministry of Children and Community Services date May 8.

The memo reads: “For basic prevention, staff should wear cloth (non-medical) masks at all congregate care sites regardless of infection status. All suspect (symptomatic) and confirmed cases should be isolated in a single room and enhanced precautions must be deployed. All staff should use Droplet and Contact Precautions if they come within two metres of a suspected or confirmed case, this means enhanced PPE must be worn (surgical mask, eye protection, gown, gloves).”

A previous memo dated April 27 called for staff to wear masks in all congregate care sites regardless of infection status, but did not state non-medical.

https://www.tbnewswatch.com/local-news/ontario-ndp-pushing-for-public-in...

Below is a summary of the military report on the horrendous state of the long term care homes that the soldiers entered. The tragedy is that there are many others.

A military report released Tuesday shed light on the "gut-wrenching" conditions of five long-term care homes in Ontario during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A military report released Tuesday shed light on the "gut-wrenching" conditions of five long-term care homes in Ontario during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) report, written by Brigadier-General C.J.J. Mialkowski, outlines the grim state inside the facilities, claiming not only that there were staffing shortages and lack of personal protective equipment (PPE), but also that there were bug infestations, old food trays stacked inside resident rooms and that patients were observed “crying for help with staff not responding.”

The homes included Orchard Villa in Pickering, Altamount Care Community in Scarborough, Eatonville Care Centre in Etobicoke, Hawthorne Place in North York and Holland Christian Homes' Grace Manor in Brampton.

Based on two weeks of observation, the CAF said they identified a number of medical, professional and technical issues at all five long-term care homes.

Among them were significant allegations claiming that staff used the same PPE—gloves, masks and gowns—while treating multiple patients. In at least one of the homes, the CAF said that patients who were COVID-19 positive were allowed to wander through the facility.

Military members said they witnessed residents “crying out for help” while waiting anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours for a staff member to respond.

The report also claims that some residents were force fed to the point where audible choking could be heard. In two of the homes, military members reported seeing bug infestations, including ants, cockroaches and flies. ...

Eatonville Care Centre - Etobicoke, Ont.

At Eatonville Care Centre, where at least 42 residents died after contracting COVID-19, the military alleges that residents who had tested positive for the disease were left to wander throughout the facility. They also claim that staff “are under the impression” that they don’t need to change their PPE if they are treating two residents who both have the same infection. ...

Other allegations include:

•  Reusing hypodermoclysis supplies “even after sterility has been obviously compromised”
•  Inadequate dosing intervals for some medications
•  CAF reported nearly a dozen incidents of “bleeding fungal infections” due to poor peri-catheterization car
•  The facility is understaffed during the day and new staff haven’t been trained or oriented

Hawthorne Place Care Centre - North York, Ont.

At Hawthorne Place, where at least 39 residents have passed away as a result of COVID-19, the military described a “significant deterioration of cleanliness standards,” including “significant gross fecal contamination” in numerous patient rooms as well as ants and cockroaches. They also said that military members witnessed “forceful feeding” of residents, causing “audible choking.”

Other allegations include:

 

•  Reusing hypodermoclysis supplies “even after sterility has been obviously compromised”
•  Inadequate dosing intervals for some medications
•  CAF reported nearly a dozen incidents of “bleeding fungal infections” due to poor peri-catheterization car
•  The facility is understaffed during the day and new staff haven’t been trained or oriented ...

Hawthorne Place Care Centre - 

North York, Ont.

At Hawthorne Place, where at least 39 residents have passed away as a result of COVID-19, the military described a “significant deterioration of cleanliness standards,” including “significant gross fecal contamination” in numerous patient rooms as well as ants and cockroaches. They also said that military members witnessed “forceful feeding” of residents, causing “audible choking.”

Other allegations include:

 

•  Inappropriate use of PPE by all staffing levels, including doctors
•  Staff put food and important belongings outside of residents' reach
•  Lack of linens and laundry resulted in patients sleeping on bare mattresses
•  Multiple falls without required assessments
•  Nurses and PSWs observed not changing PPE for several hours while moving between patient room
•  Topical prescription medicine shared between residents
•  Wound care supplies “insufficient or locked away”
•  Shortage led to residents sleeping on beds with no linen, which resulted in “increased skin breakdown” ...

Orchard Villa - Pickering, Ont.

Orchard Villa has been one of the hardest-hit long-term care homes, with at least 77 residents dead and 346 infected. More than 90 staff members have also been diagnosed with COVID-19. At the top of the CAF report, Mialkowski notes that cockroaches and flies were “present” and the hallway outside a patient’s room smelled of rotten food.

 

•  Patients were moved into rooms that were not cleaned due to miscommunications

Altamount Care Community - Scarborough, Ont.

At least 52 residents at Altamount Care Community have died after contracting COVID-19. The CAF report alleges that staffing issues have led to inadequate nutrition at the facility and that most residents reported not having received three meals per day. ...

Other allegations include:

 

•  A non-verbal resident wrote a letter alleging “neglect and abuse by a PSW”
•  Safety concerns regarding the clinical skills of staff
•  Insufficient wound care materials and supplies
•  The current staff to patient ratio does not allow for care beyond “the most basic daily requirements.”
•  Staff members avoid shrouding or providing post-mortem care to deceased patients and leave it to military staff

Holland Cristian Homes’ Grace Manor - Brampton, Ont.

At Holland Christian Homes' Grace Manor, where at least 11 residents have died after contracting COVID-19, there were reported incidents of staff moving from COVID-19-positive areas to other units without changing PPE. The report also found that staff wore the same pair of gloves for several tasks involving different patients and they were cleaning the gloves with hand sanitizer. ...

Other allegations include:

•  Leaving food in a resident’s mouth while they are sleeping
•  Aggressively repositioning a resident
•  Improper sterile technique with dressing changes

CAF recommends staying at homes for another 30 days

The military report did note that conditions at the long-term care facilities have improved since they arrived and that a military presence has had “an immediate effect on both daily operations and incremental facility recovery.”

“From a command and medical perspective, challenges were expected at these facilities given the severe deficiencies and shortfalls that existed/exist at the provincially-prioritized assignments,” the report said. “The CAF was meant to go to locations with the greatest need of our support. This is a reflection of the conditions of those distressed locations.” ...

The buck stops with Ford, union says

A union representing more than 60,000 healthcare and community service workers across Ontario said they welcome the CAF report on disturbing conditions within the long-term care homes.

“Our union and our frontline members have been ringing the alarm bells throughout this entire crisis. Unfortunately, we have had to fight the provincial government every step of the way to ensure long-term care companies were keeping workers and residents safe,” Service Employees International Union President Sharleen Stewart said in a statement on Tuesday.

Stewart said that the province’s decision to eliminate regulations that required background checks for new hires “was a recipe for disaster” and that they ignored their pleas for more inspections and investigations into the condition of long-term care homes.

“Instead of helping, Doug Ford has made long-term care worse for workers and residents,” she said. “Doug Ford has refused to take action on increased staff-to-resident ratios. Doug Ford has capped the wages of the lowest-paid workers in long-term care. Doug Ford eliminated paid sick days for vulnerable essential workers. Doug Ford has limited inspections in long-term care. These decisions came from his desk.”

“The buck stops with him.”

https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/gut-wrenching-military-report-sheds-light-on-...

Ford and his Chief Medical Officer, Dr. David Williams, seem adrift on how to deal with Covid-19 as Ontario's number of newly infected climb past 400 while Quebec's, the previous leader, falls below 300.

The Ford government clearly knew they had a problem when they brought in a "troubleshooter" from the Dalla Lana School of Public Health in early April. But he didn't directly confront the trouble, which was, at least partly, Williams and his deputy. They never seemed to grasp, or at least explain, what testing was about and actually looked proud when they were able to keep the numbers down versus goosing them upward, where success elsewhere has lain.

The use of tests to get early warning of outbreaks or predict what's about to happen, to "get ahead of this thing" as others say, didn't seem on their radar. I couldn't bear too much of Williams' briefings but did hear him repeat phrases about how the guidelines wouldn't "indicate" a test is necessary if there are no overt symptoms. They tried him on prime time briefings with DOFO and the ministers but that lasted one session by my count, though I admittedly tend to bug out when he starts up. He returned to his own sleepy mid-afternoon slot.

Last week, Williams declared he had to up his game on public messaging, a truly scary thing to picture. He gives briefings behind a desk looking like he's trying to meld his chest and chin into the desktop by way of paper scattered on it while muttering phrases as he shuffles the piles he's nosediving into. He's been personally responsible for reviving a fine phrase: shovelling fog.

If you think that's unfair, consider this, about one of Ford's bursts of frustration: "I didn't see it as taking (us) to the woodshed, myself. We were working on it and when the premier joined our command thing to make some comments and ask some questions, it was right along the line of what we were doing. It's nice when you're exactly on the same direction as the premier."

Ford has dug himself into defending Williams since he's so often claimed he's taking his advice though he depersonalizes it by saying, "the chief medical officer." That would make firing him tough. No one wants to risk losing trust in public officials right now. But the government continues to mortgage its cred to the phrase.

It was presumably a brilliant strategy to give them cover and distance, but it may've handed Williams a power he didn't seek since if Ford dumps him, what gives with all those "advices" he took? He's made himself hostage to probably the least Machiavellian figure at Queen's Park.

Better to treat these experts with a certain bemusement and sometimes contempt: Ford's predecessor, Bill Davis, said he could always find an expert to say what he wanted to hear. This sounds contemptuous of expertise but OTOH makes clear that real decisions always remain in the hands of elected leaders.

DOFO's strength isn't close analysis. It's a bent toward passion and concern. He seems able to yoke that to a sense that the rules don't apply to him but, well, nobody's perfect. Davis knew you could hire people for the complicated stuff and was canny at doing it. Ford's more like leave them in place, parachute in a troubleshooter and hope for the best.

https://rabble.ca/columnists/2020/05/tricky-tale-doug-ford-and-ontarios-...

The auditor general (AG) has concluded that Ford government broke the law when it failed to failed to consult the public on major environmental changes before passing legislation affecting the issue, after the Ontario NDP environmental critic wrote the AG about this violation of environmental legislation.

Ontario NDP environment critic Ian Arthur questions Environment Minister Jeff Yurek at Queen's Park on July 21, 2020 about changes to environmental assessments. 

The Ford government broke the law by passing its omnibus economic recovery bill Tuesday without consulting the public on major environmental changes, auditor general Bonnie Lysyk said.

The government used its majority to pass the legislation, Bill 197, on Tuesday night over the objections of opposition parties. The omnibus bill makes sweeping changes to 20 pieces of legislation, including major rewrites of environmental law. 

Under Ontario’s Environmental Bill of Rights, the Progressive Conservative government is required to post measures that impact the environment on the Environmental Registry and consult the public for 30 days. The government posted notices on the registry but did not hold consultations about Bill 197, which was introduced in early July.

“We did give (the government) a heads up indicating that we had concerns on Friday,” Lysyk said in a phone interview with Canada’s National Observer. "We indicated that the bill, before it passes third reading, should be posted on the Environmental Registry (for a full 30 day consultation).” ...

Green advocates have said measures in the bill amount to a rollback of environmental protections.

It includes a rewrite of environmental assessment rules — the government will now decide which projects get environmental assessments, rather than reviewing most public sector projects by default. It also streamlines assessments for projects that do need them, and removes a mechanism that allows the public to ask the environment minister to require a full review of a project. 

The government has said it’s working on more regulations to decide which projects should get assessments, and to define what streamlined assessments would look like. 

The bill also expands the government’s power to override the normal land planning process and potential opposition to projects through Ministerial Zoning Orders (MZOs). 

Premier Doug Ford has previously said the proposed rewrite would be used to speed up infrastructure projects that would help Ontario recover from the financial hit it has taken during COVID-19.

Ontario NDP environment critic Ian Arthur wrote to the province's auditor general to ask for an investigation into Bill 197, which Arthur said may be a violation of the Environmental Bill of Rights. ...

The government previously told National Observer it included a measure in the bill to exempt it from public consultation requirements under the Environmental Bill of Rights.

Lysyk said only the portion of the bill that deals with environmental assessments included that exception, not the one about MZOs. And either way, the government still needs to consult the public, she said, adding that it would be “precedent-setting” to allow the government to retroactively give itself an exception to the rules. “It could undermine public confidence,” she said. 

NDP environment critic Ian Arthur said the legislative process doesn’t work the way government was attempting to use it. “You can’t embed a change that affects legislation being tabled in the legislation itself,” he said.

Arthur said he hopes the bill will be challenged in court. “(The Ford government is) on a mission and it’s to run roughshod over environmental protections, and they’ll do that at any cost,” Arthur said in a phone interview. “I certainly hope that they’re not allowed to do this without some sort of pushback.” ...

In a letter to Lysyk earlier Tuesday, Arthur asked that she and Jerry Demarco, assistant auditor general and commissioner of the environment, review the government’s push to pass the environmental changes in the economic recovery bill. Not only did the government not hold public consultations, he said, it was also using its majority to skip the committee stage and fast-track the bill. ...

Lysyk said late Tuesday that she had not yet received Arthur’s letter, but said her office is already done assessing the issue. “We already concluded on that,” she said. “We will issue a report on compliance or noncompliance with the Environmental Bill of Rights this fall. And we’ll address it in that.”

During question period at Queen’s Park Tuesday, Arthur asked the government to withdraw the “potentially illegal” changes.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/07/21/news/ford-governments-propos...

The Ontario Registered Nurses Association no longer supports the Ford government’s independent commission into long-term care homes because it will drag out changes that need to occur now, namely increased staffing and PPE. 

The CEO of Ontario’s professional nursing association says she no longer supports the Ford government’s independent commission into long-term care homes, saying it will lead to more political foot-dragging and inaction.

Doris Grinspun, chief executive officer of the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario, said the government should instead focus on increasing staffing and ensuring a six-month supply of personal protective equipment or PPE in homes, as the province prepares for a second wave of the novel coronavirus.

“Everything we need to know about this pandemic, what we did right and what we did wrong, we already know,” Ms. Grinspun, a health policy expert who has held the position since 1996, said in an interview. What we need now is sincere, fast and funded action.”

In addition to hiring more nurses and personal support workers, the RNAO, which represents 44,000 registered nurses, nurse practitioners and students, has for years been calling for each resident to receive four hours a day of personal and nursing care. The organization says each home should have a nurse practitioner per 120 residents, as well as a nurse who specializes in infection control on site. Ms. Grinspun also said families should also be allowed back into homes to care for their loved ones even during outbreaks, which she said will prevent malnutrition, dehydration and loneliness.

“I’m not sure what we are going to discover in the commission. We are going to point fingers. But what seniors and what families need, and quite frankly what homes and staff need, is not pointing fingers. It’s acting on solutions now,” she said.

Premier Doug Ford said Friday that details of the commission, which is supposed to start this month, will be revealed in the next week or so. Some labour leaders and critics, including the NDP, have called for a full-scale public inquiry into the tragedy in nursing homes, where more than 1,800 residents have died.

The Ministry of Long-Term Care is also set to release a report on July 31 about staffing levels, which the government has said will inform a “comprehensive staffing strategy” to be implemented by the end of the year. That staffing study, led by an expert panel, was among the recommendations made by Justice Eileen Gillese in her inquiry into serial killer Elizabeth Wettlaufer, a former nurse who killed eight nursing home patients. That inquiry took two years to complete and a final report was released last July.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-ceo-of-the-registered-nur...

Despite the Ontario Auditor General finding that the Ford government's Bill 197 did not comply with existing law because it failed to consult the public on major environmental changes before passing the bill, Ford simply says its legal. 

Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he doesn’t agree with the province’s auditor general that his government was “not compliant” with the law by passing major environmental changes without public consultation.

The government passed Bill 197 on Tuesday, an act that would alter 20 existing laws and make pivotal changes to environmental law. Under Ontario’s Environmental Bill of Rights, the government must consult the public about environment-related legislation before passing it. 

Auditor general Bonnie Lysyk flagged concerns to the government Friday, saying two portions of Bill 197 were not compliant with the Environmental Bill of Rights, Canada’s National Observer previouslyreported. 

“I’m going to have to respectfully disagree,” Ford said Wednesday, when asked about Lysyk’s finding at his daily COVID-19 briefing. 

Ontario NDP environment critic Ian Arthur fired back on Twitter: “You can respectfully disagree with a law all you want. But it's still a law,” he said. ...

The auditor general is an independent watchdog role, mainly tasked with keeping an eye on provincial finances. Last year, however, the Ford government dissolved the office of the environmental commissioner and moved that role under the auditor general’s purview. 

Ford has said Bill 197 is aimed at speeding up key infrastructure projects to help Ontario recover from the economic hit it has taken due to COVID-19.

The legislation means the government will now decide which projects get environmental assessments, rather than reviewing most public sector projects by default. It also streamlines assessments for projects that do need them, and removes a mechanism that allows the public to ask for a full review of a project.

The government is working on more regulations to decide on a list of which projects should get assessments, and to define what the streamlined assessments will look like — the government has said it will still review projects with a moderate or high impact on the environment. ...

Bill 197 also expands the government’s power to override the normal land planning process and potential opposition to projects through ministerial zoning orders (or MZOs). ...

The government laid out the changes to environmental assessments in a discussion paper last year and held consultations about its plans. But it did not consult the public on the final version of the rewrite — the government included a measure to exempt that part of the bill from public consultation requirements under the Environmental Bill of Rights — or on the changes to MZOs. 

Lysyk previously told National Observer that the government exempting itself from a law retroactively would be “precedent-setting.”

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/07/22/news/ford-disagrees-after-au...

New information shows that, like the Trump administration in the US, the Ford government knew about Covid-19 in January and was warned to prepare the long-term care homes for the coming crisis but did very little until it implemented a action plan three months later to deal with the problem, and only after the hospital situation was stabilized. This once again illustrates the marginalization of the elderly because of social attitudes towards them and because they no longer part of the workforce. 

 Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government was urged to prepare the province’s long-term care homes for COVID-19 as early as January, three months before the government implemented an action plan to slow the spread of the virus.

The revelation came during testimony by the Ontario Long Term Care Association (OLTCA) to the commission of inquiry, which is investigating how the pandemic was able to ravage the province’s nursing homes, taking more than 1,900 lives. 

During the Sept. 30 appearance at the commission, OLTCA CEO Donna Duncan testified that her “first communication in writing” to the Ford government came around Jan. 25, after seeing news reports from European countries which were struggling to contain the virus. 

“We were concerned about our readiness,” Duncan told the three-member panel led by Associate Chief Justice Frank Marrocco. 

Duncan told the panel that long-term care homes were already “facing a perfect storm” as COVID-19 crept into Ontario thanks to chronic staffing shortages, at-capacity homes with four-bed rooms and funding cuts by the Ford government which led to in-facility pharmacies withdrawing their personnel. 

The World Health Organization officially declared the COVID-19 outbreak as a pandemic on March 11.

Duncan told the commission that after sending the January letter the government began to “mobilize” in February, but the true help came once the province realized that hospitals in Ontario were being spared the brunt of the first wave of COVID-19. ...

“We were concerned about our readiness,” Duncan told the three-member panel led by Associate Chief Justice Frank Marrocco. 

Duncan told the panel that long-term care homes were already “facing a perfect storm” as COVID-19 crept into Ontario thanks to chronic staffing shortages, at-capacity homes with four-bed rooms and funding cuts by the Ford government which led to in-facility pharmacies withdrawing their personnel. 

The World Health Organization officially declared the COVID-19 outbreak as a pandemic on March 11.

Duncan told the commission that after sending the January letter the government began to “mobilize” in February, but the true help came once the province realized that hospitals in Ontario were being spared the brunt of the first wave of COVID-19. 

 

On Apr. 15, Premier Doug Ford announced an action plan for the province’s 630 long-term care homes which focused on aggressive testing, outbreak management and ensuring homes were prioritized for personal protective equipment. 

While the plan helped to immediately stabilize the situation in the hardest-hit homes, the damage to the province’s most vulnerable population had already been done. 

“Out of all the deaths in long-term care to date … half of them occurred before April 15th,” Duncan told the commission. “Where we saw the worst of this, it really was in that period before the action plan.” ...

As Ontario enters the second wave of COVID-19, Commissioner Marrocco suggested that the commission might issue a report sooner rather than later, giving the government the opportunity to address the issues in long-term care in real time.

“Typically a commission is set up to look back in time at something that happened because the public want[s] to know what happened,” Marrocco told the OLTCA. “This is a little different because it's still happening.”

https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ford-government-was-warned-in-january-about-p...

Critics, including NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, have criticized the Ford government for failing to create a plan to deal with the second wave of Covid-19.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced both provincewide mask rules and lower crowd limits for restaurants and other businesses in areas hit hardest by COVID-19on Friday, but the changes failed to quiet a growing chorus of health officials calling for stricter measures.

The Premier’s moves fell short of demands from Toronto’s Medical Officer of Health, Eileen de Villa. She pleaded on Friday for the province to bring in a month-long suspension of all indoor dining, gym classes and indoor sports in her city. ...

Critics have accused Mr. Ford of failing to adequately plan for a second wave of the virus, noting that there are lengthy lineups for COVID-19 tests despite the foreseeable demand generated by the return to school.

Earlier this week, the province’s numerical modelling experts warned it could see 1,000 cases a day by mid-October. On Friday, Ontario reported a record 732 new infections, with a growing backlog of samples that labs could not process topping 90,000. ...

NDP Opposition Leader Andrea Horwath called for tougher measures and accused Mr. Ford of doing “the bare minimum” in order to avoid spending more on public health or supports for businesses forced to close.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-ontario-issues-new-restri...

A new study found that 85% of LTC homes in Ontario are repeat serious offenders of provinicial laws governing LTCs in the province. 

A data analysis of the most serious breaches of Ontario's long-term care home safety legislation reveals that six in seven care homes are repeat offenders, and there are virtually no consequences for homes that break that law repeatedly.

CBC Marketplace reviewed 10,000 inspection reports and found over 30,000 "written notices," or violations of the Long-Term Care Homes Act and Regulations (LTCHA), between 2015 and 2019 inclusive. The LTCHA sets out minimum safety standards that every care home in Ontario must meet.

Marketplace isolated 21 violation codes for some of the most serious or dangerous offences, including abuse, inadequate infection control, unsafe medication storage, inadequate hydration, and poor skin and wound care, among others. The analysis found that of the 632 homes in the Ontario database, 538 — or 85 per cent — were repeat offenders.

• Top 30 Ontario long-term care homes with most reported violations

Jane Meadus, a lawyer with the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly, said the high number of repeated incidents shows that non-compliance with the law has been normalized within care homes.

Meadus said lack of proper care can lead to bedsores, for example, which residents can die from.

"If that person was in your home, if you were caring for your parent and they had these giant bedsores, you would likely be charged criminally for that," she said. 

"A home has never been charged criminally for what I think is criminal behaviour."

'We couldn't believe what we saw'

Craiglee Nursing Home was one of at least 248 homes that have been written up twice or more for abuse and 101 homes that have repeatedly failed to report abuse.

Craiglee also had repeated violations for neglect, lack of infection control, medication errors, and poor skin and wound care. ...

While physical abuse is fairly clear, neglect can take on many forms such as lack of hydration or failure to provide baths. Two hundred and twenty-six homes had repeat offences for failing to "ensure that residents are not neglected by the licensee or staff," but many more incidents were filed under different codes for specific acts of neglect, like improper skin and wound care — 278 homes had repeat offences.

Beverley Haines died in February of this year, only six weeks after she moved into Hope Street Terrace in Port Hope, Ont., because of large bedsores she sustained at the home. Sparky Johnson and Sherry Schernitzki, Haines's niece, are fighting to have the home's administration held criminally responsible for her death.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/marketplace/nursing-homes-abuse-ontario-seniors-...

Ford is rewarding an extreme right-wing fundamentalist Christian group headed by  Charles McVety by passing legislation that allows the Canada Christian College to grant degrees. The NDP’s anti-racism critic, Laura Mae Lindo, noted that the college has a "longstanding and ongoing record of Islamophobic, transphobic and homophobic bigotry." McVety is a vehement climate change denier who has said “I believe this taxing and trading of air will fund the one world government of the Anti-Christ.” He mobolized a large number of evangelicals to vote for Ford. 

The college is solidly evangelical, its president since 1993 being high-profile ultra- conservative Christian Charles McVety, son of founder Elmer S. McVety. Under his leadership, the institution moved in 2018 from Toronto to a larger and more modern campus in Whitby, Ont., and is thriving. McVety is a deeply controversial figure who has been central in campaigns against LGBTQ2 equality, and in opposing the previous Liberal government’s sex education proposals. ...

Even within evangelical circles, he’s often considered strident, and his television show was removed some years ago from what was then called CTS, a faith-based station managed by people with strong conservative Christian beliefs. They made the decision to jettison his program from their lineup after the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council found that it made “malevolent, insidious and conspiratorial” remarks about the gay community.

McVety also wrote in 2009 of climate change policies that, “I believe this taxing and trading of air will fund the one world government of the Anti-Christ.” He wrote about Islam that it “is not just a religion, it’s a political and cultural system, as well, and we know that Christians, Jews and Hindus don’t have the same mandate for a hostile takeover.” In 2011 he hosted Dutch politician and anti-Islam activist Geert Wilders at the college. Nor is he some fringe character within the culture of Canada Christian College, but very much its charismatic leader and figurehead. For many people, Charles McVety is Canada Christian College.

This latest move hasn’t escaped the opposition at Queen’s Park, with the NDP’s anti-racism critic, Laura Mae Lindo, stating this week that the college has a “longstanding and ongoing record of Islamophobic, transphobic and homophobic bigotry.” Which raises the question of why the government would have done all this in the first place.

In 2018, McVety sent out a large number of emails to Ontario Christian ministers extending “a personal invitation to you and your pastoral staff to come to the platform and pray for Premier Doug Ford at the Christmas Celebration on Sunday Night. It is my hope that we can surround the Premier with Pastors on the platform and pray for him.” He had earlier asked his Facebook followers to pray for Ford, partly because, in his words, “two million Ontario children are being experimented on as we speak with radical gender sex education,” and provided a video guide to help his people complete online voter forms, and then praised God for “the incredible victory of Doug Ford as leader of the Ontario PC Party.”

In other words, the man is a high-profile supporter of Doug Ford, a friend of the premier’s, and someone who mobilized large parts of the evangelical community to support and vote for the Progressive Conservatives, and will likely do so again.

With the greatest of respect, nobody would describe Canada Christian College as an esteemed seat of higher learning, or its president as a revered figure within the academic world. This all seems so unnecessary, lacking in transparency, divisive, and problematic.

https://ipolitics.ca/2020/10/21/the-real-reason-the-ford-government-want...

Another series of disasters in private sector long term care homes in Toronto: 

- Nearly half of all residents at a city-run long-term care home downtown have been infected with COVID-19 since a outbreak was declared at the facility last month.

The city has confirmed to CP24 that there have been 112 positive cases among residents at the 250-bed Fudger House since Oct. 2.

So far 74 of those residents have recovered from the virus and nine have died. The remaining 29 cases are still considered active. ...

The news of the dozens of positive cases at Fudger House comes as officials in Mississauga express concerns about another outbreak at a long-term care home in that facility.

There are now 90 positive cases among residents at the 151-bed Tyndall Nursing Home and another 65 among staff. “While our outbreak response team is working tirelessly with them to address infection control and outbreak interventions to bring this under control this is a dangerous sign,” Peel’s Medical Officer of Health Dr. Lawrence Loh said during a briefing, noting that it is the largest outbreak in any long-term care home in the region since the first wave of the pandemic.

There are currently 96 active outbreaks at Ontario long-term care homes.

The outbreak at Fudger House is among the biggest in Toronto but is not quite on the same scale as one at Rockcliffe Care Community in Scarborough, where 135 residents and 63 staff have tested positive.

https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/nearly-half-of-all-residents-at-toronto-long-...

Doris Grinspun, CEO of the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario (RNAO) says the Ontario Ford government is not doing enough to stop the large number of deaths in long term care homes. 

The Ontario government is failing to prevent deaths of vulnerable people in long-term care homes and needs to tighten restrictions in red-control zones now, says the head of a group that represents registered nurses.

Doris Grinspun, CEO of the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario (RNAO), called on the government to lock down the province immediately in the wake of seven deaths at a long-term care home in Scarborough.

"I have never seen such disregard for the lives of residents and their staff in long-term care, and by extension, the lives of families left in anguish," Grinspun said on Sunday.

Sienna Senior Living reported on Saturday that seven residents at Rockcliffe Care Community have died since a COVID-19 outbreak was declared at the home on Nov. 2. More than half of the residents at the home have become infected with the novel coronavirus.

A total of 136 residents and 66 staff members have tested positive for the virus. One resident case has been marked as resolved. Nineteen staff members have been cleared to return to work. The home, which has 204 beds, currently has 165 residents. ...

Grinspun was particularly critical of Merrilee Fullerton, minister of long-term care, saying Fullerton "ought to have known" that COVID-19 would begin to kill vulnerable people in long-term care homes during its second wave given that restrictions are not strict enough. Fullerton used to be a practising doctor.  "For most people, this is unbelievable. We predicted this scenario. The minister ought to have known that things would be this bad or worse going forward," Grinspun said on Sunday. "No one in government — the public, yes, but in government, no — should be surprised. We will see more outbreaks. We will see more tragedy," she added. ...

Grinspun said the association called on the government on Friday to implement an immediate 28-day lockdown of red-control zones in Ontario, with the exception of essential services and schools. The association also asked the government to make investments in staffing of registered nurses, nurse practitioners, registered practical nurses and personal support workers in all homes across Ontario. And it wants the government to keep "essential care partners" in the homes and to prevent crowding in homes where a number of people share one room.

"We are not acting soon enough," she said. "It's all empty words." Grinspun said if young men were dying, instead of elderly people, there would be protests in the streets — "no one would do that to them" — and the failure to act is clearly discrimination against older people. "It is ageism of major catastrophic proportions," she said.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/rockcliffe-care-community-reactio...

The auditor general's criticism of Ontario’s chief medical officer of health, Dr. Williams, was particularly sharp. The NDP has demanded that he resign while stating that he is supported by the Ford government because he is so pliable to their wishes.  

"Critics of the government have frequently asked whether the premier or the public health experts have been the driving force behind the pandemic response – even as they debate whether to extend Williams’s contract until September 2021. 'The question is not whether we want Dr. Williams as the chief medical officer or not. It is about how this government has mismanaged this pandemic and who is at the command table actually directing what’s going on in this province,' NDP MPP Doly Begum said."

Ontario’s chief medical officer of health and his associates “did not lead” the province’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and were slow to respond, the auditor general wrote in a scathing report, prompting Premier Doug Ford to come out swinging in defence of his top doc.

Bonnie Lysyk said Dr. David Williams and his team did not “fully exercise his powers” under provincial law to marshal resources and enact measures to protect the public during the early months of the pandemic, nor did he embrace the “precautionary principle,” where any precaution thought necessary should be enacted as fast as possible, even when the science of the matter is not certain.

"Such delays included alerting Ontarians to avoiding unnecessary travel, acknowledging community transmission and requiring long-term care homes to take precautionary actions," Lysyk said Wednesday. 

The auditors also found that Williams and his staff were largely aloof when it came to directing the 34 local public health units in the province.

“(Williams) did not issue directives to local medical officers of health to ensure public health units responded consistently to the COVID-19 pandemic, nor did he issue directives on their behalf,” auditors wrote. ...

Lysyk even said Williams was not actually technically in charge of the sprawling “command table” set up by Ontario to deal with the pandemic, nor was the table actually able to command anything or make any decisions without a later sign-off by the Ford cabinet.

She later found that the membership in the Command Table was nearly 500 people, making it bloated and unwieldly.

They also found that Williams and his team were denying the possibility of community transmission of the virus as late as March 25, even though hospitals were reporting that as early as March 14 and Public Health Ontario was on March 15.

This denial fundamentally hampered early testing efforts, as only people with a foreign travel history or known contact with a previously identified case could be tested during this time.

Earlier this week, the Ford government announced Williams intended to delay his retirement until Sept. 2021. ...

Lysyk’s findings show that time after time during the early months, orders and directives came far too late or contradicted prevailing directives in other jurisdictions.

-          On March 18, an associate chief medical officer of health from a local public health unit asked Williams and his team about use of masks by workers in long-term care homes. A directive requiring all long-term care workers to wear masks during shifts was not issued until April 8. Nearly 90 long-term care residents had died of the virus by that point.

-          On March 12, Ontario said it was still safe to leave for March Break, while medical officers in B.C. and Alberta said it was largely unsafe to do so.

-          Despite detecting the first outbreak of COVID-19 on a farm in late April, there was no provincial order or memo to protect migrant agricultural workers until late June.

-          Ontario did not have a universal recommendation on masking in indoor public spaces until October. By then, many local medical officers of health had gone ahead and done so on their own.

“Overall, we found that Ontario’s response to COVID-19 in the winter and the spring of 2020 was slower and more reactive relative to other jurisdictions,” auditors wrote. ...

Meanwhile the NDP suggested the Ford government wanted Dr. Williams to stay on because he was pliable.

“Doug Ford says Dr. David Williams is a perfect dance partner – but only because Ford always gets to lead,” NDP deputy leader John Vanthof said in a statement.

https://www.cp24.com/news/stick-with-the-number-crunching-ford-hits-back...

Ford's anti-climate change policies have unsurprisingly led to an increase in Ontario's greenhouse gas emissions for the first time in almost a decade. 

Ontario's annual greenhouse gas emissions rose for the first time in nearly a decade during the first year the Ford government was in power. It's a sign that the province's climate change targets are in jeopardy, according to a new report.  The report, to be released Thursday by the group Environmental Defence, calls the increase "a big step backwards" in Ontario's progress toward reducing carbon emissions.

"Ontario is trending dangerously in the wrong direction on climate change, and the gap between
Ontario's carbon reduction targets and actual emissions levels is growing," says the report, a copy of which was provided to CBC News ahead of Thursday's publication.  The report — entitled Ontario Climate - Yours to Recover — also says the government has an opportunity to make investments that would both stimulate economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and reduce emissions, yet hasn't made moves to do so. ...

The latest federal figures, which are published with a two-year lag time, show the province's emissions rose by 10 megatonnes (MT) in 2018 over the previous year. This marks Ontario's first annual increase in emissions since 2010, the year the province's economy emerged from the last recession.  

The increase in emissions in 2018 means the government will have to make even more reductions than previously promised just to hit its own targets, said Sarah Buchanan, clean economy program manager for Environmental Defence. ...

Yurek's predecessor as environment minister, Rod Phillips, now the finance minister, set new, less-stringent targets for reducing emissions in what the government dubbed the Made-In-Ontario Environment Plan. ... 

"Our plan is an evolving document, and our estimates will continue to evolve as policies and commitments are reviewed and refined, and as we begin to see results of initiatives already in motion," said Buttigieg. 

The Environmental Defence report examines how much progress Ontario has made on each of those promised reductions. It builds on work by the province's auditor general last month that concluded the government is at risk of missing its emission targets.  ...

The government's plans for economic recovery from COVID-19 don't reflect a climate-friendly approach, says the report. "Ontario's recovery actions announced to date have not incorporated any programs promised in the Environment Plan to reduce GHG emissions, despite many actions with high potential for economic stimulus," the report says. "This is a missed opportunity to invest in proven job-creating solutions like public transit, energy efficiency, and green building."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-greenhouse-gas-emissions-...