Headlines this month stated that Doug Ford’s Ontario provincial government is acting on one of the key recommendations of Ontario’s Long-Term Care COVID-19 Commission — a mandated four hours of daily care per patient. SGAP was initially thrilled by this news as we have been advocating this for at least a decade.

However, the Ford government’s timeline for implementing this is 2024-2025 – well after the next Ontario provincial election in 2022.  The Ford government is abandoning the long-term care crisis for the next provincial government to deal with.

This has been SGAP’s experience with the Ford government from the beginning.  Before the Ford government took office, every minister responsible for long-term care in Ontario for the last two decades met with SGAP to hear our concerns.  Conversely, the two ministers in the Ford government responsible for long-term care (Merilee Fullerton and Christine Elliott) have ignored all communication from SGAP. As they did not want to hear what the problems are, it is no surprise to us that they will not fix them.

In contrast, SGAP, was grateful to receive an unsolicited invitation to meet with Teresa Armstrong, MPP, the NDP LTC critic.  We commend the NDP in their role as official opposition to hold the Ford government accountable for their mishandling of long-term care in Ontario.

(L-R) Teresa Armstrong, MPP-NDP, Crtitic for LTC, meets with John and Betty from the SGAP