Here are today’s new developments:
- Ontario's COVID-19 case count today was 165 — still high, although a slight improvement over Tuesday’s count over 200. Just over half are people under age 40.
- The Ford government abruptly adjourned the Legislature for the remainder of the summer on Tuesday, after using its majority to ram through several controversial bills, including one that will make it easier for landlords to evict people despite the ongoing pandemic (Bill 184), and one that uses the pandemic as cover to give the Premier unchecked powers (Bill 195).
- In an end-of-session press conference this morning, Andrea Horwath said the Ford government's wrongheaded priorities made the session a missed opportunity to help seniors in long-term care, tenants, small businesses and schools.
- A new study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal finds that for-profit long-term care homes in Ontario experienced significantly worse outbreaks of COVID-19, and more related deaths, than non-profit or municipally run homes - for months, we have been pushing for an independent, find-and-fix long-term care judicial inquiry that includes scrutiny of the role of profits in long-term care.
Solutions we’re pushing for:
- Teresa Armstrong responded to an Ontario Health Coalition survey that shows 95 per cent of long-term care staff say seniors' basic needs continue to go unmet due to staffing shortages - we have been urging Ford to address the sector's critical staff shortages.
- Monique Taylor, tabled a motion in the Legislature Tuesday urging the Ford government to make a plan to meets the needs of children with special needs and their families during the pandemic.