Investing in child care and long-term care homes
I want to wish the entire Centennial community a healthy and prosperous new year.
Child Care Space Expansion
I am proud to announce that the Ontario government is funding three schools in Scarborough–Rouge Park to upgrade their spaces. This investment will support and expand access to quality education opportunities for working families in Scarborough–Rouge Park.
● $2.4 million to Saint-Michel French School (92 new elementary spaces)
● $1.6 million to St, Malachy Catholic School (49 child care spaces)
● $800,000 to St Florence Catholic School (49 child care spaces)
This investment is part of our government’s commitment to supporting affordable and accessible child care in communities across Ontario. The province is supporting the creation of 40 infant rooms (400 new spaces), 59 toddler rooms (885 new spaces), 71 preschool rooms (1,704 new spaces), and seven family age group rooms (105 new spaces).
Rebuilding Altamont
I am proud to announce that a new long-term care home will be built on the same site as the existing home at Altamont Care Community and our government is providing 85 new beds and 363 upgraded beds for a total of 448 beds.
During the pandemic, Altamont Care Community was among the hardest hit long-term care homes in all of Ontario. I heard from many family members of the residents that we need to do more. After years of inaction and neglect, our government is delivering on its promise to give our seniors in long-term care the care that they need and deserve.
The previous government only built 611 net new beds in the seven-year period from 2011-2018 all over Ontario. Our government is committed to building 30,000 net new long-term care beds and redeveloping thousands more across the province by 2028.
Our government’s plan to fix long-term care is built on these three pillars: improving staffing and care; protecting residents through better accountability, enforcement and transparency; and building modern, safe and comfortable homes for our seniors.
Improving Staffing and Care
The Ontario government will provide up to $270 million this year to long-term care homes across the province to increase staffing levels, leading to more direct care for residents. This includes $1,613,651 for long-term care homes in Scarborough–Rouge Park. This is part of the province’s commitment to ensure long-term care residents receive, on average, four hours of direct care per day by 2024-25.
Protecting Residents
A key component of this plan to fix long-term care is to address the long-standing issues with the inspection regime. Improving the inspection regime is a recommendation that has been made by both the Long-Term Care Commissioners and by the Auditor General. For this reason, our government has invested $20 million to hire 193 new inspections staff by Fall 2022. This will more than double the number of on-the-ground inspectors from the 156 we had a year ago to 344.
Modern, Safe and Comfortable Homes
We have invested a total of $6.4 billion into the development of new homes and beds and have almost 21,000 new and more than 16,000 upgraded beds in the pipeline – more than 60 percent of our goal. Altamont is a perfect example of how we are taking action to improve our long-term care system in Ontario.
Thank you for taking the time to read my update to the Centennial community. Please reach out to my office email at vijay.thanigasalam@pc.ola.org or call 416-283-8448.