Ford protects long-term care homes from COVID-19 liability

July 29, 2020

QUEEN’S PARK — Mike Schreiner released the following statement after the Premier announced the commission into long-term care:

“The Premier has reneged on his promise of full accountability for the tragedy in long-term care.

By preventing the commission from reaching any conclusions about civil or criminal liability, he is denying justice to the nearly 2,000 elders who died and their loved ones.

There should be no immunity for the long-term care sector and it is totally at odds with the Premier’s promise that he would ‘get to the bottom of this.’

I am also disappointed that the commission is not being tasked with comparing the conditions between for-profit and nonprofit homes.

We need a full and evidence-based examination of how elders are cared for. We need to know whether for-profit homes can guarantee minimum standards of care.

But the Minister dismissed this conversation altogether in today’s press conference when she said that “this is not about ownership.”

Her refusal to even consider the potential consequences of for-profit care in the aftermath of this pandemic is unacceptable.

It seems clear that this commission has been engineered to prevent accountability.”

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