KEEP IT UP, OTTAWA
Ford confirms change to `orange' level
Ontario Premier Doug Ford whirled through the nation's capital Friday, less than 24 hours after his government unveiled a 2020 budget with record spending and a record deficit, to announce investments in sport for wounded military members, local hospital beds, a new ambulance offload facility at the The Ottawa Hospital's Civic campus, and new legislation to prevent employers from barring their workers from wearing poppies in the lead-up to Remembrance Day.
Ford also confirmed that as of Saturday, Ottawa will be in the orange or “Restrict” level of the province's new framework for applying regional public health measures, a move that allows many local businesses shuttered for the last month under modified Stage 2 to reopen, with some remaining restrictions.
Remembrance was a dominant theme at Ford's morning appearance at the Canadian War Museum. Hours earlier, news broke that Whole Foods — an upscale U.S.-based grocery chain with 14 locations across Canada, including one in Ottawa — had a dress code policy that forbade poppy-wearing among its staff. (It was reversed later in the day, after significant public outcry.)
“I find it absolutely disgraceful; I find it disgusting,” said Ford, going on to announce that his government would introduce legislation permitting any employee, at any workplace, to wear a poppy. Ford was joined at the War Museum by Nepean MPP and Minister of Heritage, Sport, Tourism and Culture Industries Lisa MacLeod. She praised the premier for “taking on Whole Foods, right here in Ottawa” and joined him in announcing a $3-million commitment to help create the Valour Games, a national multi-sport competition for wounded military members and veterans. According to the province, the first edition of the games will be held in Ottawa over a week in 2022, and afterward be hosted every two years in different Canadian cities.
Ford used a portion of his Friday morning remarks to thank the Canadian Armed Forces “who came to our aid when the first wave of COVID-19 hit us here in Ontario.”
Forces members spent several months supporting a handful of long-term care homes in and around Toronto during the pandemic's first wave. They also compiled a horrifying report on conditions they observed.
“I described it as the cavalry coming over the top of the hill to come to our rescue, and we'll never forget that,” Ford said Friday.
The premier popped up again later in the day at The Ottawa Hospital's Civic campus, with a posse including several provincial cabinet ministers, local Progressive Conservative MPPs, the hospital's CEO Cameron Love, and Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson.
There, Ford confirmed that as of Saturday, Ottawa will move from modified Stage 2 into the Orange-Restrict level of the province's new public health measures framework. Earlier in the week, it was proposed that Eastern Ontario, Peel, York Region and Toronto also join Ottawa in Orange-Restrict, subject to final review by Ontario's chief medical officer of health and approval by cabinet.
Ultimately, the province decided to move Eastern Ontario into the less restrictive “Yellow-Protect” level — “because of improving heath trends,” Ford said Friday — and put Peel into the “Red-Control” level due to the deteriorating local COVID-19 situation, while keeping Toronto in modified Stage 2 for another week at the request of its medical officer of health.
The government has said it will track the impact of public health measures for 28 days to decide if public health units should remain at their current level or be moved into a different one.
“I ask the people of Ottawa and everyone across the province — please continue to follow public health measures, watch your local alert level, be responsible when you dine out or go to the gym, and avoid large gatherings,” Ford said Friday. “Together, we can protect our hospitals and get back a little more of our normal lives.”
The premier's hospital stop also saw the announcement of a nearly $45-million investment to create up to 254 beds in local hospitals and health facilities. A new, temporary unit at the Greystone Village Retirement Home hosts 120 of these beds, intended for alternate level-of-care patients who no longer need hospital-level care but can't go home or into long-term care.
The remaining beds are divided between the Queensway Carleton Hospital, Montfort Hospital, CHEO and The Ottawa Hospital.
TOH is getting $16 million for a new ambulance offload and transition facility beside the emergency department at the Civic Campus, with 20 bays for paramedics to transfer patients into hospital care and 20 transition beds for admitted patients moving into an in-patient unit. The province is also providing $1.5 million to hire dedicated offload nurses at four hospitals in the Ottawa area.
Patient offload delays have been a major challenge for Ottawa hospitals and the local paramedic service, hurting paramedic response times and availability to deploy to emergency calls.
The mayor described Friday's provincial spending announcement as “welcome and much-needed in our city.”
Budget architect and Finance Minister Rod Phillips was also on scene Friday, talking up his government's three-year, $45-billion COVID-19 response plan. Asked by this newspaper why the 2020 budget unveiled Thursday didn't announce any new funding for local public health units, Phillips pointed to a $270-million investment in public health and community-based health supports, provided to help with the response to the first wave of COVID-19.
Phillips also addressed one of the new initiatives to come out of Thursday's budget: a move to give municipalities the power to create a new property tax class for small business, and in turn set their tax rates at a ratio that will provide them tax relief.
“This is a flexibility for municipalities, so they will choose whether it makes sense,” Phillips said Friday.
Kevin McHale, executive director of the Sparks Street Business Improvement Area, welcomed any tax relief afforded business owners during the pandemic.
“Property taxes, outside of salaries and rents, make up among the largest portions of operating costs for our members,” he said.
But McHale said businesses also recognize that the City of Ottawa has its own bills to pay.
“I don't want it (the tax break) at the expense of the municipality,” he said in an interview Friday. “We support those but it does have to be paid for — and the city has been running a ton of expenses with COVID … We can't hurt other parts of the city to make that happen.”