Concern gives way to anger over Ontario’s failures

Imagine that you have a loved one in a private long-term-care home with a COVID-19 outbreak. You’re worried, frantic even. You want to get them out of there. But you can’t, because the home has been locked down as the more deadly variants circulate. You know that some of us don’t have to imagine.

Then you learn that the home has delivered millions in dividends to its investors, but has failed to deliver the care they boast about in their brochures. Anger peppers your concern.

Then you learn that the corporation that owns the home has racked up a whole string of violations of government regulations over the years. Now you’re starting to get really angry.

Then you learn that Ontario, unlike other provinces, decided to pay millions to for-profit long-termcare homes for renovating spaces and purchasing beds, but not for the people needed to handle infections. You wonder if skimping on staff was how they were able pay dividends to shareholders during a pandemic. You begin thinking of taking the home to court.

Then you discover that Premier Doug Ford has made that more difficult by requiring lawsuits demonstrate a much higher bar of “wilful negligence.” So you think of suing the government.

Then you learn that the Tories had passed the Crown Liability and Proceedings Act, which protects them from lawsuits, like the one you’re contemplating, aimed at how the government implements its policies.

Now, imagine that you are a nurse in the intensive care unit (ICU) of a hospital. You’re seeing much younger patients being intubated because their lungs are wrecked by COVID’s new variants. Sometimes whole families are coming in at once, but you have to split them up to different hospitals because you’re running out of room.

You know that this was predicted weeks ago, but the government lifted its lockdowns anyway.

You know that Ontario has the vaccines — some 35 per cent of delivered doses sit in freezers. If people could take time off work to get vaccinated so they don’t infect their workmates, your patient load would lessen.

You know it costs more than $3,500 a day to treat someone in the ICU, but a whole lot less to pay them sick leave. But you also know the Conservatives have refused to bolster the federal sick-leave plan or to legislate companies to provide it for their workers.

You know that the Tories have earmarked millions for more hospital beds, but not for staff, even though many of your colleagues are off sick themselves or have quit in frustration and from the stress of seeing so much death.

You’ve been called a hero by this government, but you know Ford’s wage top-up for heroes won’t last much longer and that you can expect a more permanent hourly raise of … one dollar.