press conference

Saturday January 8, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday January 8, 2022

Ontario schools reopen (maybe) in two weeks. What can be done to make them safer from COVID-19?

August 31, 2021

Ontario has delayed reopening elementary and secondary schools for at least two weeks in response to a meteoric rise in COVID-19 cases.

What are the chances that in-person classes can resume as tentatively scheduled on Jan. 17?

The provincial government says it’s adding new layers of protection from N95 masks for teachers to extra HEPA air filters. At the same time, key elements of the infection-control trio of “test, trace and isolate” have been dismantled in the face of the skyrocketing case counts.

The government is under pressure from all sides: pandemic-weary parents scrambling to work themselves while dealing with another round of online classes at home; pediatricians warning of the harm to children caused by school closures; teachers, principals and school staff and some scientists and doctors calling for additional safety measures.

Everyone agrees students need to resume in-person classes as soon as possible. The debate is over what is required to make schools safe enough to send students back and keep them there.

Friday May 29, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday May 29, 2020

A long-term care disaster that everyone saw coming

May 16, 2020

Doug Ford looked rattled. Justin Trudeau looked stern. Both men were responding to a devastating report on the squalid conditions facing residents at five long-term care homes in Ontario. The report came from whistle-blowing members of the military deployed to five facilities in the Greater Toronto Area.

At a press conference, Ford called the report heartbreaking, horrific and gut-wrenching. Trudeau said when he read the report, he felt a “range of emotions” including anger, frustration, sadness and grief.

Patricia Treble delved in after Ford made it public. This is just a sampling of what she found:

Military teams witnessed “aggressive behaviour” that they believed was “abusive/inappropriate” as well as “degrading or inappropriate comments directed at residents.” Soldiers saw residents left in soiled diapers, some unbathed for several weeks. They saw cockroaches, ants and rotten food, as well as “significant gross fecal contamination….in numerous patient rooms.”

Coronavirus cartoons

“The conditions were perfect for a deadly virus such as COVID-19 to strike,” writes Treble, who details the Ford government’s changes to inspection procedures and the province’s slow response to combatting COVID-19. She points to decades worth of reports into the fraying system of elder care. Treble ends with the obvious question: “If it took the intervention of the Canadian Armed Forces for the public to find out the dire situation at five facilities, what are the conditions in the other 621 LTC homes in the province?” (Maclean’s)