This past Friday, MPP Jordan, the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Long-Term Care, and I announced $170,466 for the Village of Taunton Mills in Whitby, to help residents with complex medical needs like dementia and bariatric care connect to specialized care and supports in their long-term-care home instead of a hospital.

Speaker, this is part of a $20-million investment this year in 189 projects province-wide through a new local priorities fund. Under the leadership of the Honourable Paul Calandra, the Minister of Long-Term Care, we’re taking action to bolster our province’s long-term-care system and put residents’ needs first.

This work is built on four pillars: staffing and care; quality and enforcement; building modern, safe and comfortable homes; and providing seniors with faster, more convenient access to the services they need. Speaker, the government is fixing long-term care to ensure Ontario’s seniors get the quality of care and quality of life they need and deserve, both now and in the future.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas, to address the budget for seniors, the Ontario government has proposed to make changes to expand the eligibility of the Guaranteed Annual Income System, GAINS, starting in July 2024, which would see about 100,000 more low-income seniors receive payments for a 50% increase in recipients, and proposing to lower the rate at which the benefit is reduced from 50% to 25%, which means a senior can keep more of their benefit as their private income increases, and proposing to adjust the benefit annually to inflation to continually put more money in the pockets of eligible seniors; and

“Whereas the government of Ontario is investing more than $174 million over two years, starting in 2024-25 to continue the Community Paramedicine for Long-Term Care Program, which leverages the skills of paramedicine to provide additional care for seniors in the comfort of their own homes; and

“Whereas Ontario is continuing to make progress on its plan to build modern, safe and comfortable long-term-care homes for seniors and residents, and through planned investments that total a historic $6.4 billion since 2019, Ontario is on track to build more than 31,000 new and over 28,000 upgraded beds across the province by 2028, and that the government is helping to increase long-term-care capacity in communities across the province by providing development loans and loan guarantees to select non-municipal not-for-profit homes;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to urge all members of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to support the passage of the Ontario budget bill, Bill 85, Building a Stronger Ontario.”

I will affix my signature to this petition.