February 7, 2025

The election is here! Older adults cast their ballots at a higher rate than people in any other age group. Nearly 100% of them say they want to grow older in their homes and not in institutions, but they worry that they won’t have what they need.

Care Watch is a non-profit, non-partisan advocacy organization run by volunteers and led by older adults. We promote the services that help keep older adults in their homes and communities, so we are asking candidates and parties about some key issues and how they plan to resolve them.

Funds have been pledged for home and community care, but numbers and specifics are missing. How do you plan to use current future investments in home and community care to improve access to care? What services will these investments pay for? How many more people will be able to receive services?

Ontario has no consistent standards for home and community care, and quality varies. How do you plan to set and enforce standards? How will you know whether providers are meeting them? What will you do if they don’t?

Supply chains are broken, and people haven’t been getting what they need to be cared for at home. How do you plan to select and work with suppliers to provide enough equipment and supplies for home and community care? How will equipment and supplies be consistently available?

Home and community care lacks consistent standards.

There are shortages of supplies and too few personal support workers. There’s not enough support for unpaid caregivers.

What do you and your party plan to do?

There aren’t enough personal support workers in homes and communities, and too many leave home and community care because of insufficient pay and poor working conditions. How do you plan to attract more personal support workers and keep them working in the community? How do you plan to give them the same wages and benefits as those working in hospitals and long-term care homes? How will you help them keep up with inflation and increases in the cost of living?

Unpaid caregivers are neglected. How do you plan to support these unpaid caregivers, who provide at least 70% of home and community care, often at personal and financial sacrifice?

We are asking these questions of leaders and candidates in all parties, and we are eager to know your answers. You can contact us at info@carewatchontario.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

What can you do?

We encourage you to forward these questions to your local candidates. For information on how to find the candidates in your riding, you can visit Elections Ontario. If the full list isn’t available yet, try again on February 14.