Senior citizens are the largest and fastest-growing population in Ontario. Elections Canada reports that across Canada, seniors get out and cast their ballots at a higher rate than any other age group. As they continue to make up an increasing proportion of the population, their votes will make up an increasing proportion of the total votes cast. Seniors can make a large difference in election results.
These pages provide information about the June 2018 Provincial (Ontario) election:
Provincial Election Backgrounders
What commitments did the make?
Green Party of Ontario
- Increased funding for home and community care
- Implement more meaningful community programs to help seniors remain active citizens
- Investments to improve the availability of assisted living and transitional living for seniors who need more support
Liberal Party of Ontario
- Home Care/Community Supports
- Doubled services in home and community care, provided more personal support hours, and nursing and therapy visits
- Will invest $650 million more in home care over next three years
- Increased the minimum wage for personal support workers
- Introduced education and increased respite supports for caregivers
- Expanded home care services for complex patients
- Expanded community supports for those living with dementia
- Invest $15 million in 2018-19 to improve community-based palliative care
- Hospital and Long-Term Care
- Invest $822 million more to bolster hospital care and infrastructure
- Spend $300 million over three years to increase the number of daily hours of nursing, personal support and therapeutic care for long-term care residents an average of 4 hours a day by 2022
- Ensure that LTC homes have staff trained in behavioural supports and palliative and end-of-life care
- Created 300+ primary care teams and 27 nurse practitioner-led clinics
- Introduce a drug and dental program to cover 80% of specific drugs and dental costs
- Expand OHIP+ program to cover drug costs to seniors 65 and over
Ontario New Democratic Party
- Home Care
- Increase home care funding by $300 million. Ensure consistent, reliable care throughout Ontario
- Eliminate wait lists for personal support services
- Remove arbitrary caps on care. Increase service hours
- Offer more respite care for family caregivers
- Move towards more public and not-for-profit delivery of home care, so that funding for home care
- Long-Term Care
- Create 40,000 more Long Term Care beds, including 15,000 new beds over the next five years
- Set standards to ensure each resident is offered a minimum of four hours of hands-on care per day
- Ensure more stable employment, better working conditions and higher wages for PSWs
- Allow seniors who own their home to defer property taxes until their house is sold … financed by the Province to avoid municipal property tax losses
- Invest $30 million in community care and open 35 new community health centres by 2025 … and ensure that on-going funding increases with inflation
- Extend public dental coverage to every senior without retiree benefits, and to every person on social assistance
- Introduce universal pharmacare for Ontarians by 2020
- Hospitals
- Immediately increase hospital funding by 5.3% with new investment of $916 million
- Create 2,000 new hospital beds right now and invest $19 Billion over 10 years into hospital capital expansion
- Ensure that every hospital’s annual funding will be at or above inflation, take into account population growth, and include the unique needs of each community (like the ageing population)
- End arbitrary caps on surgeries to shorten wait times. End “hallway medicine”
- Stop further layoffs of nurses and other front line health care workers
Ontario PC Party
- Add 15,000 new long-term care beds over the next five years and 30,000 new beds over the next 10 years
- Put an end to “hallway medicine”
- Spend $1.9 billion over the next decade on mental health and addiction support
- Encourage more doctors to move to northern Ontario
- Invest $98 million a year to provide dental care to low-income seniors
Care Watch Observations
- Support for seniors: All parties have expressed some “support” for senior citizens. The strongest statements were made by the New Democratic, Liberal and Green parties, respectively. The NDP and Liberals specifically identified health equity as an objective.
- Home Care: The Green, Liberal and New Democratic parties have all made commitments to provide home care to seniors, including increasing funding for home and community care. The strongest and most comprehensive proposals, with associated funding, were made by the Liberals and NDP, and their proposed programming improvements are reasonably clear. The NDP committed to moving towards more public, not-for-profit delivery of home care services, and curtailing privatization. The PCs have not addressed home care.
- Community Support Services: The Liberals and NDP have committed to expanding community support services, and provided funding commitments. The Green Party’s response was supportive, but vague. The PCs have not mentioned community support services.
- Personal Support Workers: The Liberals and New Democrats committed to improving the working conditions for PSWs. The Green Party focused on regulating PSWs, although it generally supported increasing PSW wages. The PCs have not mentioned PSW issues. No party has offered a concrete plan to improve or expand the PSW labour pool (recruit, train and retain PSWs), despite sentiments regarding improved services for northern, rural and/or underserved areas.
- LTC/Hospital Beds: All parties have made a commitment to increase the number of long term care and hospital beds. Hospitals have attracted the largest funding commitments from all parties.
- Pharmacare/Dental Care: The Liberals, New Democrats and PCs have all committed to introduction or expansion of pharmacare and dental care for seniors.
- Primary Care: The Liberals and NDP identified increased primary care (community health centres, nurse practitioner services, health promotion/maintenance, etc.) as central to maintaining seniors at home. The Greens and PCs have not addressed primary care.
Care Watch 