March 26, 2025

TO: Honourable Peter Bethlenfalvy, Ontario Minister of Finance

Dear Minister Bethlenfalvy:

Congratulations on your reappointment as Minister of Finance. Care Watch is a voluntary, non-profit, and non-partisan organization led by older adults. We advocate for accessible, quality, home care and community services that enable older Ontarians to age safely in place in their own communities.

We are writing to you about the upcoming 2025-2026 Ontario Budget. We believe that budgetary and policy actions are urgently needed to give Ontario’s older adults access to high quality home care that will keep them at home and in their own communities. We recommend that the Ontario government take the following steps to make home care more accessible and improve quality of care: (a) make a significant new investment to give home care providers sufficient resources to meet rapidly growing needs and address serious current gaps in service; (b) make a significant new investment to improve compensation for front-line home care service staff to address staffing vacancies and high turn-over rates; (c) introduce provincial home care standards with effective monitoring and enforcement procedures; and (d) reform the process for selecting home care providers so that it has clear selection criteria and is transparent and accountable.

Our previous pre-budget submission detailing these recommendations is attached.

Yours truly,

John Bagnall and Fiona Green, Co-chairs, Board of Directors