The Parties Speak

June is Seniors Month in Ontario. How better to celebrate older adults than by voting for candidates and parties that make services for them a priority? June 2nd, the date of the provincial election, is your chance.

Care Watch began its election campaign by writing to leaders and presidents in the Green, Liberal, New Democratic, and Progressive Conservative parties. We asked them:

What is your plan for increasing investment in home and community care services? How will we know that public funds are used only for home and community care and not for other services?
What is your plan for setting Ontario-wide standards for home and community care? How will you know whether providers are meeting them? What will you do if they don’t?
What is your plan for attracting community-based personal support workers? How will you keep them working in the community?
What is your plan for giving personal support workers in the community the same wages and benefits as those in hospitals and long-term care homes? How will you help them keep pace with inflation and increases in the cost of living?
What is your plan for supporting unpaid caregivers in homes and communities?

When we receive answers, we will post them here along with our reviews of party platforms and policy documents.

We hope what we learn sparks questions you can ask your local candidates to help you decide how to vote on June 2nd.

Ask, think, and then vote!

Building a Home and Community Care Workforce

May 26, 2022

The words don’t match the picture. We call personal support workers (or PSWs) essential, heroes, the backbone of the system, but the ones who work in home and community care are the lowest paid workers in health care. When the pay is too low and the conditions too hard, they leave. So we asked parties and candidates how they would attract, keep, and pay these PSWs and how they would support unpaid caregivers.

Investing in Home and Community Care

May 25, 2022

Can you think of any reason not to invest in home and community care? We can’t, so we asked candidates and parties about their plans to invest. Then we reviewed their platforms.