A Brief Commentary by Niagara At Large reporter and publisher Doug Draper
Posted February 1st, 2023 on Niagara At Large
One of many ceremonial grave yards in front of Ontario long-term care homes as deaths in homes across the province begin to spiike during pandemic.
As much as I hate them, no wonder you have people driving around our Niagara region and others across the country with “Fxxk Trudeau’ flags and bumper stickers on their cars and trucks.
No wonder more and more Canadians seem to be losing respect for politicians and for government all together.
In the case of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberals, the release a day ago of “voluntary” standards – that’s right, not mandatory or legally-enforceable, but ‘VOLUNTARY ‘ for improving standards for protecting seniors across Canada in long-term care homes, is just one more example why so many people are losing faith in government.
In Ontario alone, over the worst many months of the COVID-19 pandemic, an estimated 60 per cent of Ontarians who died of COVID-related citizens were seniors in long-term care homes – many of them in homes that were for-profit and privately owned – even though people living in long-term care homes make up only about one per cent of the province’s population.
More than a year ago, members of the Canadian Military who were called in to help deal with the crisis unfolding in Ontario’s long-term care facilities as the COVID virus spread, released a report describing the horrific condition in some of these facilities – conditions that most of us would probably never tolerate for cats and dogs in a kennel.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shared his feelings of concern when this bombshell of a report came out and vowed to do something about the terrible conditions described in in.
Yet here we now are with a set of “standards” the federal government has tabled for improving conditions for seniors in these facilities that – typical of how weak Trudeau and his Liberal government are in responding to serious problems – are voluntary.
“I think this is a true milestone,” said Trudeau’s Minister for Seniors, Kamal Khera, after the standards were made public this January 31st “This is going to make a huge difference in lives.”
Really? How so?
These standards are not mandatory by law. They are voluntary!
That means that if they want, operators of long-term care homes in Ontario and elsewhere in the counter can carry on with business as usual, without fear of facing fines or prosecution.
To hear and watch Prime Minister Justin Trudeau respond, more than a year ago, to news of terrible conditions in at least some of Ontario’s long-term care homes, click on the screen below –
Is it interesting how are federal and provincial governments say voluntary compliance is okay for certain businesses, regardless of how much of a risk the activities of those businesses pose to our health and welfare. Yet the rest of us have to follow the law.
Why don’t we have voluntary compliance over whether or not we file a tax return or whether, while driving, we stop at a red light? Why can’t we drive around without license plates or insurance if we want to? Why not put an end to traffic cops policing the streets?
As long as these standards for long-term care homes are voluntary, they are a joke, and they are typical of a Justin Trudeau government that says a lot of the right things, then responds in ways that are so lame.
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Doug Draper, Niagara At Large
To learn more about the new standards, click on – https://longtermcarestandards.ca/
For more on this issue click on the following links
https://www.macleans.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/JTFC-Observations-in-LTCF-in-ON.pdf
New standards offer a road map for long-term care _ The Star.pdf
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Niagara At Large 
This is a joke and absolutely not acceptable. Come on Justin. Get a backbone and treat the people who built this country with respect!
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