Government shamefully sat on LTC staffing data while residents suffered

QUEEN’S PARK – Shadow Minister for Long-Term Care, MPP Wayne Gates (Niagara Falls), says new FOI data lays out a brutal truth that families and frontline workers have been trying to get this government to face for years. Some long-term care homes are so understaffed that residents are going without basic care, and the homes at the bottom are alarmingly, yet not surprisingly, all for-profit.

“This is heartbreaking and it is infuriating,” said Gates. “Some seniors are getting just over an hour of care a day. That is not care. That is how folks get hurt, how they end up in pain, how they end up in already over crowded hospitals. Families have been saying this, workers have been saying this, and now the government’s own numbers prove it.”

The FOI data shows the same pattern Ontarians are already familiar with. Municipal and non-profit homes staff up and deliver better care. For-profit chains show up at the bottom again and again. The worst ranking homes in the province are overwhelmingly owned by corporations that cut corners on staffing to save money.

“We knew this during the pandemic, when the military had to go in and report scenes none of us will ever forget,” said Gates. “And what does this government do with that lesson? It hands out more licences and public dollars to the same for-profit chains that failed residents in the first place. It is truly reckless and unbelievable.”

Gates says the Ford government must stop hiding behind a province-wide average and start telling families the truth about which homes are failing.

“These stories make your stomach turn. Seniors left with untreated wounds. People stuck waiting for help that never comes. Residents lying in their rooms in pain because there simply were not enough staff. And instead of cracking down, the government rewards these operators. How is that acceptable to anyone?”

For more than a year, the government held on to this data while residents continued living in homes with well-documented staffing problems. Families had no way of knowing which homes were falling short or how serious the gaps were. Keeping this information out of public view protected operators, not seniors. The Ontario NDP will continue pushing for full transparency, stronger oversight, and real accountability so that long-term care in Ontario is built around care, not profit.