Ontario Health Coalitions sends and open letter to MPPs calling for public hearings on “new” LTC legislation

To: All members & supporters

From: Natalie Mehra, executive director

Please see our open letter sent today to all Ontario MPPs. This is urgent and time contingent. We are calling for province-wide public hearings, at minimum, on the new long-term care legislation, a key part of which enables the government to promote for-profit privatization of thousands of long-term care beds and 30-year licenses. You can help by contacting your local MPP and demanding full public hearings.

The so-called “new” legislation is really a set of amendments to the existing Act. We have written a quick analysis for you here. 

The new legislation is called Bill 37. It was just introduced October 28 and has almost completed Second Reading. (The Ford government changed the rules of the Legislature to push through Bills with unprecedented speed and they introduced evening sittings last week in order to push through an array of legislation prior to the winter break in December.) The Legislature is not sitting this week. It will be back next week at which point the bill will likely finish second reading and be referred to a Standing Committee for public hearings. We are demanding full public hearings across the province. 

Apply for standing to be heard at the public hearings:

You can apply now for standing to make a presentation to the Standing Committee about the legislation. If you are interested in doing so, please apply for standing to make a verbal presentation or to submit a written submission here. Then click on “Request to Participate” if you want to make a verbal presentation to the Standing Committee of the Legislature in the Public Hearings or to send in your written submission.  At this point, no hearings have been announced. That will not happen until likely next week when the Bill is referred to Committee. Thus there is no deadline yet for applying for standing (to make a presentation or send in a written submission). We will keep you apprised as more information becomes available.

Here (below) is our open letter. Thank you for all your work on this important issue.

With warm regards,

Natalie