The provincial Auditor General’s report provided plenty of ammunition for the opposition at Queen’s Park.
The report outlined the growing backlog in Ontario courtrooms.
Attorney General Doug Downey says the government plans to pass legislation soon to streamline the legal system.
“This is why we’re going to bringing forward some proposals in the coming weeks and months so that we can further protect the people and do the things they expect us to do,” says Downey. “When I talk to clinic directors and people accessing the system they’re excited about the kind of change we’re bringing.”
In her report, Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk found the Fort Frances courts only operating 1.3 hours a day with the provincial average at 2.8 hours per day.
Another subject that the Auditor General pointed out was that seniors living in long-term care homes are being fed food that is past it’s best-before date.
But minister responsible Merrilee Fullerton says Ontario is doing the best it can to meet quality standards.
“There are 234 thousand served in our long-term care homes, which equates to a little less than 85 million every year. Food-related incidents amount to 1.01 per-cent of incidents related to the food and nutrition in homes,” says Fullerton.
NDP critic Teresa Armstrong says the system is so strapped for cash and inadequate resources that long term care homes are forced to serve expired food.
One final topic of discussion from the report at Queen’s Park was workplace deaths, which the NDP’s Wayne Gates says, unfortunately, are on the rise in Ontario.
“There were nearly 230 reported deaths from injury or work-related illnesses in 2018. That’s an increase from a year before. In fact, the number of workplace deaths has been on the rise since 2014,” says Gates.
But Minister of Labor, Monte McNaughton says the province has increased the number of work place safety inspections and Ontario has the best record of workplace safety in Canada.
