Wednesday, January 14, 2026

Mme Sylvie Leclair

Je suis d’accord avec Renaud, mais comme tu disais aussi, Stéphane, dans la région de Prescott-Russell, on est vraiment une exception. Il y a certaines raisons. Comme, à Hawkesbury, on est dans le même édifice que le Centre de services à l’emploi Prescott-Russell. Ça facilite aussi la communication et les apprenants viennent nous voir directement en bas. C’est une relation qui date de plusieurs années, mais ce n’est pas tout pareil. Comme, si je regarde à Cornwall, où j’ai un site, c’est plus difficile avec les agences au niveau du placement à l’emploi, et à Ottawa aussi.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

That concludes the time, and I would ask the last speaker if she would give her name. She didn’t get it at the start, so if she could add it to the record, that would be appreciated.

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Ms. Sylvie Leclair

Sorry about that. My name is Sylvie Leclair.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Thank you very much. We’ll now go to the official opposition. MPP Pasma.

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Ms. Chandra Pasma

Thank you so much to all of our witnesses for being here. Madame Lopez, nous avons une pénurie de main-d’oeuvre francophone en Ontario, et ça contribue à un manque criant de services en français pour les Franco-Ontariens, y compris en soins à domicile, soins de longue durée, mais aussi soins de santé primaires dans les garderies, etc. Comment est-ce que la formation des adultes peut aider à combler cette pénurie, et comment est-ce qu’un financement adéquat et stable aidera à combler cette pénurie?

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Mme Gabrielle Lopez

Merci pour la question. Je te la repasse, Renaud, parce que tu as de bonnes réponses là-dessus avec ce que toi tu vis dans ton centre et le nombre de personnes qui passent chez toi qui sortent de l’assistance sociale, finalement.

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M. Renaud Saint-Cyr

En fait, à Toronto, en général, la clientèle est une clientèle qui vise l’apprentissage ou effectivement les études postsecondaires, particulièrement collégiales. Alors, bon nombre de la clientèle de ce programme, effectivement, se rend justement vers les soins de longue durée. Ça mène à ça. Et c’est vrai : on est capable de prendre quelqu’un à un niveau de troisième année, et en moins d’un an, il serait prêt. Il aurait le prérequis minimum pour être accepté dans un programme collégial et en très peu de temps aurait effectivement les compétences essentielles, le diplôme ou la certification pour travailler dans toutes sortes de programmes qui gèrent la santé et les soins de santé de longue durée. En plus de ça, bien sûr, quand on sort de ce type de système, ça veut dire qu’on est aussi compétent en anglais et en français. Une fois qu’on sort effectivement du système entièrement, on a trouvé l’emploi. Alors oui, je trouve que c’est excessivement important. C’est aussi excessivement important d’offrir un service pour les clients—de tels services, en plus—puisque ça les aide effectivement à avoir beaucoup plus d’indépendance dans leur vie. Je trouve que c’est carrément primordial d’offrir de tels services. Je pense que, pour moi, c’est ça.

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Mme Gabrielle Lopez

Oui. Merci, Renaud. Le centre de Renaud est particulier parce qu’il est en plein centre urbain à Toronto. On a des centres, par exemple, à Cochrane, qui travaillent avec d’autres types de clientèle—par exemple, des itinérants—et ils doivent travailler pour leur permettre d’accéder à l’apprentissage. Il y en a qui ont cherché à aller loger, à faire l’épicerie avec eux, leur apprendre comment gérer leur budget pour éventuellement les mener vers un poste de mécanicien. Puis il y a d’autres types de clientèle : des gens aux prises avec des problèmes de dépendance à la drogue, à l’alcool. Alors on a une variété de clientèle. Il y en a qui sont en emploi; il y en a qui sont faiblement alphabétisés ou qui ne savent pas lire et écrire—de moins en moins de ceux-là, mais nos clientèles sont variées et on doit travailler de concert avec différents organismes dans la communauté pour trouver les expertises qu’on n’a pas, et pour nous appuyer à amener ces gens-là vers l’emploi et vers de meilleures conditions de vie.

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Ms. Chandra Pasma

Merci beaucoup. I’m going to pass it over to MPP Bell.

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Ms. Jessica Bell

My question is to Lori Holloway. It’s nice to see you here. We share the requests that you are making to the government to bring in wage parity and to increase investment in the home and community care sector, so thank you for raising these today. I have two very specific questions. One is about the $103 a day that goes to home and community care. What kind of services would an individual living at home receive if they were receiving the average amount of home and community care support? What would they get?

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Ms. Lori Holloway

We’re probably talking about an hour of personal support services, probably support around rise and retire—so getting out of bed, getting dressed, making sure there’s some food prep done, and the same kind of routine in the evening. You can add in an extra hour or two in the week for someone to come in and do bathing and laundry. We’re talking about a Meals on Wheels delivery maybe once or twice a week. Transportation services—a number of these services have a fee associated with them, and it could be a visit to an adult day program.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

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Ms. Jessica Bell

Thank you. That’s a very practical summary. The second question I had—and just because of the time, this is a question to Grace from the family council network. Thank you for your work. I share some of the concerns that you’ve raised about the need for increased transparency in long-term-care homes, including for-profit long-term-care homes. Can you outline some of the measures you think the government should take to ensure that if you are a loved one looking at putting maybe your mom or dad into a long-term-care home—what information should they be able to get?

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Ms. Grace Welch

The first thing is the staffing levels. That’s probably the most important. I certainly would not want to put my loved one in a home that’s offering one hour of care when they’re getting funded for three hours and 45 minutes. There are also the inspection reports, which are publicly available, but they’re very challenging to read—

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Thank you very much. That concludes the time for that question. MPP Fraser.

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Mr. John Fraser

Do you want to finish the answer to the question?

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Ms. Grace Welch

The inspection reports sometimes, though, are a little misleading, because some of the very best homes self-report—also, you fought very hard to get your loved one into that home, and you’re watching things like a hawk, so it’s sometimes a little bit misleading. I also would really want to know whether they’re implementing person-centred care, where they are in that, because that’s probably the most important indicator for quality of life—being treated with dignity and respect.

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Mr. John Fraser

We may all need to know that at one point, so it’s very much appreciated. Ms. Lopez, thank you very much. Je suis désolé de parler en anglais. We just don’t have that much time. I don’t want to take up too much time. I know you’re talking about sort of a broad-based approach to the coalition of all the partners. I’m more interested in regionally—if there are regions that are weak in terms of francophone services, that you would like to see built up. What are they, and what things need to happen there?

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Ms. Gabrielle Lopez

Well, the regions are very different. Ontario is vast, and in the eastern region, there’s a density of population that is francophone. They are closely knit together, so it’s easier for them to some degree. They have different kinds of challenges. But if you look at the northern region, which is so vast, it’s very difficult to connect everybody and that’s a challenge, and they are weaker. Even within the government, it’s difficult for them to find human resources to occupy jobs which support some of our centres; it’s difficult for centres. It’s already difficult for anglophone organizations to find and recruit proper resources. So imagine when you are a smaller group, like the francophones. And if you’re in a wide area like the northern parts of Ontario, access is more difficult, retaining people is more difficult. We have the same issues; it’s just a different kind of impact for us.

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Mr. John Fraser

Yes, I understand the vast area and the lack of density and population. In Toronto, for instance; in Niagara—in those regions, how do you find, in terms of your ability to support the people you’re trying to help?

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Ms. Gabrielle Lopez

Well, I’ll let Renaud speak for Toronto, because he’s living it every day.

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Mr. Renaud Saint-Cyr

Thanks. I’ve been in the job for about 40 years. Outside of the GTA, it’s certainly a bit more difficult, obviously; but even in a big city, the problem, in the end, is funding. There has not been an increase in funding—and it was inadequate even then—since 2014; there has not been even an increase for inflation. That makes it about impossible to compete with anyone for employees. It’s almost impossible to maintain quality of employment. It’s impossible, almost, to pay for rent which, as you know—Queen’s Park is in Toronto. Rents are astronomical. All of this makes it increasingly difficult for an agency like this, or any kind of an agency, to actually survive and keep offering, surpassing or fulfilling the contractual obligations of the province. We’re able to do it, but we do it in impossible ways, with a very, very small staff, and it’s not something that we’re going to be able to maintain like this for another decade. At some point, there needs to be serious cash infusion, specifically since not only do we surpass—but in our case, we’re sending everybody to post-secondary education, apprenticeship, and into jobs. And Employment Ontario will work better, if there’s a bit of a hint and an assessment that somebody might need these essential skills—certainly, it would be better, and would save a fortune for the province if they used this kind of service in French or in English, and basically got people into essential skills, and then put them in the employment programs, and then put them in the job market.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

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Mr. John Fraser

Thank you very much. Is there anything else you would like to add?

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Ms. Gabrielle Lopez

I think we’ve touched on most of the issues. Essentially, we’re looking for operational funding. Our needs are not that different than my colleagues here asking for operational funding, and not just, in our case, program development funding—because we can’t develop programs if we don’t have enough money to hire staff and retain staff and pay for all the rents and all of that. So that’s the challenge for us. We’re a small program within Employment Ontario. That’s why we come here to you—to make you aware of the situation. So thank you for your time.

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Mr. John Fraser

Thanks very much, all of you, for presenting today.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

We’ll now go to MPP Brady.

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Ms. Bobbi Ann Brady

Grace, I just want to thank you for once again talking about the wage parity issue. We’ve heard it over and over here at this committee. I have a saying, that a tree cannot stand if its roots are rotten. I’ll leave it at that. Ms. Lopez, thank you for coming. I’m about to embark on French classes very soon, so hopefully next year at this time I won’t need to translate so much. I want to go back to Lori. You were about to talk about a report or data from CEOs, and I wondered if you wanted to finish that thought.

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Ms. Lori Holloway

Yes, I would love to. This was an Ontario hospital CEO survey that captured hospital leaders across the province, what they’re seeing daily, and I’ll share some of their quotes—so these are the power brokers in the system, not us poor cousins. “The concept of alternative level of care beds in hospitals must end; these patients need community-centred, appropriate environments.” Next quote: “Our wait-list for long-term care is 10 times our current capacity, and over 60% of our ALC patients are awaiting” long-term-care “placement.” Next quote: “Home care must become a core, funded, and reliable element of our health care strategy to relieve acute-care pressures.” Next quote: “Our community home care resources are almost non-existent; we’re forced to provide services traditionally outside our scope and are creating a constant readmission cycle for elderly patients.” Next quote: “We’re all staring at the person drowning in the river, and nobody is actively working on making sure that they put on their life jacket upstream.” Next quote: “We are seeing an influx of elderly patients living alone and isolated, coming to the emergency department with non-acute concerns. Sometimes, non-health care related concerns. They’re looking for a meal, they’re precariously housed, or they’re alone with no one to talk to.” Next quote: “We’re seeing caregivers stretched to their limits. There’s often very little respite, very few breaks, and this inevitably leads to caregiver burnout”—

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

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Ms. Lori Holloway

—“which, in turn, leads to higher admissions to hospital as the care network at home breaks down.” Last quote: “We need a fundamental shift in how society views aging and caregiving. Elder care must become a communal responsibility with proper investment, rather than relying solely on the dedication of family members.” These are quotes from hospital CEOs from all across the province. It is time to invest properly in home and community care. Otherwise, we are not going to have a sustainable health care system. Thank you for your question.

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Ms. Bobbi Ann Brady

You’re absolutely correct; we’re not going to build our way out of this crisis, because we’re not building LTC either. I’m waiting on sympathy from this government to expand one of my homes that was given approval many years ago, and there they sit, spinning their wheels, while the rest of the services in town suffer.

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Ms. Lori Holloway

So how about we take the money that—if we could magically build—

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Ms. Bobbi Ann Brady

Put it back in the community.

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Ms. Lori Holloway

—and give everybody that envelope of funding that would be equivalent to the care in long-term care and—

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Thank you very much. That concludes the time again. MPP Sarrazin.

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Mr. Stéphane Sarrazin

I’m going to ask a question to Lori—and, of course, I wish I had enough time for Grace. I spoke about the community safety and well-being plan when I was speaking to Gabrielle in French. Maybe I should have done a little bit more research on your organization—

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Ms. Lori Holloway

We can chat later.

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Mr. Stéphane Sarrazin

Yes. You say you represent 200 non-profit organizations, so are you overseeing or—because when you were talking about service to seniors, something that wasn’t brought up is, the ministry of seniors, in my riding, for example—we gave a lot of funding to municipalities to actually go ahead with programs for seniors, to keep them active. That’s nothing I’ve heard from you. I’m just wondering, are you part of the main organization or are you working locally with municipalities, and are you aware of all that? And these community services that are provided in my riding—we like to sit with all the people from the organization to make sure that they understand their role and they’re not double-dipping. Some of the people come to us often and say, “Oh, I want to offer these services.” I tell them, “Well, these services are actually offered by this organization.” I just want to know your thoughts about all of this and how it’s going.

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Ms. Lori Holloway

Those are great questions. Thank you. What you’re describing are the active living centres for seniors, and that’s funded under a separate ministry. The providers I represent are funded by the Ministry of Health. Home care is funded by the Ministry of Health, as well as community support services. The active living centres are funded by the Ministry for Seniors and Accessibility. They work together. They collaborate together. There’s often an intersection in the folks we’re supporting, but we’re actually under separate ministries. I’m the association that represents those not-for-profit providers in home care and community support services. I hope that answers the first part of your question. To the second part about double-dipping: We do have rules. Ideally, we organize services in catchment areas. Traditionally, way back when many of these organizations were set up, we had regional offices and district health councils—then we had LHINs, and then we had Ontario Health. But way back when, service catchment areas were designed so that we weren’t having the crossover of more than one agency providing the same kind of service to the same people. There may be interest from a number of agencies. I don’t know if the folks who are coming to talk to you have an existing M-SAA contract, a formal contract with the ministry to provide these kind of services—or for somebody looking to net-new start a business or get involved. Government requirements are such that only not-for-profit agencies can deliver community support services. So that’s number one. If there’s private interest to participate, that is not allowed. Number two, if there’s demand in the community and they’re looking at growing their services, they could look to collaborate with the existing providers first and, if there’s still a demonstrated need, look at how they could partner and work together. Something that’s really interesting about home and community care is that there’s a deep history and a culture of partnership, of working together, so I would imagine that maybe some of these conversations are already happening.

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Mr. Stéphane Sarrazin

When we’re talking about $103 a day, how many hours of service are provided to the people at home in that?

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Ms. Lori Holloway

It depends on what their needs are. If you do not require Meals on Wheels and you have an active caregiver participating and supporting you, you may only be requiring personal support. That could be two or three hours of personal support a day. Another person may need a whole basket of service. The arrangements, the care plan, the service plan are designed on the individual needs of the person. What we should be aiming for is making sure that that basket of service is available in every single community—

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

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Ms. Lori Holloway

—so we should be looking at strategies around community-first. Look at what Europe is doing. Any net new dollars have to go to the community first, because if not, we’re just going to continue to default and fund the most expensive parts of the system. Building out community wellness hubs: We have excellent examples of where this is happening around the province, and they’re showing great results that keep people out of hospitals and long-term care. Investing in naturally occurring retirement communities and coordinators: Where we have a naturally occurring community of seniors, give them a coordinator that then curates programming and provides support in retirement communities or buildings where there’s a large grouping of seniors. All those kinds of examples we have put in our pre-budget submission. Quite frankly, this is common sense.

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Mr. Stéphane Sarrazin

I just was wondering, because you work mainly with the Ministry of Health—

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Thank you very much. That’s the end of time for the questions and also the panel. I want to thank everyone involved—both virtually and people at the table—for taking the time to prepare for this presentation and so ably delivering it. It’s sure to be of great assistance as we review results from our public consultations. Thank you very much for being here.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Our next panel coming forward: Medical Laboratory Professionals’ Association of Ontario; Ottawa Catholic Teachers/ Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association; and Perley Health. As in the previous panels, you will have seven minutes to make your presentations. At six minutes, I will say, “One minute.” At seven minutes, it will be all over. We’ll have the first presentation from the Medical Laboratory Professionals’ Association of Ontario. The floor is yours.

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Mr. Dennis Garvin

Good afternoon, honourable members of the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs. Thank you for taking the time to come to Ottawa today to hear about our community priorities. I hope you had a restful holiday break. I am Dennis Garvin. I’m the CEO of the Eastern Ontario Regional Laboratory Association, which is a member-based, non-profit organization operating 18 licensed acute-care, hospital-based labs that service clinical programs across the Champlain sub-region of eastern Ontario. I’m also here today on behalf of the Medical Laboratory Professionals’ Association of Ontario, or MLPAO for short. MLPAO advocates on behalf of medical lab professionals, including technologists, technicians and assistants. Medical lab professionals are critical to health care delivery. They test and interpret over 280 million lab tests annually in Ontario for thousands of conditions; that includes cancer, diabetes and heart disease. This is critical for diagnostics, precision therapies, and so much more. These tests are essential for timely prevention, screening, treatment of disease and surveillance. In fact, medical lab professionals are the fourth-largest health care profession after doctors, nurses, and pharmacists. Since the pandemic, our hospitals, public health and also our community labs continue to experience significant labour shortages. Across Ontario, 37% of MLTs are approaching retirement in the next few years. According to a recent survey conducted in the fall by the MLPAO, 68% of Ontario labs continue to experience shortages. Some 44% of labs say MLT staffing shortages have stayed the same or worsened over the last year, and 40% said that these shortages are adversely affecting turnaround times for testing. Locally, here in our region, MLT recruitment certainly remains challenging, for rural and remote positions particularly. In our sub-region here in eastern Ontario, of Champlain, 39% of our casual positions in remote locations are vacant. This poses a significant burnout risk and a challenge for staffing that can impact service stability and our ability to support care in the region, in the event of unexpected vacancies. More medical lab training programs are being brought on by Ontario post-secondary institutions, and we’re really grateful for that, but our labs are not always able to take and train students due to that shortage that I mentioned. In fact, 37% of labs that currently do not take students indicate that they would be able to if funding for a trainer was provided. In other health care professions, those are commonly called preceptors. Currently, within our eastern Ontario regional labs, we take on 16 student placements per year. If funding was available for preceptors, we’d be able to double that and optimize training. Student placements are also limited in the context of rising demand and complexity for testing. Our staff need to make sure they’re prioritizing turnaround times for really critical acute care in our hospitals, making this burden even more challenging. The MLPAO is proposing a modest but effective solution to the budget submission this year. We’re asking for a one-time, time-limited investment of $6 million over three years to hire about 130 preceptors, train 1,300 students, and alleviate these labour shortages, especially in our rural and northern labs. MLPAO was all ready to implement this solution already. We have part-time and recently retired MLTs who have come forward looking to help support the profession and to give back through training and supporting students, hands-on. This opportunity also complements our government’s recent investments in the Learn and Stay grant and the addition of 700 MLT seats to help MLT recruitment and retention across the north, east and southwest regions of the province. This solution will offer students a better experience, with dedicated time and training to build their confidence and independence, which will help foster retention within the organization and across regions. It will also help the current operational strains on this specialized labour force as they manage those daily pressures and the demand for lab services. To close, this investment really does build on a trained-in-Ontario solution to a North American-wide professional shortage, and it will ensure sustainable access to diagnostic testing, preserving a cornerstone of quality health care for patients across the province. Thank you for taking the time to hear our proposal. We hope we can count on this government’s support and hard work through this year’s budget.

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The Acting Chair (MPP Bill Rosenberg)

Thank you very much for your presentation. We will now move on to the next presenter: Ottawa Catholic Teachers/Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association, Mary Catherine Hogan.

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Ms. Mary Catherine Hogan

My name is Mary Catherine Hogan. Thank you for allowing me to speak to you today. I am a Catholic teacher and the local unit president of OECTA Ottawa. I am here representing over 5,000 permanent and occasional teachers working from kindergarten to grade 12 in Ottawa’s publicly funded Catholic schools. This is my 25th year in education. Over the years, I have seen first-hand the devastating impact chronic underfunding has had on our students and in our schools. Overcrowded classrooms, a severe lack of student supports, a dramatic increase in violence in schools, a teacher recruitment and retention crisis, and schools in physical disrepair are the result of underfunding public education for years, and students are paying the price. Teachers try their very best every single day to reach all of their students and to connect with the learners in their classrooms. When I speak with teachers working across the city, one thing is clear—and this is true from Barrhaven to Vanier, from Stittsville to Orléans: Students are coming to school with more complex needs than ever before, presenting as learning gaps, mental health concerns and violent behaviours. It is becoming increasingly difficult for teachers to meet the needs of all students, especially in large classes. Teachers and educational assistants need to constantly triage support, meaning that students with equally important but less-immediate needs do not always get the time and attention that they require to succeed. Students in our schools deserve one-on-one attention and dedicated small-group support. We cannot leave our most vulnerable students behind. The government must invest in smaller class sizes so that every student gets what they need to reach their full potential. In addition to smaller class sizes, we need the government to prioritize real investments to support students with special education needs and prioritize mental health and well-being. One special education resource teacher I spoke with shared how underfunding has created a backlog in special services like speech and language interventions and psychological assessments. This directly impacts student learning and means that some students with specific learning needs are not receiving the support they require. At one school, there is a list of 16 students who require speech therapy, and not one student is receiving any. There is no speech pathologist available. Eleven of these students have been on a wait-list for school-based services for over two years. When I speak to colleagues, there is a common theme, and that is that the kids are not okay. One particular conversation that has stuck with me is a call from a teacher, distraught after one of their fourth-grade students disclosed that they were considering suicide. Sadly, this is not an isolated incident. Schools are facing a mental health crisis. Perhaps the most tangible example of the critical need for mental health supports is the increase in violent incidents across Ontario. In recent years, Catholic teachers have seen a dramatic increase in violence and harassment, all of which is taking a physical, psychological and emotional toll on both students and staff. Teachers have been bit, kicked and hit. They have had chairs and books thrown at them. They have reported students bringing weapons to school and making threats to harm staff and other students. Teachers have had to evacuate their classrooms to keep other students safe when a student is in crisis and could potentially harm others. Teachers know that violent incidents are often calls for help from our most vulnerable students. Government underfunding has contributed to the rise in violent incidents, as schools contend with fewer professional supports, like social workers and psychologists. At one school, the resource team has been informed that they will receive only one more psychological assessment this year; they have 11 students on their school wait-list. Another impact of chronic underfunding is a teacher recruitment and retention crisis. Beginning teachers are feeling overwhelmed, and I hear from teachers early in their career who have made the difficult decision to resign. I’ve also spoken with experienced teachers who are retiring earlier than anticipated, deciding that the toll teaching is taking on their health and well-being outweighs any financial impact of a reduced pension. There are currently over 40,000 teachers with OCT certification choosing not to work in Ontario schools. This is resulting in uncertified and unqualified individuals covering classrooms. When schools rely on unqualified people, student learning suffers and student safety is at risk. The government needs to work with stakeholders to develop a plan to address the recruitment and retention issue in Ontario schools.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

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Ms. Mary Catherine Hogan

In closing, I want to once again advocate for every student and teacher to have access to the resources they need to thrive in schools that are healthy and safe places to learn and work. This cannot be done without real investments in public education. The 2026 budget is an opportunity to best support our students—one that Ontario cannot afford to squander. A real plan to protect Ontario, to invest in our future, must focus on healthier schools for students and staff alike. Our students are the future of Ontario, and they deserve better. Thank you. I would be happy to take any questions.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Thank you very much for the presentation. We now will hear from Perley Health.

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Mr. Akos Hoffer

Thank you for inviting us to this committee this afternoon. Let me begin by saying a few words about Perley Health. We provide a continuum of seniors care here in Ottawa, with a specialization—

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Excuse me. Could you start by introducing yourself?

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Mr. Akos Hoffer

I am Akos Hoffer, chief executive officer of Perley Health. Perley Health: We specialize in the care of veterans of the Canadian Armed Forces, and we are also open to members of the community. We operate one of Ontario’s largest long-term-care homes. We currently have 450 long-term-care beds on our campus here in Ottawa, and we are planning to construct an additional 120. We also have 139 independent living apartments for seniors. We’re a non-profit organization, and we are affiliated with a registered charitable foundation. We employ roughly 900 highly skilled and dedicated staff. Of the many topics we could raise today, we decided to focus on the assisted living services for high-risk seniors’ program, which is funded by the Ministry of Health. Perley Health has been delivering this home care program on behalf of the government of Ontario since 2011. When established providers like Perley Health deliver assisted living services, the benefits to the community are both substantial and multi-faceted. Perhaps this is best illustrated by a patient story. Margaret was widowed at age 89 after several years of caring for her husband at home. You probably know someone just like this. She found herself living alone, with an increasingly long list of medical issues and reducing mobility. These issues made it harder for her to bathe, to buy groceries, to cook, to clean, to attend medical appointments, and to stay on top of her medications. These are exactly the kinds of issues, when they add together, that create a great deal of risk and usually leave no other option than admission to long-term care. Seniors quickly become isolated and malnourished. Often this leads to a fall, which results in a serious injury, followed by hospitalization and admission to long-term care after a lengthy wait. But because of the assisted living services program and the care that was provided in her home, Margaret was able to stay in her home. It’s a program that, at very, very low cost, helped her to retain her independence and to keep her home. She could count on daily visits from Perley Health staff, tailored to meet her needs and to keep her safe at home. The demand for long-term care is increasing so quickly that even with all the new beds being built, the wait-lists are going to continue to grow. Assisted living services is a very cost-effective way of keeping those wait-lists shorter. In many cases, these seniors avoid long-term care entirely. In others, long-term care is only needed later, because they were able to stay independent longer. Assisted living helps ease the massive pressure that long-term-care homes are experiencing. Appropriate funding for assisted living services benefits the government of Ontario by enabling seniors to age at home rather than needing much more expensive long-term care or resorting to overcrowded hospital emergency departments. We achieve economies of scale and valuable knowledge transfer by using the capacity of our workforce and our expertise in applying them to community-based care. In spite of all these benefits, the assisted living program is severely compromised by chronic underfunding. Perley Health is having to make very difficult decisions about our continued delivery of the program if funding is not substantially increased in the next fiscal year and onwards. We’re not alone; far from it. The Ontario Community Support Association, who you heard from earlier today, reports that about two thirds of current providers are experiencing the same financial shortfalls, and one third of current providers are seriously considering dropping out of the program. If this happens, the system-wide implications will be calamitous, and it will be unjust and extremely unfair to the individuals who are receiving the service. The assisted living services program is funded and managed out of the basket of home care programs administered by the Ministry of Health and Ontario Health. Unfortunately, the program appears to be orphaned and is given little attention by the ministry. Because of underfunding, Perley Health now only serves 84 clients in the assisted living services program. This falls far short of actual demand, and we would be prepared, with appropriate funding, to more than double that number. Last year, we ran the program at a deficit of approximately $500,000. Thankfully, Ontario Health covered that deficit. While we’re grateful for that support, I suggest that retroactive, ad hoc covering of deficits instead of an appropriate funding model is not prudent expenditure policy. We used to serve 100 seniors in this program but have had to cut that to 84 over the last five years.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

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Mr. Akos Hoffer

In that time, the seniors population has grown by roughly 20%. To sum up, Perley Health is pleading with this committee to support and revitalize the assisted living program by doing three things: first, standardizing funding agreements so that all providers are funded at the same level, rather than when they signed those agreements; second, increasing base funding by 15% in fiscal year 2026-27, with annual adjustments after to keep up with inflation and to help grow the program; and third, increasing program funding to reduce existing wait-lists. Thank you for your attention. You’re all welcome to visit our campus any time, and we welcome any questions you may have today.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Thank you very much for the presentation. We’ll start the first round of questions with MPP Fraser.

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Mr. John Fraser

Thank you very much for being here and all the work that you put into your presentations. It’s very much appreciated. I want to apologize; I’m not going to be here for the second round of questioning because I am in charge of nine- and 11-year-old boys today. I have to get them home from after-school, and I don’t want to get in trouble with the after-school folks. You would know, Mary Catherine, what that’s all about. Mr. Hoffer, thank you very much. I fully support your asks and your request. The work that you do, I’ve seen, and it’s good value. It improves people’s quality of life. Mr. Garvin, I’m not unfamiliar with your ask because I think I’ve talked to you over a number of years. It makes sense. I do have a question now. Where do most of your trainees come from? What’s the feeder? What system—universities, colleges, high school?

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Mr. Dennis Garvin

Unfortunately, here in eastern Ontario, we no longer have a training program for medical lab professionals on the technology side. Our primary training institution is St. Lawrence College in Kingston. But we do, here in eastern Ontario, support trainees from other colleges across the province, including Toronto and the north as well.

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Mr. John Fraser

We had a program here in Ottawa that we no longer have?

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Mr. Dennis Garvin

That’s correct.

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Mr. John Fraser

That was at, I think, Algonquin College?

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Mr. Dennis Garvin

Correct.

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Mr. John Fraser

It’s relevant to earlier testimony. Mary Catherine, thank you so much. Your presentation was great. I’ve had a chance to meet with many teachers, parents and administrators, all sorts of folks, and so has my colleague MPP Pasma—a lot. Everything that you’re saying is exactly right. Schools are not safe places to learn or to work. Class sizes are too big. Special education: The boards have to look for $850 million a year that they don’t get from the province. And then a mental health crisis: When a grade 4 student is thinking about—we have a problem. It’s not any different than the problem that we have in society, but it’s affecting our younger kids, so we have to address this. The budget has to do that. It’s really hard. I know that you hear, because of your position, a lot of stories. I’m just going to share one with the committee. I have a neighbour who is a principal at a local school, and we were talking about exactly what we are talking about. He said, “Well, on Thursday, a 12-year-old girl threw a chair at me.” I looked at him and he said—he’s a principal; he said, “Just another day.” I have a friend whose wife is 70, and she went back for one last year. She had a child in her class who had really significant challenges and not enough supports. Within the first week, she had to restrain them with another person and ended up with scratches all over her arms. She went to the vice-principal and was explaining what the situation is, and the response was, “I guess you’ll have to wear long sleeves.” It’s not normal. These aren’t anecdotes to try to criticize anybody or criticize the government or criticize my colleagues across the way—it’s just a statement of fact. These things are happening in our schools, and we need to get our heads around it, because it’s a generation of kids who are going to be affected by this. I don’t have any questions—other than just a thank you for all the work that you do, not just on behalf of your members, but on behalf of the students and families you serve. Although I can’t give my time to anybody else now, which I would like to be able to do—I’m just poking at you, Chair. But he’s right. I want to thank you very much.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

If you don’t want to use any more of your time, we will move on to MPP Brady.

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Ms. Bobbi Ann Brady

Thank you to all our presenters this afternoon. I’m going to start with Dennis. There was just an announcement—40 MLTs lost in the Sudbury area. When a region loses local lab capacity, what kind of diagnostic delays should patients and clinicians expect, and how quickly do those delays begin to affect ERs, surgeries and treatment decisions?

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Mr. Dennis Garvin

Great point and great question. I’m proud to say that it’s a privilege for me to work amongst such dedicated professionals. Our health care workers are relentless in trying to find solutions to mitigate those problems and will work across a network of lab providers—be it in hospitals, be it in communities—to come up with solutions. But the reality is that there often is no backstop for gaps like this. It does affect our ability to sustain access to urgent care and to make sure that we’re providing the best-quality diagnostics for those encounters, for clinicians. So the short answer is that there isn’t always an optimal plan B and, unfortunately, that can result, especially in northern and rural communities, in the delivery of care that we might not otherwise want in those locations. That’s why we think solutions like these can help to mitigate those challenges that you’re mentioning.

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Ms. Bobbi Ann Brady

There were a handful of MLT programs or training programs closed in the 1990s. I think they were closed because there was this assumption that technology was going to actually replace humans, and it didn’t happen. And here we are in the most modern technological time in our history. How close are we to actually replacing humans with technology in the labs?

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Mr. Dennis Garvin

I think—and I am very much embracing of all technological solutions to our problems—there is not one solution.

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

One minute.

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Mr. Dennis Garvin

This is multi-faceted. We need people, process and technology working together to meet the demand and the complexity that we’re going to see in the future.

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Ms. Bobbi Ann Brady

If we don’t commit to the $6 million that you’re asking for, what is the financial cost to the health care system? Have you worked out a number? We know what the impact is to the health care system. But do you have a number?

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Mr. Dennis Garvin

I don’t want to conject on a number—it’s big. In short, our inability to preceptor and to train these trainees propagates and perpetuates the gap you were previously mentioning. That has massive downstream effects from subacute care, community care, acute care, right through to population health, quite frankly.

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Ms. Bobbi Ann Brady

Did we lose MLTs during the pandemic, or have we seen that steady decline over the past few years?

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Mr. Dennis Garvin

Absolutely. The pandemic was a factor, as it was for many health care disciplines. There was a profound challenge during that period—

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Thank you. That concludes that time for the question. MPP Smith.

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Mr. Dave Smith

Dennis, I’m going to pick up a little bit from what my colleague had been talking about there. You’re asking for $6 million over three years. How long does it take for one of those students to finish, for lack of a better term, the co-op portion of it? Is it one year each? Is it a three-year program that they’re doing at that point?

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Mr. Dennis Garvin

There are different models, depending on the preceptor program in the college. But our model—we affectionately call it a “five-by-five,” so it’s essentially 25 weeks per individual.

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Mr. Dave Smith

So, theoretically, in the course of a year, you’ve got two people coming in for each preceptor that way.

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Mr. Dennis Garvin

Yes, rough math—for sure. I would say that the needs exceed beyond one-to-one. There are significant technical considerations around how we set up simulation in the program and then bridge them into the clinical setting. So the need is slightly larger than that—but in short, yes.

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Mr. Dave Smith

How many preceptors would you be looking at?

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Mr. Dennis Garvin

I think if we put forward the number that I’d mentioned earlier—that’s province-wide—that would be 130 preceptors. We felt we could train 1,300 across the province.

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Mr. Dave Smith

So of that 130, would all of them be former retirees, or would some of them be existing technicians right now?

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Mr. Dennis Garvin

We have a significant group of this profession across the province who want to give back and who aren’t necessarily going to be coming from existing positions. Even here, within our own operation, we have recent folks who have retired, who would love the opportunity to work above quota to support training. So we’re confident that we wouldn’t be having any negative impacts on our current operation.

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Mr. Dave Smith

What I’m thinking on is more or less on the retirees coming back to do this. Would they be picking up other duties as well, or would they simply be working as the preceptor? They might be doing some of the lab stuff in conjunction with the student, but they’re not actually picking up extra work? Their full-time job, for lack of a better term, is that they are a preceptor?

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Mr. Dennis Garvin

Yes, 100%. The intention is not for them to bleed into day-to-day operations; it’s to protect and support the student.

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Mr. Dave Smith

So then there wouldn’t really be that large of an impact on their pensionable earnings because they’re there as a preceptor; they’re not there as a technician. Is that a fair statement? I’m trying to mitigate any risk for these individuals, is really what it comes down to. Coming from the software industry before I got into politics—about 60% of what you do in software is figure out ways that someone can break the application, and about 30% of what you do is actually the application itself, because it’s amazing how many different ways you come up with great ideas, and all of a sudden you’ve got something that breaks and causes more of a problem for them. I just want to make sure that if we’re going to do something along this line, we put the system itself in the best position to succeed. Since you’re sitting right beside someone from OECTA, I’ll use teachers as an example. There are a lot of former teachers, after they retire, who decide that they want to be a supply teacher. They can only be a supply teacher for a certain number of days before it has a negative effect on them, with their pensionable earnings as well. If we’re going to listen to this and look at it as an opportunity for us, then we need to make sure that we’re looking at all of the ways that we inadvertently could break it to cause a problem for us. In year 3 of the three-year program, you’re struggling with some of those retirees not wanting to come back because it created more of a problem, more of a hassle for them. So if we can get those right at the hop and not have a problem with it, that’s what I’m trying to accomplish.

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Mr. Dennis Garvin

It’s challenging in the moment to potentially project the personal financial situation of all of the potential trainees—but great points.

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Mr. Dave Smith

Chair, how much time do I have left?

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

You have 1.1 minutes.

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Mr. Dave Smith

I’m not going to pass it off to one of my colleagues, then. I’ll use up the last minute. I’m going to jump over to Perley Health. On the assisted living side of it, I know it’s a difficult thing to come up with a numeric value for it, but this is the Ministry of Finance—we’re talking about budgets, so numbers are important on it. If we were to look at doing a greater program on assisted living, roughly how many individuals would be deferred from going into long-term care across the province, if we were to do exactly what you’re looking for, at the level that you’re looking for? How many people are we deferring, on a yearly basis, going into long-term care?

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Mr. Akos Hoffer

Well, I can speak to Perley Health’s experience, not for the province. We serve 84 individuals, and one third of those are on a waiting list for long-term care. They are being deferred from long-term-care admission. Will they need it eventually? Possibly. But the time that we save keeping them at home is extremely valuable and very cost-effective.

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Mr. Dave Smith

And it gives a much higher quality of life, with no—

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The Chair (Hon. Ernie Hardeman)

Thank you very much. That concludes the time. MPP Pasma.

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Ms. Chandra Pasma

Thank you so much to all of our witnesses for being here, with very interesting presentations on important subjects. I wish I had time to ask you all questions, but the time flies quickly, and I need to focus on education. Mary Catherine, thank you so much for being here. I want to start by saying thank you to you and all of your members for the hard work that you do every single day, delivering a high-quality education and caring for our kids—which includes a couple of mine—under incredibly challenging circumstances, which you’ve really clearly outlined here today. The examples that you shared are really helpful in understanding—$6.3 billion out of the education system over the last seven years is such a big number that it can be hard to understand the impacts on students. So just hearing the example of one school—16 kids not getting the speech pathology support they need, and we know that’s going to have long-term impacts for those kids. Thank you for clearly outlining that. Another thing that you raised that a lot of parents are not aware of is the number of unqualified teachers who are in our classrooms on a day-to-day basis because of the shortage of qualified teachers. What does it mean for our kids if you have an unqualified person in front of the class, academically, but also in terms of classroom setting?

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Ms. Mary Catherine Hogan

That’s a great question. When an unqualified person—and by “unqualified,” we mean someone who is not Ontario College of Teachers-certified. When a non-qualified person is in a school, they don’t have the same expertise. They don’t have the same understanding of student needs. They’re not able to be as responsive to students as a fully professionally trained teacher is. That brings up concerns about learning. And we know that learning suffers when there’s not a qualified teacher in the classroom. We also have concerns about safety, because an unqualified individual isn’t aware of all of the needs that are in the classroom and the best ways to address and support those students. So it is, I would say, a crisis because right now there are permanent jobs that are going unfilled. People are not looking to teach in our schools. Teachers are leaving our schools. I think it’s really important that the government starts to ask why. What is it about the working conditions in our schools that are making people leave the profession and making people not want to enter the profession?

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Ms. Chandra Pasma

I think that’s a fantastic question. As you underscored, we do not have a shortage of teachers, actually; what we have is a shortage of teachers willing to work in our system. When we have 45,000 of them who are willing to maintain their registration with the OCT, which means they’re shelling out money every year to maintain that registration, and yet they’re choosing not to work in our system, that’s not a lack of commitment; that’s lack of desire to work in the conditions that are on offer. What is the reason that teachers are finding our schools untenable places to work?

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Ms. Mary Catherine Hogan

Where to begin? I spoke about violence. Just today, I spoke with a kindergarten teacher who was bitten on the shoulder by a student. She showed me the bite mark. In addition to the violence that’s happening every day, the number of needs and the complexity of those needs is making the ability to support the students almost unmanageable. We don’t have the supports in place, the professional supports that I spoke about—educational assistance supports, the number of qualified teachers in the classrooms—and, really, it’s becoming unmanageable. Teachers are becoming burnt out, and it’s sad, because teachers love teaching. In any school we go to, teachers are doing everything they can to help their students, and they’re doing it in really untenable, unmanageable conditions. It is a crisis that needs to be addressed.

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