A bump in spending on seniors' programs comes after the Ford government made a significant cut to that area last fiscal year.

On Friday, Premier Doug Ford's office announced an extra $4 million for the Seniors Community Grant Program, to be distributed among organizations for various community seniors' initiatives. The boost was billed as "a significant increase over last year."

But the budget item responsible for those community programs was cut by $4.7 million last year, according to the government's 2019/20 estimates. The Seniors Affairs Program, which was renamed to the Seniors and Accessibility Policy Program in 2020/21, then received a $13.7-million boost this fiscal year, starting April 1 — toward the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, which has affected seniors far more than any other group.

"You won't be surprised to hear me say yes, it absolutely was a mistake" to cut the budget of seniors and accessibility, said Joel Harden, NDP's seniors and accessibility critic.

The program that was cut, and then boosted, also oversees the Retirement Homes Regulatory Authority (RHRA), which is legislated to regulate retirement homes. The agency's budget was not affected, however, since it gets most of its money from fees paid by homes, and none from the government.

A spokesperson for Seniors and Accessibility Minister Raymond Cho said the cuts in 2019/20 "primarily relate to new programs announced by the previous government that were not implemented," and that RHRA oversight wasn't affected.

Changes to staffing within the ministry resulted in redistributed expenses in 2020/21, but there was "no net financial impact on the ministry," Matthew Varsava said.

Harden said the government has failed to take necessary action on retirement homes, as they've suffered from many of the same issues as long-term care homes — even before the COVID-19 pandemic. Though long-term care homes have often dominated the news since the Canadian Armed Forces reported abhorrent conditions in facilities they were deployed to, retirement homes have gone so far as to use trespass orders to ban family members of relatives from the property after they speak out about conditions at the homes.

After that story broke in Nov. 2019, Harden said in question period that the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly, a Toronto community legal clinic for low-income seniors, "hears about a case like this at least once a week."

When he brought up the case in question period, Cho's answer was "really upsetting," Harden said.

"It’s my understanding that one of the family members is banned from coming into the long-term-care home because of some — how can I say it? — uneasy incident that happened and is now being investigated. I will come up there later in more detail. The daughter of the 97-year-old senior can contact her mother in different ways, because when the daughter comes to the retirement home, some violent incident happened against the staff," Cho said at the time.

Harden said every time he speaks to the family member, Mary Sardelis, she asks if Cho has apologized, which he has not.

The retirement home operator is now suing Sardelis, Harden said. He called on the government to remove retirement homes' ability to set trespass orders, saying they should be the domain of police.

Opacity as to what exactly has been cut or funded has been an issue for this government's approach to seniors' issues, said Graham Webb, the executive director of the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly. He said he's not aware of any broad-based consultations with stakeholders on the issues — a departure from previous governments he's worked with.

"These are things that I wish I were better informed on, but I just don't have the information from the government, and that's one of the issues," he said.

In general, "spending on seniors and seniors issues is very important," Webb said. "And especially when we the problems we've had in long-term care, through the ministry of long-term care, it indicates there's a need for more resources, not for less resources on seniors' issues."

Webb pointed out that the ministry for seniors and accessibility is not responsible for long-term care, the area from which the vast majority of Ontario's and Canada's COVID-19 deaths have stemmed.

And while the RHRA's budget hasn't been affected, other agencies, like Elder Abuse Prevention Ontario, have had their budgets cut by this government, Webb said — "much to the dismay of other community stakeholders."

Seniors’ program boost preceded by cut

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