SIOUX LOOKOUT — During the 2018 Ontario election campaign, Doug Ford told Sioux Lookout voters he as premier would be in town for the sod-turning ceremony for a new long-term care facility.
More than five years later, there’s still no new facility and the government has done nothing toward getting one built.
A group of Sioux Lookout residents are waging a letter-writing campaign to nudge Ford’s Progressive Conservative government to do something.
“We’re just saying, ‘Doug Ford, this is your promise. You cannot keep ignoring us, because we will just come back louder and stronger,’” Reece Van Breda, a member of town council and one of the campaign’s organizers, said Wednesday.
Community members are invited to come to the Sioux Area Seniors Activity Centre between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Nov. 18 to add their own personal letters to Stan Cho, the province’s minister of long-term care.
Sioux Lookout is in dire need of more long-term care beds, said Van Breda.
More than half of the beds at Sioux Lookout Meno Ya Win Centre, the area hospital, are occupied by people waiting for long-term care beds—– and the average wait time for a long-term care bed is six or seven years, he said.
The 21-bed William A. George Extended Care Facility was likely sufficient for the area’s needs when it was built in the 1990s but isn’t enough now, Van Breda said.
Demographic trends indicate the need for long-term care will grow in the coming decade, he added.
“The province needs to step in,” he said.
“We’re saying, like, ‘Iceberg dead ahead’ ... and the only one who can really steer the ship (to safety) is the province.”
Curiously, a shovel is at the centre of the letter-writing campaign.
Earlier this year, a Sioux Lookout senior posted on social media a photo of “Doug Ford’s shovel” — the tool Ford could use at the sod-turning ceremony he pledged to attend. “Sioux Lookout is still waiting,” said a sign attached to the shovel.
Van Breda gave Kiiwetinoong MPP Sol Mamakwa the shovel during a visit to Toronto in October. Mamakwa said he would deliver the shovel and message to Ford.
Van Breda and the senior wrote letters to Ford. In reply they got letters acknowledging their letters.
Otherwise, said Van Breda, “we have not heard anything yet.”
He hopes the letter-writing drop-in event will be the difference-maker. “If we get everybody in town writing letters … it could be the spark that lights a fire under Doug Ford’s feet.”
This is a chance for the community to remind the government that “these beds are desperately needed,” said Janis Magnuson, a member of the Seniors Activity Centre’s board of directors.
