TORONTO – Steven Del Duca, Leader of the Ontario Liberal Party, made the following statement:
Ontarians deserve answers to simple questions from Doug Ford.
Why won’t Doug Ford commit to a public inquiry? Despite the residents, their families, and frontline workers calling for a public inquiry into the deaths – Doug Ford refuses to do it. He has never once said why. We need to know what his government knew and when they knew it.
What information was made available to him to compel him to deploy the armed forces? We already know there were complaints and critical incident-based inspections before the pandemic, which found the same issues to what the military blew the whistle on. How can Doug Ford claim he wasn’t aware of critical issues in these homes until he read the military report?
Did the Premier or his government send inspectors into these homes since January 2020? If so, why are these reports not public? Doug Ford has said he believes in full transparency. If he failed to send inspectors into these homes after he acknowledged there was a “wildfire” in the homes, then he needs to come clean. If Inspections did occur, then the findings must be made public immediately.
A Doug Ford-led conservative commission is not enough. A full public judicial inquiry into long term care deaths, with the power to compel testimony and the production of documents, is what Ontarians are demanding – because we all deserve the truth. If Doug Ford refuses to do the right thing and launch a public inquiry, a future Liberal Government will. Just as Ontario Liberals did for Ipperwash, we will do what’s right and what Ontario deserves.