By Pepper Parr
June 13th, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
We keep an eye on the jobs available for journalists to get a sense how healthy the media sector is – not all that healthy actually. We did come across this one:
Sr. Manager Communications & Public Relations
Chartwell 3 – Mississauga, ON
Strong knowledge of journalism and public relations best practices, and comfort in engaging with journalists. Manage crisis and issues communications in support.
Eviction notices were issued in March, giving over 200 residents just three months to find new homes. Some residents are over 100 years old and have lived at Heritage Glen for over 20 years.
What struck me was the job opportunity and its relation to the following statement that was released by the Opposition party at Queen’s Park related to the eviction of residents of Heritage Glen Retirement Home in Mississauga who were given eviction notices recently; they were issued by Chartwell Care:
MPP Lise Vaugeois NDP Critic for Seniors, and MPP Chris Glover released the following statement after meeting with family members and residents to address the recent eviction notices.
“Seniors are on fixed incomes and need safe, affordable places to live, but when the bulk of seniors’ housing exists to make profits for investors, a real estate trust, like Chartwell, can sell their homes out from under them. The government’s failure to intervene in this mass displacement of seniors is unacceptable.”
Eviction notices were issued in March, giving over 200 residents just three months to find new homes. Some residents are over 100 years old and have lived at Heritage Glen for over 20 years.
What gauls the MPP’s is the knowledge that Chartwell has received $75 million in taxpayer subsidies since 2006 and is now evicting 200 seniors, including a 103-year-old,” Their actions are a clear indictment of any government that hands over the care of our seniors to private, for-profit corporations.
Harris’ government reduced the public role in long-term care, relaxing regulations and lessening public oversight.
Twenty-five years ago, Mike Harris and his Progressive Conservative party ousted Rae’s NDP government in Ontario, starting the so-called “Common Sense Revolution.”
Pledging to tackle Ontario’s deficit, the Harris government pushed tax reductions and slashed public spending on health care, education and social services. The government closed hospitals and eliminated the jobs of thousands of nurses, infamously comparing them to obsolete hula hoop makers.
How Ontario cared for seniors did not escape the cuts. Harris’ government reduced the public role in long-term care, relaxing regulations and lessening public oversight. This wasn’t the start of privatization, but it certainly opened the doors much wider.
Under the Harris government, the growing corporate business of caring for seniors flourished and corporate players such as Sienna Senior Living, Revera, Extendicare and Chartwell expanded their reach, providing seniors with independent living, assisted living and long-term care housing – for a price.
Flash forward 25 years, as successive Conservative and Liberal governments continue this privatization trend.
Let’s look at one seniors’ housing company in particular.
Chartwell Homes describes itself as an “open-ended real estate trust which indirectly owns and operates a complete range of seniors housing communities, from independent supportive living through assisted living to long term care. It is the largest operator in the Canadian seniors living sector with over 200 quality retirement communities in four provinces, including properties under development.”
The company operates homes in B.C., Alberta, Ontario and Quebec and employs more than 15,000 people, most of them women.
Mike Harris: According to the Toronto Star, he was paid $229,500 one year.
And the chair of Chartwell’s Board of Directors? It’s none other than former Ontario premier Mike Harris. The rest of Chartwell’s corporate directors come from big banks, real estate, tax, audit and investment corporations. It’s a full list of corporate heavy weights without a single health care or seniors’ representative.
Harris has profited a lot from his part time boardroom-based job with Chartwell. According to the Toronto Star, he was paid $229,500 one year.
The Star also reports that “Harris had more than $7 million in Chartwell holdings at the end of 2019 (its last fiscal year) – including $4.29 million in ‘deferred trust units’ (akin to shares) that reflect his accumulated compensation over the years (deferred until retirement).” According to the article Chartwell’s communications department and a forensic chartered accountant verified these numbers.
Unifor, a union that represents workers at Chartwell, launched a campaign last year calling for better pay for caregivers in Chartwell’s homes. “Chartwell pays many of their staff minimum wage,” Unifor’s website states. “In fact, most of their employees do not receive a living wage. To make matters worse, Chartwell has proposed all minimum wage employees have their wages frozen until 2020. These workers provide care and compassion to residents, work that is so important that the Ontario Labour Relations Board has consistently denied them the right to strike, putting them under the same legislation as other essential service providers, such as hospital workers.”
Katha Fortier, a Unifor spokesperson, said it’s ludicrous the former premier would make more than $200,000 for his part-time job in Chartwell’s corporate boardroom while front line workers in homes are paid “abysmal, poverty wages.”
The inability to make a living wage in a home requires many personal support workers to take jobs in multiple seniors’ homes. This, and a lack of personal protective equipment, have been cited as key contributors to the deadly spread of COVID-19.
Ford pledges to hold profiteers accountable
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he plans to hold private companies that continued to draw profits while seniors in their long-term care homes lay sick and dying accountable. It’s not clear if that includes Mike Harris. Premier Ford said he was unaware of Harris’ connection to Chartwell.
Premier Ford is facing criticism from families, unions, seniors’ advocates and other concerned groups. Not only was his government told about the crisis in long-term care before COVID-19 came to Canada and didn’t act on it, the government also contributed to the crisis by significantly reducing inspections of long-term care homes, the majority of which are owned by private operators, including Chartwell.
Groups are also accusing the premier of ignoring the lessons we have learned about the risks and dangers of privatization.
Right now, the Ford government is forging ahead with Bill 175, Connecting People to Home and Community Care Act 2020. The Act will result in the handover of almost all government oversight of home care and care provided in retirement residences by personal support workers (PSWs) to private companies. It will do nothing to address the critical shortage of PSWs or improve their working conditions.
The Ontario Health Coalition has been calling for a halt to the Bill, saying it will impact more than 730,000 Ontarians who use home care services and many thousands more who require community care services. The coalition says the new legislation would allow the Ontario government to make changes without Legislature approval, dismantle all remaining public governance and control of home care and hand it off to provider companies, including for-profit companies, and expand privatization not only of home care, but also potentially of parts of hospital and long-term care.
It’s time, said theOntario Health Coalition, that we take the words “private” and “profit” out of how we care for our seniors.
The only organizations that can afford them are the 3 levels of government. It has been interesting to see how the MSM has cannibalized itself. In the end they will all be replaced by AI because they thought it best to work from home. Looking forward we wont need cars or public transit because “people-kind”will have returned to living in caves.