Group receives heavily redacted info
Tuesday, February 11, 2025
By Kristen Calis Pickering News Advertiser
The group Seniors for Social Action Ontario believes the public has the right to know why a minister’s zoning order was issued for a 15-storey building on the site.
A group of seniors urging the province to overhaul the long-term-care system in Ontario isn’t backing down from its push for more information on how the operator of a controversial home in Pickering is able to expand.
“This is not an ordinary facility,” said Patricia Spindel, chair of Seniors for Social Action Ontario (SSAO). “This is a facility where 78 people died, where the military was called in.”
She’s referring to the Orchard Villa long-term care home, which was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic and continues to experience outbreaks.
The group that advocates for the rights of senior citizens has requested, through the Freedom of Information Act, documents regarding a minister’s zoning order (MZO) allowing owner Southbridge Care Homes to build a new 15-storey addition onto the LTC home.
Following an order from the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario to answer Spindel’s request for documents surrounding the proposed expansion, more than a year later, she received the information from the province, but most of it was redacted.
A representative from the Ministry of Long-Term Care confirmed Southbridge currently has a temporary licence for 233 beds that expires at the end of 2027.
Spindel found there were conditions attached to the licence, but the details were blacked out.
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