The Seniors Secretariat recently held a workshop in Sudbury, to discuss establishing standards of operations for Retirement Homes. Gord and Irene White, Millie and Primo Facca and the writer gave a strong representation to the outcomes for the workshop, which will be traveling to 12 other cities in the Province for input. The background material acknowledged CARP’s support of creating regulations that protect the health and safety of residents. The findings and presentation to the government would likely be ready by the fall and would go to parliamentary committees for input. Of course in the meantime there will also be an election and any changes would be delayed well into the new year at best.

We have suggested to the Secretariat, that they should run a pilot project and that they should use Sudbury for this purpose. Failing that, we have asked the Mayor and Council to implement by-laws in the City as soon as possible that are based on ORCA guidelines. We need to take action NOW! We did this with smoking and our citizens were proud of the achievement. Our seniors in retirement homes should expect nothing less. Let your local Councilor know that you want this protection now!