The Green Plan: A Caring Society

A Caring Society

Our plan emphasises the connections all of us share. It values the standard of lifetime of all Ontarians.

Mike Schreiner, GPO Leader

The past two years have shown us just how much we depend on caring professions in healthcare, education, and social services to get us through.

But neglect and half-measures from years of successive governments have strained services we depend on day-after-day. 

Getting help whenever you need it mustn’t be this difficult. Whether you’re a senior citizen waiting two years for a knee alternative or an individual with a disability attempting to survive off $1169 monthly, the system is broken. 

The pandemic exposed the large chasms in our healthcare system, leaving our ICUs overrun and our elders dying alone. Stopping the bleeding will take greater than a band-aid.  

Our vision for Ontario is one which clearly states that mental health is health. Bringing mental health services under OHIP will mean that individuals can afford and might access the care they need.

Our vision puts the dignity of individuals ahead of personal profits or government red tape. If we’re going to call nurses, PSWs and educators heroes, then let’s pay them that way. If we wish to maintain our hospitals stable, then let’s treat illnesses before they turn into an emergency.

We provide solutions to make it easier for our elders to age in place, with dignity and real support. Solutions that may replace the profit motive in long-term care, with an actual commitment to offer each resident the care they need. 

And after two chaotic years inside and outdoors of the classroom, students and teachers need stability in the college system. We want to properly put money into our education systems – from child care through post secondary.

We’ve quite a lot of work ahead of us if we wish to create a typical future that’s fair, just and caring. 

Ontario Greens offer a leadership approach that plans for the long run by putting people and the planet above profit.

Ontarians look after each other. Our vision for Ontario is one where the federal government does too.

Mental health is health

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Mental health is such a critical issue that each one parties needs to be talking about. It was a crisis situation before COVID-19, and the pandemic has only made things worse.

Abhijeet Manay, GPO Deputy Leader

Almost half of Ontarians said their mental health has worsened because the pandemic began, and one in 4 Ontarians is currently in search of help. The best barriers people face in receiving treatment are access and affordability. 

But mental health will not be a “nice to have,” it’s a “have to have.” Many years of neglect from successive governments has led to long wait times and inadequate funding and support. Mental health touches all of our lives, and proper care needs to be available for everybody.

Ontario Greens introduced a comprehensive mental health plan, “Constructing a More Caring Ontario,” that lays out a method to make mental health care more cost-effective, accessible and comprehensive so anyone on this province can get the care they need once they need it. 

We intend to expand OHIP to incorporate regulated mental health care providers who’re presently out of reach for therefore many Ontarians. We are going to treat addiction as a mental health issue and expand treatment options for individuals with complex needs. We are going to create a mental healthcare system that’s inexpensive, accessible, comprehensive, and simple to navigate.

Increase access to publicly funded mental health care

• Make the investments needed to extend mental health spending to 10% of Ontario’s healthcare budget. 
• Include mental health and addiction care under OHIP by offering services provided by psychotherapists, psychologists, social employees, and other regulated professionals.
• Provide an instantaneous base budget increase of 8% to the community mental health sector to extend access to publicly funded care.
• Expand access to publicly funded mental health and addiction treatment beds to cut back or eliminate the necessity for expensive private care. 
• Fully integrate mental health and addictions services into expanded Family Health Teams and walk-in clinics to enhance early intervention. Include mental health and substance use as part of normal check-ups.

Create an accessible system with around-the-clock access

• Make investments to make sure core mental health and addiction services can be found in all regions of Ontario so people can access care where they live.
• Establish clear pathways to navigate our mental health care system and trained system navigators to attach people to appropriate treatment and services. 
• Implement a wait time reduction strategy for mental health services that sets targets, tracks wait times, and makes the data available to the general public.
• Spend money on a 3 digit, 24/7 province-wide mental health crisis response line so callers might be diverted from 911 and connected to a more appropriate service. 
• Spend money on the creation and expansion of 24/7 mental health focused mobile crisis response teams, crisis centres, rapid access addiction medicine clinics, and short-term residential beds across the province.

Improve access to care for youngsters, youth, and students

• Reduce wait times to 30 days or less for youngsters and youth by investing in frontline mental health care employees. 
• Spend money on expanding services for youth who face service gaps as they age out of the youth system of care. 
• Make the suitable investments so students can easily hook up with community mental health professionals at or near primary and secondary schools. 
• Be certain that mental health, wellness and resiliency training are included across your entire education system. Implement a comprehensive curriculum that covers issues corresponding to mental wellness, coping skills, and stress management. 
• Replicate networks corresponding to the Guelph and Wellington County ACEs Coalition province-wide to extend programming available to stop the consequences of adversarial childhood experiences.
• Spend money on Youth Wellness Hubs province-wide as a one-stop shop for employment, health, education, recreation and housing support. Our goal needs to be to have not less than one in each community across Ontario.
• Expand the Centre for Innovation in Campus Mental Health and increase funding for peer-to-peer programming, frontline counselling, harm reduction tools, and training to support well-being and resilience.

Treat mental health and addiction as a public health issue

• Work with the federal government to fast-track the decriminalisation of medication and reallocate funding from the justice system to mental health care services.
• Establish mental health-focused crisis response teams in communities across Ontario to be deployed when individuals are experiencing a mental health or substance related crisis. 
• Coordinate with public health units to gather and release data on the overdose epidemic, including detailed data on non-fatal and fatal drug poisonings.

Expand support for addiction care

• Take a Housing First approach and construct 60,000 everlasting supportive housing spaces with wrap-around services, and dedicate 10% of those homes to individuals with complex care needs. 
• Increase the variety of consumption and treatment sites throughout the province and expand the supply of harm reduction programs, including protected supply. 
• Integrate paid peer support employees with lived experience into the planning and organisation of all substance use programming, and create a big role for individuals with lived experience as a part of the Mental Health and Addictions Centre of Excellence.
• Declare the opioid crisis a public health emergency to unencumber funds and supply focused, coordinated government leadership to combat the crisis.
• Expand the distribution of naloxone kits. 
• Reboot the Ontario Emergency Opioid Task Force to deal with the urgency and complexity of the drug poisoning crisis.

Expand care options for individuals with complex needs

• Define standards of look after common and complicated mental health and addiction services for use across the province.
• Conduct a needs assessment for acute and community-based mental health and addiction services by region, and make investments in acute care beds as needed.
• Expand specialist community mental health services and acute care capability for individuals with eating disorders.
• Recognize suicide as a public health priority and put money into evidence-based prevention strategies that support the person needs of individuals, including Indigenous and 2SLGBTQIA+ communities. 
• Support programs and services that take an intersectional approach to fulfill the needs of all people, including those with disabilities, the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, women, Black, Indigenous, and racialized people, and people with housing insecurity.

Health through a preventative lens

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A concentrate on stopping illness will provide healthy outcomes and quality care at the bottom cost to the general public purse.

Marlene Spruyt, GPO candidate and retired Medical Officer of Health

Because the saying goes, an oz of prevention is price a pound of cure. 

While other parties wait for each crisis to achieve a boiling point, our vision is to try to unravel problems at their source. 

On the subject of healthcare, this implies helping people to access healthy food and a spot to call home. It’s also about early detection and treatment of illnesses in community clinics moderately than the hallway of a hospital. Most significantly, it’s a plan to respect nurses, PSWs and other healthcare employees to retain these professionals moderately than burning them out. 

We at the moment are facing a backlog for care, with 1000’s of individuals still waiting for health care, support and services. It’s even tougher for rural, distant and Northern communities, where there have been staffing shortages even before the pandemic. 

With surgery backlogs and an understaffed sector, now’s the time to expand a publicly funded, publicly delivered healthcare system that’s equitable, accessible, and comprehensive – for all Ontarians.

Prioritise prevention in our healthcare system

• Partner with the federal government to implement a universal dental care program.
• Partner with the federal government to implement a universal pharmacare program. As an interim measure, publicly fund take-home cancer and rare disease medications.  
• Increase upstream investments within the social determinants of health, corresponding to social isolation, housing insecurity, and poverty to stop substantial, long-term healthcare costs and severe disease. 
• Support and promote healthy behaviours to stop disease and reduce risk aspects corresponding to poor nutrition and smoking. These early investments will lead to raised long-term health outcomes and reduce stress on the system.
• Improve environmental determinants of health by prioritising clean air, clean water, and access to healthy local food in all communities.

Create a strong system of primary care

• Support a publicly funded, publicly delivered healthcare system and oppose further privatisation of care. 
• Expand access to family health teams in communities across the province and increase opportunities for physicians to affix team-based models of care. Include a various array of healthcare providers within the teams to make sure a holistic, connected, comprehensive approach to health. 
• Increase options for primary care, corresponding to community health centres and nurse-practitioner-led clinics, to make sure access to non-urgent 24/7 care. 
• Improve integration and connectivity across healthcare service providers through using digital data sharing and patient health coordinators. 
• Improve diagnosis and OHIP-covered look after rare diseases, including but not limited to lyme disease, long-COVID, and chronic pain disorders. 
• Increase funding for and access to midwives and other community perinatal care services across Ontario.

Spend money on healthcare employees

• Establish a nurse-led task force to make recommendations on matters related to the recruitment, retention and safety of nurses.
• Immediately repeal Bill 124 and the problematic sections of Bill 106 and permit all healthcare employees to bargain collectively for fair wages. Until then, provide a minimum hourly wage of $35 to registered practical nurses and $25 to non-public support employees.
• Increase nursing program enrollments by 10% every 12 months for 7 years and the variety of trained nurse practitioners by 50% by 2030 to enable us to fulfill our goal of not less than 30,000 additional nurses. 
• Support certification upgrades for healthcare employees through expanded bridging programs at publicly funded post-secondary institutions.
• Fast-track credential approvals for 15,000 international healthcare employees, including nurses and private support employees. 
• Guarantee access to probably the most appropriate safety equipment in all healthcare facilities, and use the precautionary principle when protecting employees.
• Provide support for Black and Indigenous healthcare employees through greater mentorship opportunities, partnerships with allies, and equitable human resources processes.

Support strong hospitals

• Increase year-over-year hospital base operating funding to a minimum of 5%. 
• Work with the federal government to supply surge funding to cut back the backlog in surgeries, imaging, and other services.
• Spend money on recent and expanded hospitals as needed to fulfill demand in high growth areas.
• Expand funding to construct additional hospice residences and fund all critical costs related to palliative care, including support for grief and bereavement services.
• Increase annual in-home palliative care funding.

Protect Public Health

• Conduct an independent public inquiry into the Government of Ontario’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic that may offer recommendations on preventative measures to cut back harm within the case of future health crises. 
• Designate the Chief Medical Officer of Health as an independent officer of the legislature in a watchdog role comparable to that of provincial auditors, with annual publicly available reporting. 
• Enhance the flexibility of Public Health Ontario to perform its mandate by ensuring robust public health science and laboratory support. 
• Provide adequate and predictable funding to make sure future pandemic preparedness.
• Stockpile three months’ supply of non-public protective equipment for all healthcare facilities within the province.

Fulfil distant and rural healthcare needs

• Rebalance the healthcare funding formula to make sure higher access in rural and distant areas.
• Make everlasting the 50 community wellness nursing positions supporting First Nations communities. 
• Spend money on increasing the variety of Indigenous-led health clinics.
• Expand the roles and scope of nurse practitioners as primary health care providers, especially in areas that lack primary care options.
• Use incentives to bring physicians and allied health professionals to Northern and rural communities.
• Create opportunities for specialist and subspecialist trainees to undertake electives and core rotations within the North.

Construct a more equitable healthcare system

• Immediately strike a task force to develop policies and initiatives that address the adversarial effects of racism, homophobia, and transphobia on peoples’ mental health and the barriers they face to accessing healthcare.
• Provide cultural responsiveness training for all healthcare professionals across our system that’s trauma-informed and rooted in equity and anti-racism.
• Increase core funding for community-based, grassroots mental and physical health supports in racialized, newcomer, and other communities which have traditionally been underserved.
• Improve the supply of supports and services in other languages, including French and Indigenous languages, and encourage service providers and programs to reflect the experiences and perspectives of the populations they serve.
• Mandate and fund the gathering and meaningful use of socio-demographic and race-based data to discover and proper inequities in provided care and health outcomes. 
• Expand the variety of and fully fund women’s health clinics and abortion clinics in Ontario.

Look after elders

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The federal government didn’t keep long-term care residents protected through the pandemic. A foul situation was made worse by a government that didn’t act.

Carla Johnson, GPO candidate

The recent census showed that, in the following few years, one in five people on this country shall be over the age of sixty-five. Lots of us will live into our eighties. We want to bring support and care into our communities where the vast majority of people prefer to age in place – having fun with every day life inside our homes. 

In Canada, long-term care residents made up 81% of all reported COVID-19 deaths in comparison with a median of 38% in other countries. The Toronto Star reported in December 2021 that for-profit long-term care operators paid nearly $171 million in dividends to shareholders in the primary three quarters of 2020 while receiving $138.5 million in pandemic funding. 

Those that built this province should age with dignity. Let’s replace the profit motive with an actual commitment to offer each resident the care they need.

We’ve a plan to enhance care in long run care and be certain that our elders usually are not treated as just one other revenue stream by private investors. We must do higher.

Construct more non-profit long- term care beds

• Construct 55,000 long-term care beds by 2033 and not less than 96,000 by 2041 to fulfill growing demand. 
• Create more Indigenous-led long-term care homes and allocate a portion of the brand new beds to those homes.

Create an accountable, nonprofit long-term care system

• Increase base funding for long-term care by 10%
• Phase out for-profit long-term care and stop licensing recent for-profit homes.
• Repeal Bill 218, which shields long-term care owners and operators from liability for negligence.
• Reinstate annual comprehensive inspections of long-term care homes without advance notice, and ensure homes with infractions face the legislated consequences.
• Transfer regulatory oversight of retirement homes to the Ministry of Long-Term Care. 
• Create a system of formal oversight for long-term care Medical Directors working with the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Ontario Medical Association.

Improve resident care

• Legislate staffing in long-term care facilities to incorporate a minimum of 1 nurse practitioner for each 120 residents and a staff composition that features 20% registered nurses, 25% registered practical nurses, and 55% personal support employees.
• Mandate a minimum of 4 hours of nursing and private care per resident per day, including a minimum of 48 minutes of care provided by a registered nurse and 60 minutes provided by a registered practical nurse. 
• Increase long-term care resident access to allied health professionals, corresponding to dieticians, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, and social employees, to a minimum of 1 hour per day.
• Mandate continued skilled development for employees on geriatric care, practices for caring for residents with dementia, and palliative and end-of-life care.
• Fast-track updated staffing plans and ensure consistency of care by requiring full-time personal support employees and nursing positions.

Prepare for future infectious disease outbreaks

• Prioritise licence proposals for small, community-based long-term care homes. 
• Update design standards to enhance outbreak management of infectious diseases.
• Stop contracting out food, housekeeping and laundry services.
• Recognise that essential caregivers play a critical role in residents’ health and wellbeing, and ensure they’ll safely access their family members during prolonged infectious disease emergencies. 
• Define the respective roles of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Long-­Term Care in addressing health emergencies, and ensure the protection of long-term care residents is reflected in any provincial emergency plan.

Expand options for holistic care

• Higher integrate long-term care, homecare, and caregiver services inside the healthcare system to properly provide for the complex needs of residents. 
• Implement an expanded alternative, patient-centred long-term care framework that focuses on a continuum of look after seniors.
• Strengthen obligations for long-term care licensees to respect and recognise residents’ gender identity, in addition to their social, cultural, spiritual, and language care needs. 
• Amend the Residents’ Bill of Rights to align with the prohibited grounds for discrimination within the Ontario Human Rights Code.
• Amend the Residents’ Bill of Rights by adding the suitable of residents to have accommodations made for themselves and their spouse or life partner in order that they can proceed to live together in long-term care. 
• Prioritise healthy, quality local food as a crucial component of resident wellbeing.

Improve home care

• Increase funding to home care services by 20% so that individuals can safely stay of their homes longer
• Create a typical basket of core homecare services that providers must make consistently available across the province. 
• Shift to completely nonprofit homecare providers inside the public system.
• Provide team coordinators as a single access point inside family health teams to make sure care is consistent with patient needs. 
• Mandate that non-public support employees are paid a minimum of $25 an hour and for his or her travel time between visits.
• Increase high-quality homecare options for those experiencing frailty, dementia, and disability. 
• Collect meaningful quality indicators to carry homecare organisations accountable and to advertise quality improvements. 
• Pilot a support program as a part of a basic income phase-in for those doing unpaid caregiving in families and communities.

Expand options to age in place

• Make it easier for seniors to live together by streamlining and simplifying the approvals process for cohousing and coliving developments. Repeal laws that might prohibit or create barriers to cohousing and coliving.
• Increase support for community centres and neighbourhood coalitions, which play a crucial role in encouraging community connections and reducing isolation for elders. 
• Create incentives for retrofitting homes to make them safer and easier to age in place.

Lifelong learning

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After two chaotic years inside and outdoors of the classroom, students and teachers need the federal government to bring stability to the college system and get back to high-quality, in-person education.

Matt Richter, GPO candidate

Learning is certainly one of the nice joys of living. We should always all have access to education and training that suits our abilities and interests. Our lifelong learning curve mustn’t be cut short by unnecessary obstacles. A twenty first century educational system needs to maintain pace with the changes and requirements of a society in transition.

We want recent funding models and clear, inexpensive pathways to higher education.

For the Green Party, constructing a contemporary, more equitable education system is a must. Properly funding our instructional support employees and retaining strong and committed teachers is paramount.

Investments in education are vital for the health, wellbeing, and success of children and young people now and for the long run.

Improve funding models for education

• Establish an independent review of Ontario’s education funding formula so it adequately reflects student needs, and review the formula every five years.
  • Make sure the updated formula includes adequate funding for ESL grants, special education assistants, counsellors, and other specific supports to supply equitable access to learning and college activities for all students.
  • Make sure the updated funding formula takes into consideration the unique needs of distant and rural schools. 
• Address the repair backlog for Ontario public schools.
• Allocate funds to make sure schools are in a position to comply with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA).
• Provide funding for schools to make energy efficiency and ventilation improvements.
• Make funding available in order that schools should buy zero emission electric school buses to exchange retired diesel buses.

Strengthen in-school learning

• Support in-person learning and oppose any move toward mandatory e-learning or hybrid learning models. 
• Cap grades 4 to eight class sizes at 24 students and kindergarten at 26 students.
• Eliminate the EQAO standardised testing and update the elementary curriculum to cut back prescribed student outcomes.
• Increase funding for enhanced outdoor education, greenspace in class yards, and enhanced curriculum content on critical environmental topics corresponding to food literacy and climate change. 
• Implement a province-wide nutritious school lunch program.

Make equity a pillar of public education

• Address racism in schools with mandatory collection and reporting of race-based data for student, teacher and staff populations, in addition to implementing standard procedures across the reporting of incidents of racism.
• Work with school boards to make sure recruitment and retention practices for employees are transparent and reflect the range of Ontario’s population and ensure culturally relevant and responsive programming is included in mandatory staff training. 
• End streaming in our education system to make sure equity for all students. 
• Immediately remove all Resource Officers from Ontario schools.
• Establish clearly visible all-gender washrooms and update school communications to turn into more gender inclusive, recognising that gender exists on a spectrum.
• Update the curriculum to incorporate informed discussions of anti-Black racism, 2SLGBTQIA+ prejudice, and all types of discrimination across subject areas.
• Restore funding for the Indigenous curriculum program and work with Indigenous educators and community leaders to develop a compulsory curriculum on colonialism and residential schools, treaties, and Indigenous histories and experiences.

Support children with disabilities

• Address the growing waitlist for Ontario Autism Program (OAP) core services by constructing the capability of autism providers, and funding the OAP to bring families into this system as rapidly as possible.
• Fund OAP increases every 12 months as inflation and the number of kids registered in this system increases. 
• Establish an ultimate wait time benchmark for diagnosis and access to core services once registered in this system.
• Work with the federal Government and other provinces in the event of a National Autism Technique to develop standards and a funding model to supply supports and services for autistic people of all ages.
• Provide educators multi-discipline training to assist them address student sensory and behavioural issues and adopt teaching strategies that support students with a large spectrum of accommodation needs.
• Construct on the work done with the OAP toward a recent Ontario Disability Support Program that might provide funding for therapeutic and respite services and supports for individuals with all disabilities, starting with children and youth.

Improve access to and equity in post-secondary education

• Immediately reverse the Ford government’s cuts to OSAP by converting loans to grants for low and middle income students and eliminating interest charges on student debt.
• Index the bottom operating grant for Ontario’s post-secondary institutions to the weighted national average, followed by inflationary increases 12 months ­to­ 12 months. 
• Replace the faulty performance-based university funding model and restore the more stable and equitable enrolment-based funding model.
• Ensure consistent and fair labour standards and dealing conditions for all faculty, including contract faculty. Remove wage constraints and pay equal wages for equal work.
• Develop province-wide, culturally relevant, trauma-informed and survivor-centric standards for sexual and gender-based violence on post-secondary campuses in consultation with experts, frontline employees, students and survivors.

Truth and Reconciliation

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As Leader of the Ontario Greens, I commit to upholding Indigenous rights to self-determination, and to act with real respect for treaty obligations.

Mike Schreiner, Leader, Green Party of Ontario

We want meaningful motion toward reconciliation.

The federal government has a legal and moral obligation to work with Indigenous communities – with full partnership, participation, and respect. 

Reconciliation with Indigenous communities is crucial and includes acknowledging the role of traditional knowledge and systems. A key step on this direction shall be to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

Our plan seeks to acknowledge the fact of Indigenous people in Ontario, including the understanding that centuries of colonialism and broken guarantees have made constructing trust difficult.

We would like to see the province come to the table with funding for Indigenous-led initiatives in climate leadership, healthcare and housing.

Work in partnership with Indigenous communities

• Implement UNDRIP to make sure equity for Indigenous peoples.
• Establish true nation-to-nation relationships with Indigenous peoples. 
• Recognise First Nations’ right to self-determination and establish a co-management stewardship model for the event of provincial resources with fair revenue sharing.
• Recognise and integrate Indigenous laws and legal traditions within the negotiation and implementation processes involving treaties, land claims, and other constructive agreements.
• Support Indigenous land defenders in asserting their treaty rights and actions taken to confront threats to their traditional lands.

Address the legacy of colonialism and residential schools

• Work with the federal government to implement the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
• Make the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation a statutory holiday.
• Restore funding for the Indigenous curriculum program and work with Indigenous educators and community leaders to develop a compulsory curriculum on colonialism and residential schools, treaties, and Indigenous histories and experiences. 
• Work with the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation to discover, collect, and supply copies of all rec­ords relevant to the history and legacy of the residential school system in Ontario.
• Reform child welfare and protection services to deal with the overrepresentation of Indigenous children in provincial care by ensuring Indigenous communities are served by Indigenous-led providers. Produce annual reports on the number and proportion of Indigenous children who’re in care.

Fix the healthcare gap

• Work with the federal government and Indigenous communities to discover and shut the gap in health outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities.
• Increase the variety of Indigenous professionals working in healthcare through training and mentorship opportunities and ensure their retention in Indigenous communities, particularly in northern and distant communities. 
• Increase the variety of Indigenous-led health centres, youth programming, crisis support teams, and support suicide-prevention training.
• Provide properly funded Indigenous-led supports for survivors of residential school trauma.
• Publish annual progress reports and assess long-term trends and indicators in areas corresponding to suicide, mental health, chronic diseases, and availability of appropriate health services to make sure equity in access to care.

Fund an Indigenous-led housing strategy

• Fund 22,000 Indigenous-owned and operated everlasting homes under an Urban and Rural Indigenous Housing Strategy. The strategy and implementation can be led by Indigenous communities to create homes for Indigenous peoples living in Ontario.

Support community rights to a healthy environment

• Work with the federal government to instantly end all boil water advisories. 
• Work to repair the damage at Grassy Narrows and Wabaseemoong;
  • Pursue government commitments to scrub up mercury contamination and ensure free, informed and prior consent for Grassy Narrows, Wabaseemoong communities, and all other Indigenous communities for future industrial decisions; 
  • Provide evidence-based assessments consistent with the recommendations from the Mercury Disability Board Expert Panel to make sure fair compensation is received by those that qualify.
• Restore provincial funding for source water protection and expand drinking water source protection to Northern, distant and Indigenous communities.
• Provide adequate funding and training opportunities for a First Nations Water Authority to own and operate their very own water and wastewater utilities to work toward finally ending boil water advisories.
• Provide $1B in funding for Indigenous climate leadership including Indigenous protected and conserved areas, during which Indigenous governments play the first role in protecting and conserving ecosystems through Indigenous laws, governance and knowledge systems.

An equitable Ontario

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We’ve quite a lot of work to do to construct the Ontario we wish, where your gender or the color of your skin doesn’t create barriers to the standard of life you desire to live.

Nira Dookeran, GPO candidate

We’ve made tremendous strides, but there continues to be work to be done to make Ontario a spot where everyone belongs. Still today, racialized communities, women, 2SLGBTQIA+  individuals, and folks with disabilities face disproportionately more barriers in accessing quality health care, economic opportunities, and inside the justice system.

Inequity has many faces. It is available in the shape of unconscious bias and overt racism, gender based gaps in pay and opportunity, and neglect of people who must cope with physical and neurodiverse challenges.

Ontario Greens are committed to constructing a more accessible and equitable Ontario. We’ve quite a lot of work ahead of us if we wish to create a typical future that’s fair, just and caring.

Improve quality of life for people living with a disability

• Double Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) rates as a primary step to implementing a Basic Income, and tie future increases to inflation. 
• Evaluate and improve the Assistive Devices Program to raised meet the needs of those requiring assistive tools, including more up-to-date devices, training, and fewer barriers to access. 
• Be certain that recent inexpensive housing stock is accessible, and require inexpensive housing retrofits to fulfill the identical standards. 
• Review all Ontario laws for accessibility barriers and be certain that all future funding and policy decisions are made through an accessibility lens. 
• Update, improve and implement the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act as quickly as possible.

Prioritise gender equity

• Work with the federal government to make sure continued funding for universal access to high-quality, $10-a-day childcare in all communities so women have more opportunity to re-enter the workforce.
• Provide Early Childcare Educators, greater than 95% of whom are women, with a good wage of not less than $25 per hour. 
• Immediately revoke Bill 124 to permit healthcare employees, including nurses (91% of whom are women), to barter fairly for the wage increases they deserve. 
• Implement the Pay Transparency Act.
• Require that public corporations’ boards and executive level positions have an adequate proportion of ladies represented, with a goal to realize gender parity. 
• Apply a gender-based evaluation to all government laws and programming to advise on how gender equity might be higher achieved.
• Support survivors of gender-based violence by increasing funding for Sexual Assault Centres, emergency shelters, transitional housing, and legal supports.

Fight to eradicate systemic racism

• Fully fund the Anti­-Racism Directorate, reversing the recent cuts. 
• Require anti-racism and anti-oppression training for all public sector employees and legislators.
• Require the Ontario Public Service to commit to eliminate racism and discrimination, conduct random external audits, data collection and reporting, and establish a protected harassment and discrimination reporting system for employees.
• Pass the Our London Family Act to vary the way in which we address Islamophobia in Ontario.
• Ensure Indigenous communities are served by Indigenous-led child welfare providers to deal with the overrepresentation of Indigenous children in provincial care.
• Address the overrepresentation of Black children in provincial care by the event of frameworks to supply culturally appropriate services to Black children, youth and families. Discover and address existing standards and structures that proceed to harm Black families.
• Provide annual reports on the number and proportion of Black and Indigenous children who’re in care, and establish an independent office to analyze claims of unfair treatment by case employees called in to evaluate a toddler’s circumstances.

Support and improve rights for 2SLGBTQIA+ communities

• Create a comprehensive technique to ensure equitable, inclusive and affirming access to care and treatment for 2SLGBTQIA+ communities inside our healthcare system and long-term care.
• Expand and improve access to provincially funded healthcare services for 2SLGBTQIA+ Ontarians, including gender affirming procedures and transition medications.
• Dedicate resources and funding to directly support 2SLGBTQIA+ youth groups.
  Mandate standards to have protected, accessible, all-gender washrooms in all public spaces in Ontario.

Address discrimination in our justice system

• Ban the practice of carding and delete existing data that has been collected from carding up to now. 
• Reform the Special Investigation Unit to make sure transparency and justice for racialised individuals who’re victims of violence and discrimination by the hands of law enforcement.
• Acknowledge and commit to addressing the disproportionately violent and discriminatory law enforcement experienced by Indigenous, Black and racialised people. 
• Decriminalise drug use, expand protected consumption sites, and shift funding from the justice system to healthcare.
• Develop a 3 digit dedicated crisis response line and health-focused crisis response teams to reply to mental health and substance related calls.
• Be certain that court mental medical experts can be found in all regions of Ontario to divert more individuals living with a mental health issue and/or substance use concern out of the justice system and into mental health and addictions services and supports.
• Restore adequate funding to Legal Aid by boosting their base budget and develop a long-term, structurally stable funding plan.
• Immediately appoint more full-time, qualified, and competent adjudicators to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario to make sure timely and effective case hearings.

Equity through language access

• Restore the independent office of the French Language Services Commissioner.
• Support the University of Sudbury in becoming a northern university by and for Francophones.
• Be certain that interpreters, translators, or multilingual written materials can be found in publicly funded services. Improve awareness of their availability.
• Ensure all government announcements are signed in each ASL and LSQ.
• Provide tools for nonprofits to have french language resources.
• Create incentives to extend the variety of french-speaking individuals in teachers college programs.

Respect employees and increase economic security

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We are able to’t afford to attend to treat employees with the respect they deserve, including paid sick days and fair wages.

Syam Chandra, GPO candidate

The pandemic has reminded us who keeps our cities running during dark times. Decent wages, paid sick days and protected workplaces have to be the usual, especially as life is getting less and fewer inexpensive for people in Ontario. 

We are able to’t afford to attend to treat employees with the respect they deserve, including paid sick days and fair wages.

We’re also on the cusp of a serious transformation on this planet of labor. The rising number of individuals within the gig economy deserve the identical rights and protections as other employees.

Ontario Greens imagine in treating individuals with dignity and fairness. That is one reason we support immediate increases in social assistance as step one towards a Basic Income Guarantee that may provide economic security and resilience.

Improve employees’ rights and wages

• Increase the ground of the minimum wage annually by $1, starting at $16 in 2022, with a top-up in cities where the price of living is higher.
• Increase the variety of provincially-legislated paid sick days from three to 10, and supply small businesses financial support to fund this system.
• Ban employers from requiring a sick note from a medical practitioner when an worker is unwell.
• Restore and improve employees’ rights to collective bargaining and immediately repeal Bill 124 and  the problematic sections of Bill 106.
• Provide all employees with full and equal access to employment rights and advantages programs like EI, CPP, and WSIB, in addition to equal pay for equal work, no matter whether the worker is everlasting, part-time, temporary, or casual.
• Immediately end the practice of deeming whereby the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) unfairly cuts advantages for employees.
• Review the Pension Advantages Act to make sure 100% coverage of defined profit pensions by the Pension Profit Guarantee Fund in an involuntary pension plan wind up.

Strengthen rights and protections for gig and temp employees

• Implement a “Gig Staff’ Bill of Rights,” including, but not limited to, the next: 
  • To guard gig employees and end the misclassification of employees, enact a presumption of worker status and the ABC test under the Employment Standards Act.
  • Ensure payment for all hours of labor, from app sign-in until sign-out, with a transparent and concise breakdown of how pay is calculated.
  • Ensure gig employees real wages usually are not reduced below the minimum wage by compensating for vital work related expenses. 
  • Make gig work count towards Everlasting Residency applications.
• Close the loopholes that may result in precarious work, including stricter regulations referring to the temp agency industry.
  • Mandate that temp agency employees earn similar to directly hired employees once they do the identical work, and that temp employees must turn into full hired employees after three months.
• Develop a program of portable prolonged health advantages for employees within the gig economy, retail and hospitality sectors that’s tied to the worker even in the event that they were to vary employment.

Measure economic progress and wellbeing with evidence-based data

• Replace the GDP as the important thing metric of presidency success with an Index of Wellbeing to raised measure societal progress, economic and environmental wellbeing, and folks’s quality of life. This technique will help to tell government spending and programming.

Implement a Basic Income and end poverty

• Phase in a Basic Income, with step one being to double ODSP and OW rates and reduce aggressive clawbacks.
  • Eliminate any unnecessary red tape, reporting requirements, and other barriers typically faced by those needing financial support. 
  • Maintain all existing supplementary supports which are available with current income assistance programs.
• Include meaningful consultation with individuals who have lived experience with poverty and existing social assistance programs within the design of all programs and services aimed toward client-centred approaches for reducing poverty.
• Annually report disaggregated data on the proportion of the population that experiences chronic homelessness, unmet health needs, food insecurity, lack of literacy, and low-paid work.
• Prohibit “payday” lending that takes advantage of those facing financial hardship as a violation of anti-racketeering laws, and work with credit unions to develop a low-cost, small loan alternative to assist people get out of debt.