Because the elderly have greater difficulty in advocating for themselves, a coalition of three groups are combining forces to do it for them.
The Ontario Health Coalition (OHC), the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) and the Advocacy Centre for Elderly (ACE) are calling on the Ontario Human Rights Commission to conduct a landmark inquiry into the provincial government’s ageist practices in dealing with the Province’s Seniors.
The allies advocate that the Commission should use its powers under Section 31 of the Human Rights Code to hold an inquiry into systemic discrimination based on age in the provision of hospital and long-term care in Ontario.
The alarming number of fatalities during two waves of the pandemic brings the issue to the fore, but it is systemic underfunding that is among the root cause of the problem which helped claim the lives of nearly 4000 seniors.
Over the next few weeks the partners will hold a series of ZOOM media conferences to highlight the need for such an initiative and help put seniors’ rights on a level playing field.