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5 | O akville B eaver | T hursday,O ctober 28,2021 insidehalton.com This fall, #lovelocal by supporting Oakville businesses. Look out for local events and attractions where you can be rewarded for your support! Ontario Minister of Long-Term Care Rod Phil- lips, riding counterparts, Mayor Rob Burton and var- ious health-care executives were on hand to announce the creation of two long- term-care (LTC) facilities in Oakville. The proposed facilities are expected to house 640 residents and will provide "culturally appropriate" services to the Hindu and Sikh communities. The government and its partners hope to complete the work by 2025. "The principle is, when it comes to our elders, lan- guage, music, food, faith, these are aspects that real- ly make the experience bet- ter," Phillips told the gath- ered crowd. "These are fa- cilities that will broadly be open to the broader public. We understand that as On- tario changes, the delivery of care needs to change to reflect culturally unique elements." The proposed property will be located on a patch of former agricultural land at 2165 Dundas St. W. One of the few visible structures on the parcel is a dilapidat- ed barn. The province an- nounced last November that they wanted to sell the land to develop long-term- care homes. Schlegel Villages Inc. has entered into a condi- tions agreement of pur- chase and sale for the prop- erty. The facilities will be a short distance from the Oakville Trafalgar Memo- rial Hospital. "We're going to provide seniors day programs for seniors and the broader community (to) come in and receive services, when a provider, neighbours, club or seniors can come to access social programs, to have a meal, to have a med- ical appointment, to go to church service," said presi- dent and CEO of Schlegel Villages Inc. Jaimie Schle- gel. Burton, who was accom- panied by Ward 7 Council- lor Pavan Parmar, praised the Ontario government for facilitating the new homes. "For 15 years, I've been asking Ontario to deal with the deficit, the 800-bed long-term-care deficit in our town. And in one fell swoop, man, are you deliv- ering." The Oakville stop is the latest in a multi-city blitz of long-term-care announce- ments. In late September, Phillips and local MPPs un- veiled a 160-bed LTC build- ing for the Faith Manor home. Just the day before the Oakville gathering, Phillips was in Vaughan to announce a 256-bed facility. The land in that deal, 7231 Martin Grove Rd., was one of the surplus lands that was put up for sale along with 2165 Dundas St. W. The province signed a conditional agreement with Arch Vaughan Facili- ty Inc. that was similar to the one with Schlegel Vil- lages. On Oct. 4, Oakville resi- dents took part in a walk for LTC that was organized by the Ontario Health Co- alition (OHC). Both the pro- testers and the OHC were highly critical of the gov- ernment of Premier Doug Ford's handling of the LTC crisis that developed in the wake of the pandemic. Ontario's Long-Term Care COVID-19 Commis- sion final report paints a picture of a sector that was neglected well before the provincial Tories came to power. However, it says that the Ford government "was slow, unco-ordinated and lacked urgency" to- ward the pandemic. Last May, Ford defended Phillips's predecessor, Me- rillee Fullerton, in the leg- islature, saying, "I know it's easy for the Leader of the Opposition to blame my great minister, but the buck stops with me; that's who it stops with. It stops with me and I'll take re- sponsibility." When asked if the cre- ation of the Oakville and other LTC beds was a sort of mea culpa, Phillips said, "No. This is part of a plan that started well before CO- VID-19, when we recog- nized that the last govern- ment had only built 611 beds and we committed to building 30,000." He added: "Now we clearly learned from CO- VID, and I made it clear in the first chance I had as minister that everybody needs to do better and we're committed to that." TOWN TO GET TWO NEW LONG-TERM-CARE HOMES Minister of Long-Term Care Rod Phillips announces 640 new long-term-care beds for Oakville. Mansoor Tanweer/Metroland MANSOOR TANWEER mtanweer@metroland.com NEWS