Good morning, Greater Sudbury! Here are a few stories to start your day on this Friday morning.
Volunteer firefighter advocates push for city council action
A group of Beaver Lake area residents is still pushing for city council action to improve volunteer firefighter recruitment, training and retention. Several members of the Beaver Lake Fire and Services Committee attended the Dec. 5 city council meeting in a show of solidarity for their cause, and left city hall disappointed. Although Ward 2 Coun. Michael Vagnini and Ward 7 Coun. Natalie Labbée both asked various questions and lamented the city’s limited training and recruitment opportunities for volunteer firefighters, neither elected official tabled a motion for the city to do anything about it. Area residents want action, and they want it now, Beaver Lake Fire Services Committee member Brenda Salo told Sudbury.com after the meeting. “They're negotiating the 2024 budget, and guess what? There's not a thing in it that expands volunteer firefighter recruiting or training,” she said. “Nothing’s there.”
Gélinas continues to voice concerns over emergency room closures
Nickel Belt MPP France Gélinas, who is also the Ontario opposition health critic, said the numerous temporary closures of hospital emergency rooms in Ontario is putting lives at risk. Gélinas was voicing her concern in the Ontario Legislature on Tuesday when she quoted a number of department closures that have occurred to date in 2023. "The Ontario Health Coalition was able to identify 1,199 vital hospital services closures, 868 ER closures, 316 urgent care closures, 11 obstetrics closures — the list goes on. Labour and delivery closures, ICU closures, hospital out-patients lab closures. Every single one of these closures put patient health and life at risk," Gélinas told the legislature. "The Minister must be very proud, her plan to create a crisis in our health-care system is working perfectly. How many more private clinics will the minister be able to fund given this level of crisis?“
Auditor general backs up Ford government critics in huge annual report
Critics of the Ford government got hundreds of pages of ammunition in a massive report released by Ontario’s auditor general Wednesday morning. Acting auditor general Nick Stavropoulos’s annual report contains a dozen value-for-money audits, many of which back up long-standing criticisms of the government on its most sensitive issues. The 800-plus page report contained criticisms of the government’s plan to move the Ontario Science Centre to Ontario Place, its stewardship of the environment, the staffing crisis in health care, and how partisanship has been infused in taxpayer-funded government advertising. When Stavropoulos delivered the report at Queen’s Park in the morning he told reporters he was hoping to learn if he’d lose “acting” from his title, which would put in him the role for a decade. Hours later, MPPs agreed to appoint Shelley Spence, who's worked as an account and auditor for thirty years and was selected by a bipartisan committee.
In Class: EQAO needs to serve more than the real estate industry
The Ministry of Education has released its annual EQAO results and the picture it presented was predictable and for the most part consistent with past results. Each year, the ministry ensures all Grade 3, 6, 9 and 10 students complete an EQAO (Education Quality and Accountability Office) assessment (currently the only large-scale assessment of reading, writing and math in Ontario). The goal of the assessment is to identify strengths and challenges for students in two areas: literacy and math. The consequences of these results do more than indicate where students, teachers, schools and Boards of Education require attention, however. Unfortunately, results carry weight, sometimes welcomed, most often not so much. But here is the reality: Boards of education can predict what the outcomes will be far before the assessments are even administered, and so do real estate agents. The Fraser Institute, a research body, uses EQAO results to rank schools. They publish their findings based on factors that might influence those results. One of these factors is annual income.
North’s hospitals stretched thin by staff shortages, auditor finds
Ontario's acting auditor general Nick Stavropoulos presented a value-for-money spending audit to the Ontario government this week and confirmed what Northerners have been hearing for many months — Northern Ontario health clinics and hospitals are stretched to the limits in terms of being able to provide timely emergency room care and that there is a serious shortage of doctors and nurses. "While the sickest patients are able to access and receive emergency department care on a timely basis, more needs to be done to address the risks associated with long wait times and increasing patient length of stay," said the report. A key item addressed in the report was frequent use of Locums (traveling temporary doctors) called on to fill in, especially at smaller hospitals in Northern Ontario. "We found that a primary reason for their increased use of the Locum Program has been higher rates of local physicians retiring or leaving the community in the last couple of years. That has forced hospitals to rely on the Locum Program to fill longer-term physician vacancies even though the program was intended to be used as a temporary measure," said the report.
Crave inks deal to expand the Letterkenny universe
Crave and New Metric Media have inked a new deal to expand the Letterkenny universe. The multi-year deal was announced Dec. 6 and will see 49 new episodes created for Crave, including Letterkenny spin-offs, and the development of all-new series with Letterkenny creator, Jared Keeso. “We are excited to break new comedic ground on this landmark pact with creative powerhouse Jared Keeso and our content partners at Crave,” said Mark Montefiore, founder and CEO of New Metric Media, in a news release. “This deal exponentially builds our 360-degree comedy ecosystem strategy for many years to come.” Letterkenny and its spinoff Shoresy are filmed in Greater Sudbury.
