Ontario's Official Opposition Leader has tabled a bill calling for an inquiry into the province's handling of the pandemic.
So far, over 6,700 Ontarians have died of COVID-19, many of them in long-term care homes.
Horwath says that an inquiry will help determine where the province went wrong, in order to ensure the province is better prepared for the next major health event.
"But soon, when the danger is behind us, there will come a time to examine what went wrong, so we can take active steps to make sure it never happens again. I think of the thousands of families ripped apart by the loss of a loved one, of the frontline workers who didn’t have the personal protective equipment they needed to stay safe, and of the questions that haunt us all, like: if we had done more, sooner, how many people could we have saved?"
After the SARS crisis, several recommendations were made, including maintaining a stock of personal protective equipment.
Horwath says the Liberals and Conservatives failed to learn the lessons from SARS, and Doug Ford needs to avoid making the same mistake again.
"It’s shameful that neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives followed the lessons learned from the SARS crisis, leaving us without a stock of personal protective equipment heading into the COVID-19 pandemic.. It would be unforgivable for Doug Ford to choose to repeat mistakes like that. This time the government needs to put public health ahead of money and politics, and get this right for Ontario."
Horwath is pushing for the government to conduct a public, independent judicial inquiry through the Public Inquiries Act as soon as the province gets through the immediate crisis.
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