Premier Doug Ford celebrates National Seniors Day in Richmond Hill

Ford emphasizes the province's commitment to building more long-term care beds

Yorkregion.com
October 3, 2018
Sheila Wang

It is not every day that you get a chance to play ping-pong with Premier Doug Ford.

Premier Ford got in on a ping-pong game with a Richmond Hill resident during his surprise visit to a local senior facility Mon Sheong Court on Oct. 1 to celebrate National Seniors Day.

The premier dropped in Mon Sheong for a tour on Monday afternoon when the senior residents were enjoying their leisure activities, featuring games such as ping-pong and mah-jong.

Chatting with residents, watching them engaged in the games, Ford has had a first-hand experience of senior living at Mon Sheong during his visit with Raymond Cho, the minister of Seniors and Accessibility, and MPPs Vincent Ke and Daisy Wai.

“Seniors are the people that have built our country, that have built our province, and that have built our cities across the country. It’s about time to start taking care of the seniors as they have always taken care of us,” Premier Ford addressed the crowd after trying his hands at a ping-pong game at Mon Sheong.

Ford decided to have himself a round of ping-pong after witnessing a heated ping-pong competition between two senior residents. He drew quite some applause from the crowd.

Tim Kwan, Mon Sheong Foundation’s chair, said he was pleased to see all the happy faces of the residents who were warmly greeted by Premier Ford.

“It means a lot to our residents that the premier and the many members of the Ontario government made an effort to take time out of their busy schedules to celebrate National Seniors Day with them,” Kwan said.

Mon Sheong Foundation, established in 1964, is Canada’s first registered charity specializing in the Chinese community. Kwan said there is currently a waiting list of 5,000 people for Mon Sheong’s three long-term centres, located in downtown Toronto, Richmond Hill and Scarborough.

Ontario Long Term Care Association statistics show a significant increase in the demand for long-term care in the province. As of 2018, 85 per cent of long-term care residents need extensive or complete help with daily activities -- such as getting out of bed, eating or toileting -- up by 77 per cent from just five years ago.

Premier Ford re-emphasized the provincial commitment to build more long-term care beds for seniors in his speech to the senior residents at Mon Sheong.

Announced as part of the 2018 budget, Ontario is building 5,000 new long-term care beds by 2022 and more than 30,000 over the next decade, according to the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-term Care.