Advocates applaud Aurora for recognizing abuse of residents at former Pine Ridge Centre

Centre was a home run by provincial government for men and teenaged boys with intellectual disabilities

Yorkregion.com
Dec. 9, 2021
Lisa Queen

Aurora is being commended for recognizing the abuse of residents of the former Pine Ridge Centre for men and teenaged boys with intellectual disabilities by two residents who have been fighting for the recognition.

Kathy Kantel and Len Bulmer are applauding the town after council voted on Nov. 23 to recognize, as part of the municipality’s heritage designation on the property, reports that residents of the former centre at Yonge Street and Bloomington Road were “emotionally, physically and psychologically abused.”

Pine Ridge was operated by the provincial government from 1950 to 1984 and housed more than 170 residents.

The centre is now a provincial government office building.

Kantel and Bulmer are now pushing the provincial government to recognize the abuse of residents at the former centre.

“We look forward to the province working with survivors and organizations that support them to place an appropriate commemoration on the site remembering what happened there to people who still live in our community,” they said in an email.

“That commemoration will help ensure such abuses don't happen again.”

Family Support Network (Newmarket/Aurora/York Region), a network of families of people with intellectual disabilities, is commending Kantel and Bulmer for pushing for the recognition as well as council and the town’s heritage advisory committee for acknowledging the abuse of former Pine Ridge residents.

Pine Ridge was just one of the Ontario institutions that housed 50,000 vulnerable residents between 1876 and 2009, when the last ones closed, spokesperson and Newmarket resident Susan Popper said.

Families were led to believe their sons and daughters were being cared for, she said.

“Instead, after many years, they found out how their children and adults were neglected, abused mentally, physically and even died at the hands of some staff,” she said.

Popper pointed to former resident Martin Levine, who was first institutionalized at Huronia Regional Centre in Orillia as a child before being moved to Pine Ridge as a teenager.

“In Martin’s words: ‘In Huronia they did the beating up. In Pine Ridge, they did the torture with the cold water and side room and everything else. The attitude was, you’re going to learn that we are in charge of you,’” she said.

After leaving Pine Ridge, Levine found employment, got married, lived in the community and joined People First of Ontario, a provincial organization of people with intellectual disabilities reclaiming their rights to be recognized as full citizens of Ontario.

People with intellectual disabilities want to be part of the community, make their own decisions, contribute to society, have friends and lead an ordinary life like anyone else, Popper said.

“We believe abuse is bound to happen when people are institutionalized, young or old, in large or small congregated settings,” she said.

“Our families stand against institutionalization and congregation of people, which is still continuing. People with disability at younger age are now being sent to long-term care, sometimes with their aged parents due to lack of funding towards other residential options.”