Canada sends army to combat pandemic in Ontario, Quebec

FILE – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during his daily press conference on COVID-19 and coronavirus in front of his residence at Rideau Cottage in Ottawa, on Sunday, April 19, 2020. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press via AP)

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday the army would be sent in to help Ontario and Quebec provinces combat coronavirus outbreaks at long-term care facilities hardest-hit by the pandemic.

“There have been requests for military assistance by both Ontario and Quebec which, of course, we will be answering,” Trudeau told a daily briefing.

“Our women and men in uniform will step up with the valour and courage they’ve always shown.”

Quebec asked for 1,000 troops in addition to 130 military doctors and medics previously requested, to help overwhelmed staff at elderly care homes.

Ontario has asked for an unspecified number of soldiers to be deployed at five of its most affected care homes.

Seventy to 80 percent of all COVID-19 deaths in the two provinces were at long-term care homes, with the number of fatalities at the homes surpassing 1,000 in Quebec and 500 in Ontario.

Trudeau said the Canadian military “will be there with support so that provinces can get control of the situation.”

“But this is not a long-term solution,” he added. “In Canada, we shouldn’t have soldiers taking care of seniors.”

“Going forward in the weeks and months to come, we will all have to ask tough questions about how it came to this,” he commented.

“I think the system needs to be changed, and we are (going to be) changing the system,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford told reporters.

“But right now, our main focus is to make sure we protect the people inside these long-term care homes,” he said

Quebec had tried to recruit 2,000 new staff for its long-term care facilities in recent weeks to ease the workload for existing staff, but few applied.

Even with a salary top-up from the government, the jobs are relatively low-paying.

One of the worst cases in Montreal, where 31 elderly residents died after their caregivers fled the Herron nursing home, leaving them to fend for themselves, provoked a public outcry.

Another in Laval, north of Montreal, has recorded 69 COVID-19 deaths.

Quebec Premier Francois Legault lamented on Thursday that 9,500 healthcare and senior care workers in the province had not shown up for work this week; 4,000 are under quarantine or are being treated for the virus, while 5,500 feared exposure.

“This isn’t a normal situation,” he said. “This is a crisis and we need more hands.”

As of 1800 GMT Thursday, there were 41,752 coronavirus cases in Canada, including 2,199 deaths.