Waterloo seniors say long-term care, Ontario's future top of mind in provincial election

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Jane Proudfoot had to stop taking the mobility bus from Village at University Gates to her class at the University of Waterloo.

She had started the courses when someone mentioned to her that people over the age of 65 can learn for freeat the Ontario university, but when classes went onlineshe wasn't keen to make the switch.

"I avoided that like the bubonic plague. I am not good with computers. I didn't pick up a cellphone till I was over 70. You know, it takes me a while to learn these things now," she said while sitting in the long-term care facility's greenhouse.

Proudfoot, who uses a wheelchair, saidmany of her neighbours were impacted by the pandemic restrictions.

"It's really been rough because, first of all, they took away all your visitors," she said. "There are very few people that can really get through a day or two, let alone an extended period of time, without family contact. Their cognitive ability, let's put it that way, goes downhill."

"They've lost what they had and that is, to me, so sad," Proudfood said.

Proudfoot said housing is a top concern for her she doesn't love the idea of tall condo towers, but she also doesn't want the cities to sprawl on farmland.

"I don't know what the solution is," she said.

Overworked and tired health-care staff

Jack Klassen and his wife Carolyn Carkner sit in the welcome centre on the retirement side of Village at University Gates with their friend Joyce Stankiewicz.

Carkner said health and long-term care are her top issues in the election.

"We're not there yet, but we'll be there eventually," she said. And when she does get there, she hopes conditions have improved for staff and the people who live in long-term care facilities.

"Better paid staff. They're overworked, so tired. And they're doing the best they can. This place is pretty good," she said.

Klassen said he has concerns about how the Progressive Conservatives ran the provinceover the course of the last four years.

"It was very clear to me over the past two, three years that the government that is here now has not been the right government for Ontario at this time," he said.

He said he worries politics has moved too much to the extremes:either very conservative or very liberal.

"It's something that should be somewhere around the middle," he said. "We need to help one another and stand by one another."

Refused ballot

Stankiewicz, who used to live in Wilmot township, said she is proudly conservative, but in the 2018 election, she refused her ballot.

"If you go to the polls and refuse your ballot, they have to count it. And there were about 350 people in our riding that did that," she said.

They did it, Stankiewicz said, because they were upset with the party. Just before the 2018 election, former MPP Michael Harris wasremoved from the PC caucus and replaced in the riding by former premier Mike Harris' son, Mike Harris Jr. She said people were confused by the similar names and thought they were voting for the Harris who had been representing them since 2011.

This time around, she said she's not happy that PC Leader Doug Ford has been "giving all the money away."

The money from license plate sticker renewal fees, she said, "was supposed to be to improve our roads and then he gives billions back."

"I mean, that's ridiculous when our roads are in the condition they are," she added.

She said she thinks she mayrefuse her ballot again this time.

Seniors, poverty and climate

Klassen said he has three issues he'd like to see addressed by the next provincial government.

"Something has to be done about the seniors," he said.

The second is help people who are living on low incomes and in poverty.

"People are hurting badly," he said. "We need to have a government that will look after them, because if they don't look after the poor in this country, we will suffer, too."

Third is climate change.

"We can't push it off again for another three years. We need to deal with the changing environment we're living in," he said.

Return to school?

Meanwhile, Proudfoot hopes she can go back to university this fall, but said everything still seems very much up in the air.

The visits to the school were a time to socialize with her professors, the people at St. Jerome's University College, the students, even her daughter used to come along to the class.

"It was a whole different attitude than what most people think of as university," she said. "I love it. Now, I haven't been to school for two years."