Community News Update - April 26, 2024
Community News Update - March 24, 2021
Dear Community,
I want to start today with an important clarification. In my last newsletter, when I shared that residents aged 75 or older in 2021 could start registering for their vaccines – I did not clarify that anyone who will be 60 or older in 2021 can book a vaccination at a participating pharmacy.
To clarify:
Residents who will be 75 or older in 2021 are now eligible to receive their vaccines at either a mass vaccination site or a pharmacy.
Residents who will be 60 or older in 2021 are now eligible to receive their vaccines at a participating pharmacy.
Either way, if you will be 60 or over in 2021, you can register for a vaccine through the Ontario government portal here.
Tomorrow evening, I will be hosting an important event to address rising anti-Asian racism in Ontario. I’m going to be joined by a fantastic panel of speakers, and we’re going to be having a frank conversation about how we can address this issue – especially in light of the horrific terroristic attack that recently happened in Atlanta.
If you would like to tune in tomorrow night (Thursday March 25 at 7PM), we have two options!
You can tune in directly on Zoom by RSVP’ing here.
You can watch on our Facebook Live stream, and RSVP here.
Our panel will include:
- Kristyn Wong-Tam, Councillor, Toronto Centre
- Laura Mae Lindo, MPP Kitchener Centre, Anti-Racism Critic
- Katherine Kwan, Student, George Brown
- Paulyne Wei, Actor and Comedian
- Brad Lee, Creator of the Chinese Canadian National Council for Social Justice's #FaceRace Campaign
- Elene Lam, Founder, Butterfly – Asian and Migrant Sex Workers Support Network
This afternoon the Ford government unveiled their latest budget.
While this budget needed to give people help to get through COVID, and hope for a future that they can look forward to, this budget has robbed Ontarians of that hope.
The pandemic isn’t even over yet, and we’re seeing cutbacks in this budget that will harm many communities in the coming year. In the coming days I will go through in more detail some of issues in this budget; some of the headline cuts to be aware of are in education, funding for children with autism, and public health units.
As an Opposition Member of Provincial Parliament, it’s incredibly frustrating to see this budget, because if the Ontario NDP were in government, we’d be investing in Long-Term Care, Education, and rebuilding after COVID. We’d be working to get people paid sick days and address the systemic inequities that hurt marginalized communities.
And while we can’t put forward our own budget – we can fight these cuts. We’re going to keep putting forward positive solutions to help get people through this and work hard to give folks a future that they can look forward to.
In COVID-19 news, today Ontario reported an additional 1571 new cases of COVID-19, including 459 new cases in Toronto. This is slightly below our current seven day rolling average of 1676 new cases, but we are still trending upwards in new cases. While we are working to deliver vaccines across Ontario, we must remain diligent in our efforts to combat the spread of the virus.
So once again, I am urging our entire community to continue to embrace the necessary public health measures. That means washing our hands, wearing our masks, and respecting physical distancing protocols. These simple steps make a big difference.
In Solidarity,
Jill Andrew
Toronto—St. Paul's
