Government of Ontario, the Honourable Merrilee Fullerton
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Long-Term Care COVID-19 Commission Meeting The Honourable Merrilee Fullerton, Minister of Long-Term Care, and Richard Steele, Deputy Minister of Long-Term Care on Friday, February 26, 2021 77 King Street West, Suite 2020 Toronto, Ontario M5K 1A1 neesonsreporting.com | 416.413.7755 Long-Term Care COVID-19 Commission Meeting The Honourable Merrilee Fullerton, Minister of Long-Term Care, and Richard Steele, Deputy Minister of Long-Term Care on 2/26/2021 1 1 2 3 4 5 MEETING OF THE LONG-TERM CARE 6 COVID-19 COMMISSION 7 8 9 10 11 12 -------- 13 14 --- Held via Zoom video conference, with all 15 participants attending remotely, on the 26th day 16 of February, 2021, 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. 17 18 -------- 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 neesonsreporting.com 416.413.7755 Long-Term Care COVID-19 Commission Meeting The Honourable Merrilee Fullerton, Minister of Long-Term Care, and Richard Steele, Deputy Minister of Long-Term Care on 2/26/2021 2 1 BEFORE: 2 The Honourable Frank N. Marrocco, Commission 3 Chair 4 Angela Coke, Commissioner 5 Dr. Jack Kitts, Commissioner 6 7 MINISTRY OF LONG-TERM CARE: 8 The Honourable Merrilee Fullerton, Minister of 9 Long-Term Care 10 Richard Steele, Deputy Minister of Long-Term 11 Care 12 13 COUNSEL: 14 Kristin Smith, Counsel, Ministry of 15 Health/Ministry of Long-Term Care 16 Amy Leamen, Counsel, Ministry of Health/Ministry 17 of Long-Term Care 18 Sunil Mathai, Counsel, Ministry of Attorney 19 General 20 Eric Wagner, Counsel, Ministry of Attorney 21 General 22 Ann Christian-Brown, Counsel, Ministry of the 23 Attorney General 24 Michele Valentini, Counsel, Ministry of Attorney 25 General neesonsreporting.com 416.413.7755 Long-Term Care COVID-19 Commission Meeting The Honourable Merrilee Fullerton, Minister of Long-Term Care, and Richard Steele, Deputy Minister of Long-Term Care on 2/26/2021 3 1 Stephanie Figliomeni, Counsel, Ministry of 2 Health/Ministry of Long-Term Care 3 Roopa Mann, Counsel, Ministry of the Attorney 4 General 5 Conner Scott, Articling student, Ministry of 6 Health / Ministry of Long-Term Care 7 8 9 PARTICIPANTS: 10 Alison Drummond, Assistant Deputy Minister, 11 Long-Term Care Commission Secretariat 12 Derek Lett, Policy Director, Long-Term Care 13 Commission Secretariat 14 Dawn Palin Rokosh, Director, Operations, 15 Long-Term Care Commission Secretariat 16 Alain Daoust, Team Lead, Long-Term Care 17 Commission Secretariat 18 Adriana Diaz Choconta, Senior Policy Analyst, 19 Long-Term Care Commission Secretariat 20 Angeline Hawthorn, Senior Policy Analyst, 21 Long-Term Care Commission Secretariat 22 Rose Bianchini, Senior Policy Analyst, Long-Term 23 Care Commission Secretariat 24 Angela Walwyn, Senior Policy Analyst, Long-Term 25 Care Commission Secretariat neesonsreporting.com 416.413.7755 Long-Term Care COVID-19 Commission Meeting The Honourable Merrilee Fullerton, Minister of Long-Term Care, and Richard Steele, Deputy Minister of Long-Term Care on 2/26/2021 4 1 John Callaghan, Co-Lead Commission Counsel, 2 Gowling WLG 3 Lynn Mahoney, Counsel, Gowling WLG 4 Michael Finley, Counsel, Gowling WLG 5 Peter Gross, Counsel, Gowling, WLG 6 Patricia Brooks, Counsel, Gowling WLG 7 8 9 ALSO PRESENT: 10 Helen Martineau, Stenographer/Transcriptionist 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 neesonsreporting.com 416.413.7755 Long-Term Care COVID-19 Commission Meeting The Honourable Merrilee Fullerton, Minister of Long-Term Care, and Richard Steele, Deputy Minister of Long-Term Care on 2/26/2021 5 1 --- Upon commencing at 10:03 a.m. 2 COMMISSION CHAIR FRANK MARROCCO: 3 Minister, and, Deputy Steele, I'll 4 take a break about every hour and 15 minutes. 5 It gives the reporter a chance to catch her 6 breath and the rest of us a brief 5 or 10 7 minutes to regroup. 8 DEPUTY MINISTER RICHARD STEELE: Okay. 9 COMMISSION CHAIR FRANK MARROCCO: So, 10 Mr. Callaghan, go ahead. 11 JOHN CALLAGHAN: Good morning, 12 Minister. Good morning, Deputy Minister. Again 13 to the Deputy Minister. 14 Before I start, I mean, as you can 15 appreciate, Minister, your Commissioners and 16 their counsel have been working these last 17 number of months trying to fulfill the terms of 18 reference that you've assigned to the 19 Commissioners. 20 We're going to today try to cover some 21 of the topics that might involve your 22 involvement and the Deputy's involvement and 23 hopefully we get through a fair number of those. 24 We've heard from Deputy Steele in the 25 past, but I wonder, Minister, you might tell us neesonsreporting.com 416.413.7755 Long-Term Care COVID-19 Commission Meeting The Honourable Merrilee Fullerton, Minister of Long-Term Care, and Richard Steele, Deputy Minister of Long-Term Care on 2/26/2021 6 1 a little bit about your background? 2 MINISTER MERRILEE FULLERTON: Thank 3 you. Thanks for the opportunity and thank you 4 very much to the Commissioners for all the work 5 that they've been doing over the last few months 6 and everyone involved. 7 I'm a family doctor for many, many 8 years, almost 30 years in family practice in 9 Kanata, which is just on the west side of 10 Ottawa. And I have had lots of experience 11 rural, urban, across the spectrum really, of 12 care. And I also did some Public Health. I was 13 on the Board of Health with the City of Ottawa 14 for a number of years, and actually had an 15 interest in Public Health when I was doing my 16 residency in family medicine. 17 I was able to have the opportunity to 18 help with the HIN1 outbreak back in, I guess 19 that would be 2009 or so, and working with the 20 City of Ottawa and Public Health at that time. 21 And so that was a very meaningful experience. 22 I've also been able to have some 23 training in palliative care. And for the last 24 probably 14 years have been very concerned about 25 our aging demographic, you know, the old age neesonsreporting.com 416.413.7755 Long-Term Care COVID-19 Commission Meeting The Honourable Merrilee Fullerton, Minister of Long-Term Care, and Richard Steele, Deputy Minister of Long-Term Care on 2/26/2021 7 1 dependency ratio, the economics of healthcare 2 and how we provide care to our most vulnerable. 3 And how, really, for the last 10 years, looking 4 seriously at long-term care and how it needs to 5 be integrated with acute care as our population 6 ages. 7 That's probably enough. So thank you 8 for the opportunity. 9 JOHN CALLAGHAN: That's helpful. And 10 on that latter part, I hope the latter part of 11 our discussion today we'll get to that. 12 Just so I'm clear, when you say you 13 were involved in H1N1, were you involved with 14 the Public Health Unit in Ottawa or were you 15 involved as a practitioner or both? 16 MINISTER MERRILEE FULLERTON: I was 17 involved as a practitioner and helping to 18 organize the physician response in conjunction 19 with Public Health in Ottawa. 20 So I was not employed by Public 21 Health, but we helped to manage the response, 22 the vaccination clinics. 23 JOHN CALLAGHAN: I'm assuming you're 24 aware, but maybe you could tell us if you had any 25 involvement in either SARS or Ebola? neesonsreporting.com 416.413.7755 Long-Term Care COVID-19 Commission Meeting The Honourable Merrilee Fullerton, Minister of Long-Term Care, and Richard Steele, Deputy Minister of Long-Term Care on 2/26/2021 8 1 MINISTER MERRILEE FULLERTON: Did not 2 have any involvement with Ebola, but I was 3 following the SARS situation very, very carefully 4 at the time. And obviously concerned and knowing 5 that we were overdue for a pandemic for many 6 years and leading up to today. 7 JOHN CALLAGHAN: That's very helpful. 8 So before I begin, you probably 9 appreciate that we got approximately 270 pages 10 of your notes at 11:00 o'clock last night. 11 These are basically a calendar. 12 MINISTER MERRILEE FULLERTON: Yes. 13 JOHN CALLAGHAN: And I've had my -- 14 part of my team try to look at them. We haven't 15 got through them. I think the consensus is your 16 handwriting is better than your Deputy's. 17 DEPUTY MINISTER RICHARD STEELE: That's 18 not saying very much. 19 JOHN CALLAGHAN: But anyway, I thought 20 I'd tell you that. Like the rest of the 21 documents we got recently, I'm not able to fill 22 in the blanks -- 23 COMMISSION CHAIR FRANK MARROCCO: Mr. C 24 allaghan, when you turn away, it's hard to hear. 25 JOHN CALLAGHAN: Then I have to get neesonsreporting.com 416.413.7755 Long-Term Care COVID-19 Commission Meeting The Honourable Merrilee Fullerton, Minister of Long-Term Care, and Richard Steele, Deputy Minister of Long-Term Care on 2/26/2021 9 1 closer, which makes -- I hope the Minister and 2 Deputy Minister don't think I'm leering at them, 3 but I will get closer to the mic. 4 I think you get the point. We'll try 5 and go through this and I may be able to put 6 some of the notes to you that we received last 7 night.