The Northern Ontario Service Developers Association and Kenora District Services Board are both renewing a call for the province to ensure programs that work in Toronto be tweaked for our region.
Officials talked to a number of cabinet ministers virtually last week.
Fern Dominelli is the executive director of NOSDA and says, “What we’re saying is, we just want to help build the right submissions for the north. So as long as there’s flexibility built into any system or program where we can actually make it work for the north.”
He says as always, money formed part of the dialogue.
“Always need for more funding. I don’t want to minimize that because of course we could always use more funding but the reality is how to we make the best use of funding that’s available now and where do we look for more funding. For example, lack of treatment centres in the north. We’re pushing hard to get more treatment centres in the north.”
Dominelli says part of their discussion surrounded increased funding for social programs, the opioid crisis, and mental health.
He is calling on Premier Doug Ford to establish a Northern Ontario Joint Partnership table to manage the mental health and addictions crisis in the region.
