That was a dramatic front page opinion piece and graphic in the Toronto Star yesterday. New owners Paul Rivett and Jordan Bitove penned a column on the inaction and state of Ontario's long term care homes. The graphic representing the 2,721 residents and eight staff who have passed away as of December 30th from COVID-19 was effective.

As mentioned in the piece, the problems of underfunding and low staff levels., low pay and poor training have been going on for decades and the pandemic has made the gaps in care for the elderly painfully obvious.  Most of the problems tend to be with the privately run homes rather than the not for profit municipal and provincial nursing homes.  

I give the Star full marks for this and have noticed subtle and positive changes starting to happen with the paper.  It was fantastic that the annual Toronto Star Santa Claus Fund far exceeded it's target this year of $1.2 million dollars.  The goal was changed to $1.6 million a few weeks ago and even this one was surpassed.  With everything that happened in 2020 this says so much about Star readers and their generous donations.  Over 45,000 underprivileged children in the GTA received Christmas presents because of this fundraiser which has happened every year since 1906.

Back when Rivett and Bitove bought Torstar in July, they asked readers to email their thoughts and suggestions about The Star and other papers in the chain.  I did write in and voiced a few concerns.  Three weeks later received an email back from Jordon Bitove thanking me for my comments.  It did look somewhat like a form email, however he did make two specific references to my concerns which impressed me. 

My understanding is that the paper has been expanding the newsroom and hiring more staff.  This is encouraging and it will be interesting to see how the Star and all Toronto media survive and hopefully turn the corner and prosper once again in 2021.