TORONTO – Three weeks after calling on Ontario manufacturers to step up in the fight against COVID-19, Premier Doug Ford is touting the results of his government’s Ontario Together initiative.
The government launched an online portal on March 21, asking companies to submit plans to retool to make critical tools and supplies. That included ventilators, sanitizing products, and personal protective equipment (PPE) like gowns, gloves, masks, and face shields.
At a press conference Saturday, Ford said the response has been overwhelming. Over 14,000 submissions have been received through Ontario Together, he said ,while the government has already purchased $90 million of PPE through the initiative.
That included 5.1 million gloves, 20 million masks, and 250,000 face shields, Ford added. He also praised grassroots drives he said had diverted thousands of pieces of PPE to health care workers from household and corporate stores.
The premier praised the willingness of individuals and companies large and small to step up in the midst of a crisis, saying their efforts would allow Ontarians to look back with pride on a difficult moment in history.
“This is our moment,” Ford said. “We will be proud when we look back, not because of what the government is doing for people – it’s because of what people are doing for each other.”
The premier reiterated a message he has come back to repeatedly in recent weeks, saying the pandemic has shown Canada needs to be more self-reliant when it comes to manufacturing and trade.
“We can’t count on other countries, but we can count on each other,” he said.
