With the need for personal protective equipment in Ontario at critical mass due to COVID-19, the province is working closely with businesses of all sizes to help provide the PPE we need.
Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade Vic Fedeli said the Ontario Together initiative has brought thousands of companies together via the online website to help retool their production lines to supply PPE for front line health workers in Ontario.
"So Ontario Together is the website where we're collecting all the submissions and believe it or not, we have almost 17,000 submissions now. There are 3,700 companies that have retooled to make masks and sanitizers and much more," said Fedeli.
Minister Fedeli added it isn't just big corporations that are lending a hand, there are even small family-run businesses that are retooling to produce as much PPE as they can.
"A father and immigrant from Germany called me the other day. He and his three daughters are making 1,000 face shields. He said 'I know, I know, the big companies are making hundreds of thousands. But us little guys will help out until the big guys can deliver,'" added Fedeli.
Fedeli said stories like that embody what Ontario is all about, and if the province can start to meet the demand here for PPE, there's no reason Ontario can't start shipping it elsewhere once our demand is met. The province made over $50 million available as part of the Ontario Together initiative to help companies retool their production lines to make PPE.
With all those companies helping out, whenever we reach the light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel, Minister Fedeli says the government will be ready to help.
"Keep these success stories coming, keep working hard, and go to OntarioTogether.ca and you can volunteer your time and help out wherever you can. We want to see a complete turnaround of manufacturing in Ontario once this is over and we will be there to support it," said Fedeli.
More information can be found at Ontario.ca.
CORRECTION: On April 15, 2020, BlackburnNews.com incorrectly reported that the website set up by Ontario to get more PPE into the province was OntarioTogether.ca. In fact, Ontario Together is the program that can be found at Ontario's website at Ontario.ca. The correction has now been made in the above article.
