25 YEARS LATER . . . Rogue retirement home still operating

25 YEARS
LATER . . .
Germans gather to remember
the fall of the Berlin Wall, A8
WEATHER HIGH 8 C | BREEZY WITH CLOUDS | MAP S12
RBC.COM/AVION
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2014
> STAR INVESTIGATION
Rogue retirement home still operating
HOW CAN THIS HAPPEN?
The Star went undercover for a week at the In Touch
retirement home. We found dirty conditions. Bad food.
Untrained staff. Residents left in filthy diapers
Owner ignores order to shut Weston facility
and is now in court 4 years after Star exposé
DALE BRAZAO AND MARY ORMSBY
STAFF REPORTERS
DALE BRAZAO/TORONTO STAR
Star reporter Dale Brazao,
as he looked the day he
checked in, lived at the
home undercover after
receiving complaints about
care. We have changed
residents’ names to protect
their privacy. Watch
Brazao’s undercover video at
DALE BRAZAO
AND MOIRA WELSH
STAFF REPORTERS
The 82-year-old man, in diapers
and suffering advanced dementia,
slid off his chair and crashed to the
floor of the Toronto retirement
home.
No staffer came to help.
An undercover Toronto Star reporter helped Sam up and waited.
Five minutes. Ten minutes. Fifteen
minutes. At twenty minutes a tired,
Touch Retirement Living in Toronto’s west end.
Over the next week, the Star witnessed profound neglect in a place
where more than half of the 18 residents should be in a nursing home
receiving higher quality, regulated
medical care.
People left in urine- and fecesfilled diapers for hours. Washrooms
had no toilet paper so residents,
some suffering from dementia,
wiped themselves with their hands
While one reporter investigated
from the inside, another delved into
management of the home owned
by Elaine Lindo. We found health
records showing dangerous food
preparation; court records detailing a confrontation that led to an
assault allegation; and Lindo’s attempt to evict a resident who refused to pay a massive rent increase.
Lindo, in a brief interview, defended the home. “We are one of the
Star reporter Dale Brazao went
undercover at the facility in 2010.
A Toronto retirement home exposed by
the Star four years ago for abusing and
neglecting its residents is still operating a
year after the provincial regulatory body
arrived at a similar conclusion and ordered it closed.
Owner-operator Elaine Lindo, who
changed the name from In Touch Retirement Living to Rosemount Place, is now
charged with operating without a licence.
peared to face the charge laid by the Retirement Homes Regulatory Authority,
which regulates, licenses and inspects the
711retirement homes in the province.
Lindo then ran across six lanes of traffic on Markham Rd. against a red light,
and disappeared into a nearby business
complex.
The Star first investigated Lindo’s home
in 2010, publishing stories that so angered
then premier Dalton McGuinty that he
called putting protections in place for seniors in the province one of his goals
before leaving politics. The new Retirement Homes Act became law in 2012.
The Star has found she continues to care
for at least 18 people, mostly seniors, despite the order issued last November. The
provincial regulator has cited “numerous
concerns” about the operations of her
home, including that the home “abused
and/or neglected several of its residents.”
Lindo has refused to speak to the Star
about these allegations.
“Leave me alone,” Lindo told a Star reporter as she left the provincial court in
Scarborough recently, where she ap- IN TOUCH continued on A9
LOVE
Elaine Lindo, the owneroperator of a retirement
home in Weston.
Spectre of
terrorism
looms over
passport cases
& WAR
Man on ‘high-risk traveller’ list
faces charge of document fraud
After 71 years together, couple reflect
on the luck of one Edmund Fitzgerald
MICHELLE SHEPHARD
NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER
KATIE DAUBS
A meme poking fun at the assertion has gone viral. Professed
environmental advocates, random
members of the public, at least one
of the defendants and Vancouver
Mayor Gregor Robertson have
uploaded photos dubbed the
“Kinder Morgan face.”
Mohammed El Shaer is the latest Canadian thrust into the spotlight as a possible
threat to the country’s security.
The 26-year-old was on the RCMP’s
“high-risk traveller” list — Canadians
who have had their passports seized to
deter them from leaving to join terrorist
organizations — and was arrested last
week upon returning to Toronto from
abroad. He will appear Monday in a
Windsor court on a charge of passport
fraud.
El Shaer’s lawyer, Paul Esco, could not
be reached for comment but had previously told the Windsor Star that his client
was “quite surprised and in denial” and
that he came back voluntarily last
Wednesday.
The charge itself is straightforward. El
Shaer was first arrested June 23 after
returning from Turkey where, according
to police, he made a false statement “for
the purpose of procuring a passport.”
When he failed to appear in court earlier
this month on that charge, a bench warrant was issued for his arrest.
El Shaer is not facing terrorism-related
offences, but rather an allegation of making a false claim, and if found guilty he
could face up to two years in prison.
But it is the spectre of terrorism and the
problem of Canadians going abroad to
join the self-proclaimed Islamic State
militant group that hangs over his case.
Turkey is seen as the gateway to Syria
since it is an easy flight from Canada and a
place where aspiring fighters can slip
across the border.
Three teenage girls were intercepted
in Istanbul earlier this year and returned to Toronto after their parents
discovered their plans and alerted the
authorities.
FACES continued on A2
PASSPORT continued on A6
STAFF REPORTER
“She’s a cougar. She’s two weeks older than I am,”
91-year-old Edmund Fitzgerald says in his clear, deep
voice, smiling at a joke that’s grown old with him.
“Don’t say that,” Florence chides, sitting on a chair
beside him in a royal blue sweater accented with a
poppy that just won’t stay put.
When the Fitzgeralds tell the story of their lives, you
can’t help be charmed by the animated way they tell it,
perfected over a 71-year-run that began with a chance
meeting on a Fredericton street on a Wednesday
night in 1943.
“I said to my friend, ‘I don’t know about you, which
girl do you know?’ He said, ‘The one on the outside.’ I
said ‘That’s fine with me because the one on the
inside, she’s a real looker.
“When she introduced herself as Florence Irving . . .
I thought Irving Oil, they’re millionaires . . . I’ve
made it.”
“But we were the poor branch,” Florence says.
“He thought he really lucked out, but we’re
distant relatives.
“He says, ‘Do you go to the dance on Saturday
at the Odd Fellows hall?’ There was always a
dance, and he said, ‘I’ll see you there.’ ”
ANDREW FRANCIS WALLACE/TORONTO STAR
Second World War veteran Edmund Fitzgerald with his wife,
Florence, will watch Ottawa Remembrance Day celebrations
at home. “I’m too old to go out and stand,” says Edmund, 91.
MORE INSIDE
Second World War veteran’s poem still rings true, A3
Leafs honour fallen soldier before game in Ottawa, S1
FITZGERALD continued on A3
Pipeline protesters give energy giant the evil eye
Surly selfies go viral after lawyer
says dirty looks a form of assault
TAMSYN BURGMANN
THE CANADIAN PRESS
VANCOUVER—Bulging
eyes, scrunched
noses, bared teeth — anti-oil pipeline protesters are facing off against energy giant
Kinder Morgan with the meanest mugs
they can muster. Scores of people are
posting snarling selfies online after B.C.
Supreme Court heard last week that facial
expressions constitute assault.
Kinder Morgan lawyer Bill Kaplan told
the court that activists who have blocked
a subsidiary pipeline builder in a Metro
Vancouver conservation area obstructed
workers in part by making faces. Millions
in damages are being sought.
Dear White People Toronto luminaries talk race and prejudice, E7 Transit crisis TTC union releases massive list of recommendations, GT1
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