Ontario’s auditor general discovered that the province has written off over a billion units of personal protective equipment (PPE) amounting to $1.4 billion since 2021. Despite a significant decrease in demand, Ontario continued purchasing masks, gowns, and other protective gear at levels similar to the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, leading to the accumulation of expired products in the provincial stockpile.
Shelley Spence highlighted in her annual report that the expired products were not used due to quality issues from purchases made during the pandemic. The shortage of protective gear in Ontario during the pandemic’s early stages exacerbated the situation, as much of the existing PPE inventory had already expired. Supply Ontario, established in late 2020 to manage the stockpile, lacks an efficient system for tracking the gear effectively.
The province’s approach to dealing with expired PPE involves incinerating it, converting it to heat energy instead of recycling it like British Columbia. Long-term contracts signed between October 2020 and April 2021 committed Ontario to purchasing large quantities of PPE annually, but only a fraction of these items were distributed last year.
Spence predicted that a considerable amount of PPE, valued at around $126 million of taxpayers’ money, will expire between 2025/26 and 2030/31 if current usage levels are maintained. She emphasized the need for increased distribution of PPE to prevent further waste. Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery Stephen Crawford attributed the waste to the rush to procure PPE quickly during the pandemic.
Despite the surplus stockpile, hospitals in the province are reportedly receiving a disproportionately low amount of PPE. Spence recommended that Supply Ontario improve its inventory management system and conduct a value-for-money analysis to make more informed purchasing decisions. Supply Ontario, led by Premier Doug Ford’s former chief of staff, Jamie Wallace, has agreed to implement all of Spence’s recommendations, including better integration of inventory records and developing metrics for monitoring PPE purchases.