Ontario Nurses' Association stages 52 simultaneous protests; retirement-home RNs press for staffing ratios and hospital-pay parity

BURLINGTON, Ont. —

The Ontario Nurses’ Association — the province’s largest nursing union — held 52 simultaneous protests at retirement homes across Ontario on Thursday, pressing for unit-level staffing ratios and contract parity between retirement-home RNs and their hospital counterparts.

The action was triggered after employers refused to negotiate at the table and sent the central agreement covering roughly 260 retirement communities into arbitration, ONA said. The union is pressing two demands: a mandated patient-to-staff ratio (one nurse to 160 residents is “too many,” ONA spokesperson Gloria Warren said), and pay parity with hospital RNs who do equivalent care work.

“We make 10% less than nurses in hospitals who do the same work,” Warren said. By her account, despite 32 years as a nurse, she earns roughly $8 an hour less than hospital nurses caring for older patients.

The workforce gap is widening as the resident population shifts: more residents with mental-health histories, more requiring higher-acuity care, and more behavioural complexity from trauma, injury or homelessness. ONA argues the staffing pattern has not moved with the population.

The action’s sharpest data point came from one of the nurses on the line: she said she had three teeth knocked out by a violent elderly resident while attempting to administer medication, due to inadequate supervision and staffing.

Outside the Wellington Park Care Centre in downtown Burlington, the demonstration was the fourth of the day for one group — they had already picketed Parkview Nursing Home, Baywoods Place Long-term Care Home, and Victoria Gardens Long Term Care, with Queen’s Gardens Long Term Care Residence still to come. Nurses from Joseph Brant Hospital and St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton joined in solidarity.

“We have to do this together,” Warren said. “The hospitals bargain separately from us and it’‘s a way to divide us, so we’’re working really hard to make this tight and cohesive.”

The retirement-home dispute echoes the wider Canadian picture: Manitoba this week became the first province to legislate nurse-to-patient ratios. Ontario has so far stopped at expressing intent.

Source: Ontario Nurses’ Association statement and on-the-ground protest reporting by BurlingtonToday (Calum O’Malley, June 6, 2026).