The workload for Ontario’s Ombudsman is increasing.

Paul Dube says his office fielded more than 25 thousand complaints and inquiries about Ontario’s governments and public services over the past year.

That’s a 25 per cent increase over the previous year.

“We see that there’s good news because the more we hear from Ontarians, the more we are able to help them resolve their issues and to identify larger systemic problems,” says Dube.

There was also an increase in complaints coming from residents in northwestern Ontario.

There were more than 230 complaints coming from within the two provincial ridings in Thunder Bay.

The Kenora-Rainy River Riding saw 81 complaints.

There were sixteen ridings from the riding of Kiiwetinoong, twice as many as the Ombudsman handled in 2020-21.

Among municipalities, the city of Thunder Bay had the most complaints levelled against it with 13. The next highest was Fort Frances with five. Ignace saw four complaints while Kenora and Sioux Narrows-Nestor Falls each had two complaints.
Area school boards, child and family services and District Social Services Administration Board also had complaints lodged against them for various reasons.

Most of the were resolved in two weeks or less.

Dube says in many cases complaints focused on communication.

“Municipalities (had) to switch to virtual meetings and having problems with the technology. And you know, meetings are supposed to be done in the open and some municipalities don’t, you know, necessarily have all the resources and it’s, it’s challenging.”