Province confirms 10 Ottawa sites are pending approval for pop-up rapid antigen test locations

As the Ontario government announced areas of the province that would receive pop-up centres offering free Rapid Antigen Testing (RAT) kits to give out to residents, one city was noticeably absent from the list: Ottawa.

However, the Office of the Premier of Ontario confirmed to CityNews Ottawa on Wednesday, December 15 that while no sites were initially announced along with the rest of the province, there are 10 sites currently pending local approval.

The exact locations of those pending areas were not disclosed, but Ivana Yelich, spokesperson for the Premier’s office, said they included malls and city centres and will be added to the website as soon as they receive confirmation of available dates and times.

When Joel Harden, MPP for Ottawa Centre, spoke to CityNews Ottawa on Wednesday, he had but one question for decision-makers at Queen’s Park: “Why have you forgotten our city?”

Harden said MPPs and residents were told by the Ford government that boards of trades and business associations would be getting RATs to distribute to businesses by Wednesday, however, Harden said he was informed that shipments didn't make it to their destinations.

But in his opinion, those tests should have gone to schools first in the first place.

“We need access to these rapid tests to make sure that our businesses and schools are safe,” he said. “I think the map of Ontario politics for these folks ends in Scarborough and Oakville, and perhaps north of Barrie, but not very much further. It’s a huge province — we’re out here in Eastern Ontario having no access to these pop-up sites for rapid tests. Folks in Northern Ontario have gotten nothing from this announcement, and southwestern Ontario — those are big communities. This is a big province.”

And for Harden, the rollout itself of the tests was mismanaged by the provincial government.

“The most crucial population that we needed those tests for were the unvaccinated population and that was kids age five to 11,” he said. “There’s been no serious efforts from this government to get those [tests] to school boards.”

An announcement on the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board’s (OCDSB) website, however, does say that all students who attend publicly-funded schools in Ontario who take part in in-person learning will be provided take-home rapid antigen screen kits. Students who have been learning remotely since September 2021, however, will not receive a kit.

“Are we going to see schools shut down in the month of January?” Harden asked. “Are we going to see a delay of return to classes by a week or two weeks? Could this have been prevented if we had [RATs] a month-and-a-half ago systematically rolled out to all schools? The answer is ‘yes’ to all these questions.”

“We need action on this now,” he added. “The delay is inexcusable.”