Ontario wrote off $1.4B of PPE, province burning expired equipment: auditor | CBC News

""We found that expired products began to accumulate in the provincial stockpile as some of the products purchased during the pandemic fell short of desired quality standards and were not used," Spence wrote in her annual report. Ontario had a critical shortage of protective gear during the pandemic, especially in the early days when much of the province's inventory of PPE had already expired."

""Supply Ontario does not have an effective inventory management system in place to report costs on a timely basis and instead relies on inefficient manual process to report yearly," Spence wrote. The province signed long-term contracts for PPE between October 2020 and April 2021 that locked it into buying 188 million surgical masks annually. Yet it only distributed 39 million of those masks last year, or 21 per cent."

"The auditor also found Supply Ontario bought 25 million N95 masks in 2024-25, but it distributed only 5.5 million, or 22 per cent. Spence's office published 5 audits of provincial government spending Tuesday. (Evan Mitsui/CBC) "Assuming usage levels are unchanged, we estimate that approximately 376 million surgical masks and 96 million N95 masks, worth approximately $126 million of taxpayers' money, will expire between 2025/26 and 2030/31," Spence wrote."

Ontario wrote off more than one billion items of personal protective equipment at a cost of $1.4 billion since 2021. Purchases of masks, gowns and other protective gear continued at pandemic 2020–21 levels despite significantly declining demand. Expired products accumulated in the provincial stockpile and some pandemic-era purchases failed to meet desired quality standards and went unused. Supply Ontario lacks an effective inventory management system and relies on inefficient manual processes to report costs annually. Long-term contracts committed the province to large annual mask purchases that far exceeded distributions. Approximately $126 million in PPE is projected to expire between 2025/26 and 2030/31.

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