A member of the Toronto city council and a union representing healthcare workers are calling for an investigation of the COVID-19 outbreak in long-term care homes that killed nearly 1,800 residents.

"We owe it to our long-term care staff and residents, along with their  families and friends, to take the necessary steps to ensure that they are provided the highest standards of safety and care," Toronto-St. Paul's council member Josh Matlow said in a statement. "Those who we've lost to COVID-19 deserve nothing less than transformational change. Let this be their legacy."

Matlow and Services Employees International Union (SEIU) Healthcare are calling for a public judicial-inquiry with the legal authority to subpoena documents on deaths within the homes and compel testimony, according to a news release.

SEIU represents over 60,000 Ontario healthcare workers.

SEIU and Matlow have presenteda series of recommendations to the Premier and Minister of Long Term Care to make sure that nothing of this magnitude occurs again in Ontario’s long-term care homes. The recommendations include "changes to the level and quality of care" in the homes.

"Nearly 1,800 deaths have occurred in Ontario's long-term care facilities," Sharleen Stewart, president of SEIU Healthcare, said in a statement. "Our provincial government owes all those families in mourning nothing short of an unrestricted judicial inquiry."