ZURICH, ONTARIO – Federal, provincial and municipal representatives joined Blue Water Rest Home staff today to officially open the West Huron Care Centre.

The multipurpose centre occupies space in what was formerly a part of the Blue Water Rest Home, freed up during a recent redevelopment project. It offers a wide range of services for residents young and old, including daycare, counselling, job training and transportation coordination services.

“This new community centre is a very special project for Blue Water Rest Home,  the community of Zurich and for everyone who lives in beautiful Huron County” said Ben Lobb, Member of Parliament for Huron-Bruce, on behalf of the Honourable Denis Lebel, Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. “It will strengthen the programs offered here and help bolster Zurich’s already strong spirit of community now and for future generations. Most importantly, it has created local jobs and will provide much needed services to seniors and families in this area for years to come.”

“Through our infrastructure investments, we are building communities that give families and their children the support they need to grow, be healthy and succeed,” said the Honourable Carol Mitchell, Member of Provincial Parliament for Huron–Bruce. “The Government of Ontario is proud to help bring important infrastructure and new services and opportunities to the community of Zurich.”

“We are very pleased to provide our support for new services, particularly child care programs, in this area of the County”, said Neil Vincent, Warden of Huron County.  “The local communities benefit from both social infrastructure and job creation to enhance our rural economy and way of life.”

“We envisioned the West Huron Care Centre as a community service hub to serve changing needs in this area,” said Ron Heimrich, Board Chair at Blue Water Rest Home.  “This Centre is the result of forming new collaborations with expert organizations, and making sure they have suitable resources to deliver their skills.  We have been delighted to work with all our funding partners to achieve this goal.”

The governments of Canada and Ontario each contributed nearly $346,000 toward this project. The County of Huron contributed $140,000 and the Blue Water Rest Home contributed the balance of the total eligible project cost of more than $1 million. 

Federal funding for this project comes from the Government of Canada’s $4-billion Infrastructure Stimulus Fund, which is providing funding to over 4,100 infrastructure projects across the country.

Over the last couple of months, Ontario had an increase of 38,000 jobs and the unemployment rate declined to 7.9 per cent.