44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 25, 2022 11:00AM
- Apr/25/22 11:11:14 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I agree with aging in place. I think that would be part of the standards that would come out of this. We would recognize what is missing in our communities to keep people in their own homes longer and keep them safe. There will come a point where, if we all live long enough, we will end up in long-term care, so we should be concerned with what the path to get there is going to be like and what it is going to be like afterward once we end up in one of those facilities.
Both of my parents passed away in a long-term care facility, but they were well looked after in both instances by the two homes they ended up being in later in life. The way they were looked after was top-notch, but I know there were a lot of things missing. At that particular time, of course we did not have a pandemic to deal with, and I think it has highlighted so much wrong with the way things are done in Canada today. It is time now that we really take a serious look at this and get it right so we do not have the same things happen again in the future.
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- Apr/25/22 11:12:19 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am just as concerned as my colleague by what has been happening to seniors in long-term care facilities, but we do not have the same approach to finding solutions.
In Quebec, we realized what was going on, and our ombudsperson produced a report in 2021 with a number of recommendations to prevent this kind of thing from happening again if ever another pandemic strikes. Quebec realized what was going on, figured out what to do about it and is completely overhauling its health care system.
I have a question for my colleague.
If Quebec were to reject Canadian standards for long-term care in Quebec, does my colleague agree with his government that Quebec might not get any of that funding?
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- Apr/25/22 11:23:35 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it should come as no surprise that the Bloc Québécois will oppose the motion. Let us look at the reasons why.
First of all, not everything in motion is bad.
For example, to the first point, everyone in Quebec agrees that the COVID-19 pandemic tragically exposed long-standing issues affecting long-term care facilities and the frontline workers who care for residents themselves—
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- Apr/25/22 11:34:10 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am very happy to rise here this morning to speak to Motion No. 47 on improvements to long-term care, put forward by the member for Avalon. This motion points out that the COVID pandemic has exposed long-standing issues affecting long-term care, and it asks the federal government to:
...work with the provinces and territories to (i) improve the quality and availability of long-term care homes and beds, (ii) implement strict infection prevention and control measures...(iii) develop a safe long-term care act...to ensure that seniors are guaranteed the care they deserve....
I am also happy to say that I will be supporting this motion. As a New Democrat, I am very proud to say that we have used our power in the current minority government to secure a commitment from the federal government in our confidence and supply agreement to bring in a safe long-term care act to ensure that seniors are guaranteed the care they deserve, no matter where they live. This long-overdue legislation must be implemented without delay, and I thank the member for Avalon for introducing this motion, which adds further impetus to this necessary action.
I would first like to thank all the workers in long-term care across Canada. They have been at the front lines of the pandemic for the past two years and more. This is hard work. It is stressful work, and it is done by people who truly care for the people whom they care for. I want to make it completely clear that these workers are not the problem in the long-term care crisis.
As the motion points out, COVID-19 has exposed a fragmented and under-resourced long-term care system across Canada, and this has been a problem for many years. I remember speaking here just over a year ago to an NDP motion that called for significant changes to make sure our seniors are cared for properly and with dignity. In that speech, I mentioned a couple of stories that illustrated how long-standing this problem is. I would like to briefly reiterate those points today.
In 2013, nine years ago, I met with a family who had lost both their mother and their father to substandard care at a privately owned care home in Summerland, British Columbia. The province investigated the family's concerns and found that the staffing levels of the facility were far too low. Months later, the company that owned the facility, Retirement Concepts, reported that it was trying to hire more staff but was having trouble filling the new positions. As Mike Old of the Hospital Employees' Union said, Retirement Concepts is well known for paying low wages, and that has resulted in chronic understaffing at many of its facilities.
Retirement Concepts operates 20 facilities in Canada, most of them in British Columbia. In 2016, Retirement Concepts was sold to Anbang Insurance Group of China for more than $1 billion. Since then, problems at Retirement Concepts homes seem only to have gotten worse. As of last year, the operation of its properties in Summerland, Courtenay, Nanaimo and Victoria had been taken over by the provincial health authority, all because care levels were inadequate due to understaffing.
Retirement Concepts is not alone in its understaffing problems. I remember visiting another facility in Penticton in 2015, seven years ago, and talking to the staff about working conditions there. I was shocked to find out that some of the staff who had worked there for 20 years were making less money in 2015 than when they had started in 1995. No wonder they were tempted to leave whenever they could. A friend whose mother was in that facility recently told me that the staff was hard-working and attentive but completely overwhelmed. There was always a “now hiring” sign out front. Apparently, the home could not afford to pay workers as much as the local hospital, so it was constantly losing the most experienced staff whenever a job opened up at the hospital.
Experts have been issuing dire warnings for years about this crisis, but successive federal governments, both Liberal and Conservative, have failed to act. Then the pandemic hit. Hundreds died needlessly in care homes during the pandemic, sometimes in horrific conditions. The armed forces had to be called in because staff was overwhelmed in many places. According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, more than 840 outbreaks were reported in long-term care facilities and retirement homes during the initial wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. This accounted for 80% of all COVID deaths in Canada during that wave, representing the worst record among comparable countries and double the OECD average.
We must never allow this to happen again. Federal leadership is urgently needed to protect vulnerable Canadians living in long-term care, both throughout the pandemic and in the years to come.
In these debates, we have heard a lot of calls for national standards of care. Yes, we need those national standards, but the fact is that no provincial standards are being met now. The benchmark for quality long-term care is 4.1 hours of hands-on care per resident per day; no province or territory currently meets this standard of care.
There is a lack of accountability for long-term care facility operators due to lax enforcement of standards and regulations. For example, a recent CBC investigation revealed that 85% of long-term care homes in Ontario have routinely violated health care standards for decades, with near total impunity.
The problem is funding. Lack of funding results in short-staffed institutions and underpaid workers. Underpaid workers are forced to work two or three care homes at once, and we saw how that spread the virus during the early stages of the COVID pandemic.
At the heart of the funding problem are the for-profit long-term care homes. Among care home residents, 80% have underlying medical issues that have meant they have had to move into those care homes. Long-term care is medical care, but it is not covered under our universal, not-for-profit health care system in Canada, and because long-term care lies outside the health care covered by the Canada Health Act, many care homes are run first and foremost for profit.
This means Canadians often pay substantial out-of-pocket costs for long-term care, which can vary significantly depending on the region and whether it is a private or public facility. Service quality varies widely depending on ability to pay, and service quality can have a significant impact on the health of care home residents, especially during a pandemic. Residents and workers in for-profit centres have faced a higher risk of COVID-19 infection and death than those in non-profit and publicly operated homes.
Decades of research have demonstrated that long-term care homes run on a for-profit basis tend to have lower staffing levels, more verified complaints and more transfers to hospitals, as well as higher rates of both ulcers and morbidity. On top of that, during the pandemic, many for-profit operators have been paying out millions in CEO bonuses and dividends while accepting public subsidies and neglecting the residents under their care.
The NDP is proud to have used its power to secure a promise from the government to advance a safe long-term care act through the confidence and supply agreement, and I will add that this agreement also includes dental care and pharmacare, so that we can have a truly universal health care system in Canada.
We must continue to work collaboratively with patients, caregivers and provincial and territorial governments to develop national standards for long-term care and other continuing care, which would include accountability mechanisms and data collection and be tied to sustainable, long-term funding. The standards are not enough by themselves.
Successive Liberal and Conservative governments have failed to improve standards of long-term care, because they have embraced a profit-driven model for the sector. The NDP will work relentlessly to change that. Profit has no place in the care of our seniors, just as it has no place elsewhere in our primary health care system.
Our seniors deserve to live in dignity and comfort, so in conclusion, I will be supporting this motion. I urge the government to live up to its promises and act quickly and boldly to fix the long-term care crisis in Canada.
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- Apr/25/22 11:43:43 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to speak about a subject that is having a significant impact on many Canadian families. The COVID pandemic laid bare systemic inadequacies in Canada's long-term care system. It has taken the lives of some of Canada's most vulnerable citizens and forever changed the lives of families and caregivers.
In my riding of Scarborough—Agincourt, we have seen the tragic outcomes. We have one of the highest death rates in long-term care homes, with 81 residents having passed away due to COVID. It exposed a woeful lack of infection prevention and control measures, staffing challenges and inadequate quality of overall care. As the disease ran rampant through many of these long-term care facilities, the deployment of the Canadian Armed Forces and the Canadian Red Cross was needed to help control its dire consequences.
Hon. members already know all of this. We also know that we cannot let it happen again, and we will not let it happen again. We need permanent and long-term solutions for long-term care facilities, where Canadians living and working in them are safe and treated with respect and dignity.
Budget 2021 included a $3-billion investment over five years, starting in 2022-23, to support provinces and territories in their efforts to ensure standards for long-term care are applied and permanent changes are made. Budget 2022 included $20 million over five years, starting in 2022-23, for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, to support additional research on the long-term effects of COVID-19 infections on Canadians as well as the wider impacts of COVID-19 on health and health care systems. We are doing this while respecting provincial and territorial jurisdiction over the long-term care sector.
Federal funding is being used to hire additional staff responsible for the development, implementation, evaluation and maintenance of a comprehensive infection control program in residential care homes and to make infrastructure upgrades to support enhanced infection prevention and control in long-term care. These staffing and upgrade investments are improving the quality of life for residents and staff in long-term care.
Just last week in Scarborough—Agincourt, the Minister of Health and the Minister of Seniors announced the signing of the safe long-term care fund agreement with Ontario, and other provinces and territories have also signed on to receive their share of the $1-billion funding.
In addition to the safe long-term care fund, the Government of Canada has also invested funds to address the deficiencies exposed by the pandemic. We have done this in several ways. We are investing $740 million in the safe restart agreement to support provinces and territories in addressing the immediate needs of vulnerable populations, including those in long-term care facilities. We are investing up to $3 billion in federal funding to support provinces and territories to increase the wages of low-income essential workers, which could include frontline workers in hospitals and long-term care facilities. We are investing $9.6 million in Healthcare Excellence Canada to support facilities across the country through the LTC+ initiative. More than 1,500 facilities are participating in the program, which will help them share information with the goal of strengthening pandemic preparedness.
That is not all. Our government is funding a $38.5-million pilot project to address acute labour shortages in long-term and home care. This funding is being used to recruit and train up to 2,600 new supportive care assistants through accelerated online training and a hands-on work placement. It is anticipated that the pilot will also support up to 1,300 of these supportive care assistants to pursue full personal support worker certification.
In budget 2021, we included $41.3 million over six years and $7.7 million ongoing for Statistics Canada to improve data infrastructure and data collection on supportive care, primary care and pharmaceuticals. That work begins this year.
Our government is acutely aware that many seniors can live happily in their own homes but often need support to do so. This is why we have invested $90 million, starting in 2021-22, in Employment and Social Development Canada to launch the age well at home initiative. This initiative will assist community-based organizations in providing practical support that helps low-income and otherwise vulnerable seniors to age in place.
I should also remind colleagues that beginning in July 2022, the old age security pension will be increased for seniors aged 75 and over. Employment and Social Development Canada is also leading the new sectoral workforce solutions program, which the government is funding with $960 million over the next three years. The purpose of this program is to help key sectors of the economy, including the health sector, design and deliver relevant training and connect Canadians with the training they need to access good jobs. This includes the need for more skilled personal support workers. Our government is also investing $27.6 million over three years for a group tax-free savings account to boost retirement savings for personal support workers.
Our government has built a strong social safety net and pension systems that all Canadians can be proud of. We have enhanced the CPP, and Quebec followed with the QPP. We raised the GIS for 900,000 single seniors, and this summer we are increasing the OAS for the most vulnerable seniors. We are also helping Canadians stay in their communities and homes longer by investing $70 million annually through the New Horizons for Seniors program, $6 billion in home care and $90 million over three years for the new “age well at home” initiative.
Canadians living and working in long-term care deserve to be treated with respect and dignity in a safe environment. As I said, our government is committed to working collaboratively with provinces and territories in a way that respects their jurisdiction for the delivery of health care services, including in long-term care. It is also committed to more provincial and territorial facility inspections. A crucial goal as we work together is the development of a set of national standards to replace the patchwork that currently exists across Canada.
Working closely together, the Health Standards Organization and the Canadian Standards Association Group are developing two complementary national standards for long-term care. These standards will address both the delivery of safe, reliable and high-quality care and the health infrastructure and environmental design of long-term care facilities. The Health Standards Organization released its draft standard for public consultation in January after consulting with 18,000 Canadians and stakeholders. The Canadian Standards Association Group released its draft standard in February. Both sets of standards have a consultation period of 60 days, with final standards to be released in late 2022.
The adoption of a set of national standards would be part of a permanent solution we are seeking to bring safety and peace of mind to staff, residents and their families. We must do all we can to permanently correct what needs correcting in the long-term care system, not only to better protect against a future pandemic, but to make every day a day of safety and good living.
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- Apr/25/22 2:31:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we know just how challenging this pandemic has been for seniors. That is why, from the very beginning, we have been there to support them. On April 19, we delivered a one-time payment for those affected seniors.
We also passed Bill C-12, which ensures that seniors, particularly working and low-income seniors, are never again impacted by any pandemic benefits they take.
We will continue to ensure that we support and deliver for seniors every step of the way.
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- Apr/25/22 3:07:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to take the opportunity to recast history a bit. It seems the member has lost the passage of time. When the World Health Organization declared a pandemic in March 2020, we made sure, as a government, that we would invest in all the families of vaccines to protect the health and safety of Canadians. Plant protein vaccines work and have been recommended by our experts. The investment we made was to protect the health and safety of Canadians. We will find a solution, and we will continue to work for Canadians across this nation.
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- Apr/25/22 4:55:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Winnipeg North for his question. My speech seems to have angered him, and I am not really sure why.
I can say one thing. I have been a manager before. If I am asked to organize long-term services and ensure that seniors are well taken care of in long-term care facilities, I know that there needs to be predictability.
Planning, organizing and providing services requires predictability, and that means that funding needs to be recurring, not a one-shot deal. It takes planning and forecasting. I am not denying that the federal government gave money to the provinces to help them deal with challenges during the worst of the pandemic, but now the pandemic is winding down, and the provinces are calling for the funding they need to reorganize their top-notch services for the patients who need it.
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- Apr/25/22 5:54:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I really do believe there are a number of Conservatives who completely close their eyes when it comes to economic matters. Do they not realize when they talk about inflation that there are some things they need to factor in, such as that there is a war taking place in Ukraine and there is a world pandemic that has taken place over the last two-plus years?
If we look at the inflation rate in the U.S.A., it is higher than in Canada. If we look at the inflation rate in many of the European countries, it is higher than in Canada. Yes, as a government we have invested in the people of Canada. Yes, this is a budget that will ultimately provide hope and future jobs. By the way, when it comes to jobs, Canada again is ahead of the U.S. in regard to recuperating the jobs that were lost during the pandemic.
I am wondering if my friend would open his eyes and acknowledge that inflation is a concern, but we need to put it into a proper perspective.
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