44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 25, 2022 11:00AM
- Apr/25/22 11:02:19 a.m.
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moved:
That:
(a) the House recognize that (i) COVID-19 has tragically exposed long-standing issues affecting long-term care facilities across the country and the frontline workers who care for residents, (ii) we need to make sure the conditions of work reflect the care standards our seniors deserve, (iii) while the management of long-term care facilities is under provincial and territorial jurisdiction, we share the goal of ensuring safer, better care for seniors; and
(b) in the opinion of the House, the government should 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, including through more provincial and territorial facility inspections for long-term care homes, (iii) develop a safe long-term care act collaboratively to ensure that seniors are guaranteed the care they deserve, no matter where they live.
He said: Mr. Speaker, before I begin, as this is my first speech in this chamber in the 44th Parliament, I would like to take the opportunity to thank my constituents in Avalon for trusting me to be their voice once again here in this chamber. Without their support, I would not be able to stand here today and present this very important motion. It is my greatest honour and pleasure to serve them.
I am thrilled and honoured to stand in the House today to introduce my first private member's motion since I was elected in 2015, Motion No. 47, which strives to help the government move forward on improving the state of long-term care in Canada. Long-term care is a topic that is near and dear to me as an MP from Newfoundland and Labrador. My province has one of the fastest-aging populations in the country. Our death rate is outnumbering our birth rate, and with every passing day, the demand for long-term care spaces grows at an alarming pace.
Our seniors are the backbone of this country. They raised us, taught us and inspired all of us to be the people we are today. They worked hard and put in their service to their communities, and I believe it is on us, all of us, to ensure there is a dignified, respectful and safe space for them to live out their golden years.
As parliamentarians, we have learned many important lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic. I would argue that one of the most alarming things we learned was the tragic state of some long-term care facilities in this country. The pandemic has underscored issues that far predate this pandemic, including staffing challenges, aging infrastructure and lack of adequate infection, prevention and control measures.
Of course, our provincial and territorial partners have primary jurisdiction over long-term care in Canada. We respect them and the role they play in legislating rules and regulations for long-term care homes and nursing homes in Canada. However, the federal government still has a vital role to play. We just have to look at what our government did to support long-term care throughout the COVID-19 pandemic to see that at work.
Our government deployed the Canadian Armed Forces and the Canadian Red Cross to long-term care facilities that faced severe COVID-19 outbreaks in the early days of the pandemic. About $740 million of the safe restart agreement funding was allocated to protect vulnerable populations and address the immediate needs in long-term care. We created the safe long-term care fund, a $1-billion fund that helps the provinces and territories protect people living and working in long-term care from COVID-19 and improve infection prevention and control. Of course, we did much more.
We believe that we must work hand in hand with our provincial and territorial partners to ensure there is a minimum standard of care across the country in long-term care. We want to support the provinces and territories by identifying gaps in legislation, enforcing standards of care and ensuring there is a clear minimum standard of care that should be upheld across the country.
In budget 2021, we announced a $3-billion investment in support of the provinces and territories to ensure that standards within long-term care facilities are applied and permanent changes are made to uphold those standards. The provinces and territories can use this funding to improve workplace conditions and training, strengthen enforcement and compliance, and much more. This is the type of collaboration that needs to continue, and I believe that by supporting Motion No. 47 and creating a federal long-term care act, we can work across jurisdictions to identify a standard of care and conditions that all facilities across our country should be expected to uphold. The commitment to a safe long-term care act came from my party's 2021 election platform and was reiterated through the recently announced agreement between the Liberal Party of Canada and the New Democratic Party: Delivering for Canadians Now.
I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the good work of the Standards Council of Canada, the Health Standards Organization and the Canadian Standards Association, which have conducted extensive consultations to develop two sets of national standards related to long-term care. They are the national long-term care services standard of Canada to focus on resident and family-centred care practices and the national standard of Canada for operation and infection prevention and control of long-term care homes. It is my understanding that the draft of these standards of care documents have been released for public review. I hope this important research and consultation will act as the framework for a federal long-term care act and will guide us in making systemic changes that will benefit residents in long-term care facilities and those who work there.
I speak to seniors and their families almost every day, and they express serious concern about the future of our aging population. They are worried that long-term care spaces will not be available when they or their loved ones need one. They are concerned that with increased pressure and requirements, staff will start to burn out and homes will not be able to retain employees. They are concerned that long-term care facilities will not be properly equipped in the future to handle infectious diseases and keep their residents safe.
I share these concerns, and I know that my colleagues in this chamber share these concerns as well. The future of long-term care in this country lies in the hands of legislators like us. If we are proactive and innovative, we can change the course and address the problems facing long-term care across the country. I believe this starts with Motion No. 47. I believe that by supporting my motion and agreeing as a House that we support the creation of a long-term care act, we are taking the first step in bettering the lives of seniors and workers in long-term care in Canada.
I would like to thank all my colleagues for their support on this very important matter.
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- Apr/25/22 11:10:00 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it will help because it will show we are interested in making sure we look after seniors in these facilities. However, as I said in my speech, we have to work with the provinces and territories to make that a reality. They control health care in their individual provinces. We have to sit down with them and make sure funding is available. Let us make sure the standards are up to a certain level that will guarantee seniors will have the good care and safety required in these facilities so that we will not see the same things happen again that happened through COVID-19 in recent years.
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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 12:13:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the premier of the member's province expressed great concern, to put it mildly, with the federal government's approach to dealing with the provinces. I am paraphrasing, but I believe it was characterized as a war on the provinces. That is incredibly concerning.
This goes back to the Prime Minister saying that he will not work with the provinces on health care funding until after the pandemic. We are going to have live with COVID-19 for a long time and will have to adapt to that, and the Prime Minister will need to adapt his approach for dealing with this. He needs to collaborate with the provinces, as health care is their jurisdiction. I know that is sometimes complicated for the government to understand, but health care is a provincial jurisdiction and the federal government needs to work with them to ensure that it is properly funded, not dictate to them on how it is executed.
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- Apr/25/22 2:20:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians understand that inflation is a global phenomenon, and I have some figures to back that up.
Canada's most recent inflation rate is 6.7%. Inflation is 8.5% in the United States and 7.7% in the OECD. In the eurozone inflation is 7.3%. These rates are caused by COVID‑19 and Vladimir Putin. Canadians understand that.
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- Apr/25/22 2:44:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives continue to talk down the Canadian economy, but the truth is that Canada is very well placed to weather the storms caused by COVID and by Vladimir Putin. According to the IMF, we will have the fastest growing economy in the G7 this year and next year. We have the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7, and we have recovered 115% of the jobs lost to COVID, compared to just 93% in the U.S.
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- Apr/25/22 2:57:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague needs to be honest with Canadians. Is she against subsidies for Canadian workers? Was she against providing support during the height of COVID to Canadian workers? She needs to tell Canadians where she stands on this issue.
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- Apr/25/22 3:27:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am presenting a petition on behalf of Canadians from across the country who want an end to all the COVID-19 mandates.
The petitioners say that the Prime Minister has politicized the vaccines and insulted Canadians who disagree with him. Moreover, they are commenting about the fact that it is the sacred duty of the government to guard against discrimination and guarantee the freedoms of all Canadians. As such, the petitioners are calling for the right to be able to continue to use air travel, whether they are vaccinated or not.
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