44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 17, 2023 10:00AM
- Feb/17/23 11:28:53 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, all Canadians deserve to retire and live with dignity, but the Liberals' underfunding has left seniors struggling to make ends meet. Seniors are telling me they cannot pay rent and they cannot afford groceries. They are terrified that they will be living on the streets.
The Liberals' failure to support seniors is making them feel alone and like no one cares. Will the government increase the guaranteed income supplement and give seniors some hope?
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- Feb/17/23 11:29:25 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we recognize the challenges seniors are facing, and our government has been there for them. In fact, our government is helping seniors who are struggling by doubling the GST tax credit and by providing dental and rental support. We have also increased the OAS for seniors aged 75 and over.
On this side of the House, we will continue to be there for all Canadians, including seniors and the most vulnerable seniors.
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- Feb/17/23 12:04:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after seven years and three months, we have been able to make significant progress for seniors. Members should not take my word for it. They should take that member's word for it. The Conservative member for King—Vaughan, just last week, highlighted at committee how poverty rates dramatically decreased since we formed government in 2015. When we came into government, we made a decision to invest in seniors. We immediately reinstated the age of retirement back to 65. That member would have had seniors work two full years to get the benefits they paid into for decades.
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- Feb/17/23 12:04:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after seven years and three months, we have been able to make significant progress for seniors. Members should not take my word for it. They should take that member's word for it. The Conservative member for King—Vaughan, just last week, highlighted at committee how poverty rates dramatically decreased since we formed government in 2015. When we came into government, we made a decision to invest in seniors. We immediately reinstated the age of retirement back to 65. That member would have had seniors work two full years to get the benefits they paid into for decades.
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- Feb/17/23 12:04:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, if the member had listened to the entire question, he would have answered it properly. They cut out the part where I asked how much CERB impacted that figure. That is what Stats Canada asked.
Sheila, a senior from Midland, would like to know why the government refuses to answer questions. Seniors demand accountability from the Liberal government. It is all talk and no action.
Will the Prime Minister understand the benefit that seniors have brought to this country, show some compassion and let the Conservatives come and fix what the Liberal government has broken?
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- Feb/17/23 12:05:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, every day the Conservatives stand up and pretend to care about seniors. Day in and day out, month in and month out, and year in and year out since 2015, they have stood to vote against everything we have done for seniors in this country. For seven years and three months, they cannot stand up every year and vote against the things we do for seniors and then pretend to care about seniors.
Canadian seniors know a whole lot better.
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Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to be here today as the seniors critic for the NDP to talk about Bill C-295, an act to amend the Criminal Code targeted at neglect of vulnerable adults.
This bill would do two things. First, it would amend the Criminal Code to create a specific offence for long-term care facilities, their owners and managers to fail to provide the necessaries of life to residents of the facilities. Second, it would allow the court to make an order prohibiting the owners and the managers of such facilities from being, through employment or volunteering, in charge of or in a position of trust or authority towards vulnerable adults and to consider as an aggravating factor for the purpose of sentencing the fact that an organization failed to perform the legal duty that it owed to a vulnerable adult.
I am going to be in support of this bill. We saw dreadful outcomes during the pandemic. So many seniors across this country faced challenges that we cannot imagine and then there were deaths beyond our imagination. It is really important, as we remember this time, to remember the men and women in uniform who serve this country, who were sent in to some long-term care facilities and saw things they were horrified to see in their own country.
It is really important to understand that when we ask those in our military to step up for us, they are used to stepping up outside of our country in these kinds of circumstances. They were in this country and saw seniors who had died just because of neglect, because they were dehydrated. This is Canada and that should never happen. Those folks did a huge service to us, something I hope they never have to do in their own country again.
It is also important to point out that the vast majority of seniors never enter long-term care. That is important. I hear from the Seniors Advocate in British Columbia all the time that we should remember most people stay at home and that is where they end their lives. However, when seniors move into such facilities, families and loved ones need to know those people are safe and that standards are in place, something they can put their trust in.
We know that sometimes families move their loved ones to be closer to them from one province or territory to another. What is surprising is that the standards are different in each part of this country, which really leaves increased vulnerability. I appreciate that the government did table some long-term care standards, but the thing that was terrifying to me is that they are voluntary. A lot of good work was done in looking at those standards, making sure they made sense for long-term care, and now we see that they are voluntary.
This worries me because it provides a huge risk to seniors and the people who love them most. Again and again, we see loved ones doing the best that they can. If they live far away or there are any kinds of challenges, knowing that their loved one is in a long-term care facility and not getting the support that they want makes people feel ill.
I am going to quote something important by Candace Rennick, CUPE's national secretary-treasurer, who said:
Voluntary standards did not protect the 17,000 residents of long-term care homes who have died so far because of COVID-19. Canadians want better protections for seniors. This country needs standards that are backed by the force of law. People need to know that their loved ones will spend their last days living with dignity and respect. They need to know that there will be penalties and consequences for long-term care service providers that don’t follow the rules.
If all we have in this country is a national voluntary standard, there will never be the level of accountability that I think Canadians want to see.
This bill would amend the Criminal Code, but I am afraid that it will not do all that it must to protect seniors. We need more long-term support for them and a practice of having more accountability. What this really means to me is that when seniors die in this situation, there need to be actual charges laid, and we are not seeing that. We are seeing families taking on long-term care facilities, and that is not right. There needs to be a process and we need to start having charges laid. That is a real deterrent.
Graham Webb, executive director and former staff lawyer of the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly, has called the Criminal Code amendments “a very viable approach”. However, he said, “I'm really not aware of a single charge ever having being laid for the neglect of a long-term care resident. I think it’s important that the criminal justice system is able to respond when we see such flagrant cases of institutional abuse and neglect of older adults.”
I think that is startling. Even if we see a minor change to the code, it is still not fulfilling the other end, which is the actual movement toward laying those charges and holding people accountable.
Members know just as well as I do that when people are held to account, other people observing start paying attention. I think it is shameful that in this country seniors are so vulnerable that they can be sacrificed without a thought. They built our country. We owe them so much more, and we owe them dignity.
One of the things I found particularly painful in my role as the seniors critic is how many people with loved ones in a seniors facility have come to my door and talked about how hard they worked to try to look after them. They could not always be there the way they wanted to, because they had to work or because they had children. Then, when they went to visit, they saw things that horrified them, and they fought in that system the best that they could and with everything they had. Now that their loved one is gone, the pain is so raw that they do not want to talk about it because of the guilt they feel. They feel guilt because our system is broken. That is wrong, and that is why we must fix this.
To me, it goes back to the simple reality that we need to see the long-term care standards in legislation. We need to raise the bar. I get that every province and territory wants to do their own thing. I respect that, but let us make this the bar. If any province or territory wants to be higher than that bar, good for them. Let us make sure that no senior in all of Canada falls below it. Let us make sure that no family is in a position that they would think of moving their loved one from one province to another, simply so that they get better care. That is ridiculous.
I think Canadians need to listen to those on the front lines. For example, Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition, noted that there has been “no consequence whatsoever” for the abuse and neglect that was exposed during the pandemic, or for the needless deaths of residents due to poor infection control and non-COVID-19 reasons, such as dehydration and starvation. How could a senior be starved to death in this country? This is Canada. She further noted, “I think we need to search our conscience if the lives of the elderly are not worth a formal government bill and real change with teeth.”
As we vote on the bill before us, which hopefully people will support because it is a small change in the right direction, I hope we all think about our commitment to the people who built this country. Those people are increasingly vulnerable as they age. Think about the hard-working families who are doing everything they can to support that loved one. Think about the fact that we still do not have legislation that has teeth so that we can make sure to support seniors as they age.
In closing, as a person who represents a rural and remote community, we also have to recognize that those in small communities often see their loved ones go far away to get long-term care. They have to travel a great distance, which means they cannot be with them. Let us all fight to make sure that wherever one's loved is, they are safe.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank all members who spoke in favour of this bill.
As a physician for 22 years, I saw negligence in seniors home. I saw an inability to provide the appropriate protocols of cleanliness and the right kind of care. I saw actual abuse as well. What COVID-19 did was expose this for people other than physicians like me and for Canadians, who now see the vulnerability within the system.
We have, in the Criminal Code, the ability to protect children who are vulnerable. This bill would expand that to protect not only seniors but persons with disabilities and vulnerable adults.
I want to point out that an important thing about this bill is that we are not talking about adults who are being taken care of by their blood relatives or by people who are related to them by marriage. We are speaking of people who are taking care of three or more vulnerable adults who are not related to them by blood or marriage. We are talking about facilities, whether they are large institutions or small institutions. I think it is not just about abuse; it is about negligence and failure in the duty to protect vulnerable adults.
This is, for me, a first step. I think many people have said this is the first step, and I want to thank everyone who recognizes it as that. It is not intruding on provincial or territorial jurisdiction. This is about making those who provide care within institutions, whether they are owners or managers, actually provide that care and are accountable.
I have had patients with problems who did not have anywhere to go. Nobody was held accountable, and there were no standards to live up to. There was nothing going on. I think if we look at what happened during COVID in 2020, the scathing report from the 4th Canadian Division's joint task force really exposed all of the deficiencies within the system.
I want to thank everyone for supporting the bill. I agree with everyone that the standards set out by the CSA and the HSO are important standards. However, because they are voluntary, there is no teeth to them. Criminalizing the behaviour of owners and managers who specifically fail to do their duty toward vulnerable adults will give them some teeth. It lets people know that there is a place they can go, that people can be held accountable and that they have to live up to certain requirements.
Again, I want to thank everyone for supporting the bill. I have had calls from many members who have told me they can see ways to make it a better private member's bill at committee by adding amendments that would strengthen it, and I welcome them. I look forward to seeing this bill at committee and having people bring forward amendments that would strengthen it.
At the end of the day, this is about protecting our vulnerable adults, whether they are disabled, they are seniors or they have a chronic illness. I thank everyone for their support.
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