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Results: 136 - 150 of 586
View Rosemarie Falk Profile
CPC (SK)
Madam Speaker, as I touched on in my remarks, first we need to have a collaborative approach. That has to be not only with all levels of government, including provincial, territorial and even municipal, but also with caregiving organizations and senior advocates, as they have so much to offer. Having met with so many of them from across the nation, I think they have first-hand experience that sometimes elected people in political positions do not have. It is so imperative that we hear what those needs are.
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
Lib. (MB)
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
2021-03-22 13:12 [p.5024]
Madam Speaker, depending on what Conservative is addressing the issue of personal care homes, we often get differing opinions on whether there should be national standards and to what degree.
Can the member give any sort of a clear indication from her perspective on the Conservative Party? Does the Conservative Party support Ottawa having stronger national standards in home care services? Obviously we have to work with the stakeholders, particularly our provinces, in order to be able to achieve that, but to what degree does she believe that Ottawa needs to play a leadership role?
View Rosemarie Falk Profile
CPC (SK)
Madam Speaker, I think a great thing about the Conservative caucus is that we definitely have different opinions. We are allowed to debate those opinions and we bring them to the table. That being said, as I stated in my remarks we absolutely need to hear from the people on the front lines, senior advocates and those caring for our seniors.
With best practices, I absolutely think there is an opportunity for all of these people to come together. Whether it is organizations, stakeholders or different levels of government, they can talk about best practices. Iron sharpens iron, and we can always learn something for better care for our seniors.
View James Cumming Profile
CPC (AB)
View James Cumming Profile
2021-03-22 13:14 [p.5024]
Madam Speaker, how important is it to look at more of a bottom-up strategy, rather than an Ottawa top-down strategy, in making sure that we have the support of these organizations, particularly the provinces, as we go forward?
View Rosemarie Falk Profile
CPC (SK)
Madam Speaker, I never think that a top-down “Ottawa knows best” approach works for anything. This country is very vast and regionally has many differences, especially when we look at our seniors living in rural Canada. They have different needs and access to necessities than urban seniors do.
We absolutely have to have the stakeholders and front-line workers having this conversation and giving their input. I do not see any problem with all levels of government coming to the table and having that conversation.
View Michelle Rempel Garner Profile
CPC (AB)
Madam Speaker, I know my colleague from Battlefords—Lloydminster is on the call, as she just debated, and I would like to thank her for her work on the issue of seniors. She has been tireless. I have been working with her, and she has met with dozens of affected groups from across the country. I know she brings a good perspective to this issue.
I would like to start my speech today by talking about what this issue is. In the last year, we have seen senior citizens under the government's duty of care die alone covered in their own feces. We have seen the military called in to deal with these situations. Nobody in Parliament, or any other level of government, gets to say that it is not our job to deal with this situation.
What happened in our long-term care facilities across this country during this last year of COVID should light the entire country on fire. If we truly believe that every Canadian deserves to live with dignity, then we need to be talking about this issue. We need to be proposing solutions, and we need to be moving forward. Anything less than that, I would say, is un-Canadian.
This is not an issue that just affects seniors. This cuts across every generation. This is for the seniors who are living in long-term care. This is for Canadians who might be approaching the age when they have to consider long-term care. It is also for people from my generation who are starting to have hard conversations with their parents about what they want to have happen, how they are going to age, and whether they will age in place.
It also affects the workers in these facilities. I am tired of seeing articles, which are absolutely true, on the PTSD workers in long-term care facilities have experienced dealing with the COVID pandemic. We all need to wake up and understand that we have to push forward with proposing solutions.
I am very pleased that the NDP has decided to use one of its precious supply days bringing this issue forward to the House of Commons for debate. We have spent a lot of time in this Parliament, and in the last Parliament, talking about dying with dignity, which is an important topic. However, we also need to be talking about living with dignity. We also need to be talking about the conditions seniors in Canada who require long-term care are currently living in, right now.
I want to start by looking at the motion itself. The first part of this motion requires Parliament to recognize three deadly facts for which there can be no debate. The first is that “during the first wave of the pandemic, 82% of COVID deaths in Canada happened in long-term care, which is the highest proportion in the OECD”.
The second fact is that “there have been over 12,000 long-term care resident and worker deaths in Canada since the beginning of the pandemic”, and the third is that “residents and workers in for-profit long-term care homes have a higher risk of infection and death than those in non-profit homes”. These are facts. We cannot deny them. The evidence is there. Parliament has to recognize that.
The first part to finding a solution is recognizing there is a problem. There were 12,000 deaths in long-term care homes during the first wave of the COVID pandemic. Let us quantify and think about that. That is greater than the population of some Canadian towns. I ask members to think about how many families were affected by that.
We also need to think about the workers who are affected by this. Many workers in these facilities are underpaid and undersupported, and many of them are new Canadians. Some are temporary foreign workers, and this is something a lot of people are willing to turn a blind eye to. I am glad the NDP put these figures in this motion. Parliament should be recognizing them and waking up to them.
The second part of the motion suggests that something must be done, so the NDP has proposed a solution. The fix this motion proposes is to move all privately owned long-term care facilities into public ownership. That is a spicy solution. At least there is a solution being proposed here.
My party strongly supports a well-funded, robust and publicly funded health care system in Canada, and it cannot be denied that there are significant issues with privately owned long-term care facilities. I want to talk about one example that the government has never rectified.
That is the approval of the sale of many long-term care facilities to Anbang. The purchase of long-term care homes by Anbang was approved by the Liberal government by the former industry minister, who scrutinized the investment review decision because it exceeded the $600-million threshold.
In an article published earlier last year, the union head of B.C. said, “It's pretty clear that this company is in crisis and unable to provide adequate care at a growing number of its sites.... It's a big problem, because the company's also the largest contracted provider of long-term-care beds in B.C.” There have been other articles during the pandemic about the high proportion of deaths in Anbang facilities.
We would think that the failure to uphold Canadian standards by the state-owned enterprise would have resulted in some sort of action by the federal government, and nothing has happened to date. It is highly problematic.
Therefore, will moving all long-term care facilities into public care fix all of these problems? There is a strong argument to be made that the process used to approve the Anbang sale was certainly deadly for many Canadian seniors. Moving to a fully public model would need a strong framework to evaluate what would change. For example, how would provincial governments absorb this responsibility and over what period of time? What would this mean for seniors and workers? What is the framework of that care guarantee?
As well, I think that for-profit care providers now need to show that clear evidence that making profit off of long-term care can be combined with a high certainty of standards of care. That needs to be presented, as more clarity is needed. I am glad we are having a discussion about how to move forward, and no proposed solution at this point should be outright dismissed. We should not be saying that this is not our job to look at.
On the issue of jurisdiction, which everyone is dancing around today, the reality is that the federal government has paid billions of dollars for health care and the federal government provides guidelines and best practices for all sorts of areas of care. The question becomes why the federal government has not moved in this regard. I am not saying that we need to take, as everbody is saying, an “Ottawa knows best” approach, but after overseeing the sale of Anbang and not doing anything about that, it is very convenient to just abdicate responsibility.
At least we are talking about a solution here today. Again, there is more work to be done before moving to one conclusion or another on what the fix is, but I am glad that we are having this discussion today.
With that, and because I am always for finding solutions, I move, seconded by the member for Battlefords—Lloydminster, that the motion be amended by replacing all of the words after “the House call upon the government to” with the following: “collaborate and partner with the provinces, territories, seniors' advocates and care-giving organizations to: (a) improve long-term care standards including taking a leadership role and promoting best practices while recognizing the diversity of needs and challenges across the country; (b) ensure that long-term care homes have adequate access to PPE, rapid tests and an effective vaccine rollout; (c) direct existing federal infrastructure and housing funding toward new construction and the renovation of long-term care facilities; (d) develop immediate and medium-term solutions to address the critical staffing needs in long-term care facilities; (e) increase mental health supports for front-line health care workers, residents and their families.”
Let us get to a solution today.
View Carol Hughes Profile
NDP (ON)
It is my duty to inform hon. members that an amendment to an opposition motion may be moved only with the consent of the sponsor of the motion. Therefore, I ask the hon. member for Burnaby South if he consents to this amendment being moved?
The hon. member for Burnaby South.
View Jagmeet Singh Profile
NDP (BC)
View Jagmeet Singh Profile
2021-03-22 13:25 [p.5025]
Madam Speaker, respectfully, I say no. It is fundamental that we remove profit from long-term care given all the evidence. I appreciate the gesture, but I respectfully say no.
View Carol Hughes Profile
NDP (ON)
There is no consent. Therefore, pursuant to Standing Order 85 the amendment cannot be moved at this time.
Questions and comments, the hon. member for Vancouver East.
View Jenny Kwan Profile
NDP (BC)
View Jenny Kwan Profile
2021-03-22 13:25 [p.5025]
Madam Speaker, fundamental to this motion and the issue we have seen with the pandemic is that for-profit long-term care facilities have resulted in a much higher rate of COVID infections and deaths of seniors.
Does the member support taking profit out of care for seniors?
View Michelle Rempel Garner Profile
CPC (AB)
Madam Speaker, one of the things that makes Canada great is our strong and robust publicly funded health care system, which I strongly support.
For profit or not, if it is government owned we need to have guidelines and best practices to ensure quality of care. I do not think a governance model, in and of itself, without those standards can guarantee anything. That said, I do think, given everything that I outlined in the speech, particularly the sale of many long-term care facilities to Anbang and the disastrous results of that, we need to have a strong discussion in this country about how we are treating our country's seniors in these facilities.
View Jennifer O'Connell Profile
Lib. (ON)
Madam Speaker, I am disappointed that the NDP did not allow the amendment because the proposed amendment spoke to precisely the areas that our government had invested in from the first wave to the second wave, including in PPE and infrastructure to improve long-term care facilities, funding for staffing, and support for provinces and territories. With that said, I do agree with the member opposite's comments that every senior needs to live in dignity. It is precisely why the Prime Minister made long-term care national standards a priority in the Speech from the Throne as well as in the fall economic statement.
If the member is looking for solutions and her party supports solutions, why, on February 9 did her leader comment publicly that he does not support national standards and took that off the table for her and her party to work with us to establish long-term care national standards? Why does her leader not support those standards?
View Michelle Rempel Garner Profile
CPC (AB)
Madam Speaker, I have three points. Point number one, if somebody, over and over again, talks about how much money they spent and do not get results, we should not trust them to spend our money. That is the hallmark of the Liberal government, which should be ashamed for trying to say that. It has spent its way into a worse situation for seniors.
Number two, on the issue of moving forward and standards, the Liberal government has done nothing. It has said that it wants to deliver on guidelines. It has not done anything. The Minister of Health has not put anything forward on this. It is not a priority of the government, and she should be ashamed for raising this as a talking point. She should update her book.
Number three, with regard to my leader, the leader said that he, as much as everybody else has said in this debate today, that Ottawa has to respect jurisdiction, but at the same time there is room for guidelines and best practices for how to move forward.
I would encourage the member, in her new role, to encourage her ministers to deliver some action so that she does not have to keep having this debate with me, over and over again, in the House in the future.
View Claude DeBellefeuille Profile
BQ (QC)
Madam Speaker, the member surely knows that the three or four long-term care homes in Quebec that experienced serious problems have now been placed in trusteeship. Analyses have been conducted and investigations are under way, by the coroner, among others.
Does the member not think that the Government of Quebec is in the best position to find solutions and fix the serious mistakes that were made in long-term care homes in Quebec? Is it not up to the Quebec National Assembly to make these decisions and not the federal government, which is interfering in provincial jurisdictions?
View Michelle Rempel Garner Profile
CPC (AB)
Madam Speaker, we need change. Canadian seniors in any part of this country cannot be expected to live under the circumstances they have been put over the last year.
Provinces have an important role to play and their autonomy needs to be underscored, but the federal government has a duty to work collaboratively with provinces on coming up with a solution. That is where our discussion should be squarely focused.
Results: 136 - 150 of 586 | Page: 10 of 40

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