SoVote

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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Context: House Hansard - 57 - Apr/25/22

Mrs. Shelby Kramp-Neuman (Hastings—Lennox and Addington, CPC)

Apr/25/22 11:14:10 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Avalon for bringing this incredibly important issue to the floor of the House of Commons. It goes without saying that the issue of long-term care is perhaps, along with the cost of living, one of the issues heard most from concerned constituents by all members in this place. The population in my riding of Hastings—Lennox and Addington has one of the highest percentages of seniors in this country. If we couple that statistic with the rural nature of a large majority of the riding, suitable housing for seniors is a real issue. Not only do we need to make sure there are enough beds in facilities, but we need to ensure that those facilities are spread throughout the riding to accommodate the decentralized population centres across thousands of kilometres of Hastings—Lennox and Addington. Many of my rural counterparts do not benefit from having the centralized smaller footprints of our urban colleagues, which means much more costly overhead in terms of capital and staff in getting our facilities set up. While this is certainly daunting, recently Hastings—Lennox and Addington served as a good example of how the provinces can start the process on their own. Recently, the Ontario government announced $1.8 million of additional funding for long-term care facilities in Hastings—Lennox and Addington, and Kingston and the Islands. This affects over 500 beds across these two ridings, and I am sure my colleague for Kingston and the Islands would be happy to join me in thanking the Conservative government of Doug Ford for this very important investment in long-term care across our riding. While this is certainly a positive step in the right direction, far more work needs to be done in Hastings—Lennox and Addington and across our country. The reality of the situation is that the COVID-19 pandemic shed a jarring light on a problem that has been festering in Canada for decades. It was the dirty little secret that millions of Canadians did not want to acknowledge: Many of their parents were living in dismal conditions in our long-term care facilities. In my opinion, the most eye-opening example of this was when the Ontario and Quebec governments called in the military to provide logistical support for their overworked caregivers in Operation Laser. Following this deployment, the Canadian Armed Forces released a document that contained five annexes titled observation reports. These chronicled concerning shortcomings that were further exacerbated by COVID-19 at five long-term care facilities. I want to apologize to my colleagues for the graphic nature of much of these reports, but as someone responsible for the seniors' portfolio, I believe that it is incumbent on me to remind the House of the contents of the reports and read them into the record. I want to reiterate that while the following excerpts are, for lack of a better term, horrific, they are not indicative of all facilities. However, the fact is that these situations occurred. Even if they were isolated instances, it is one time too many. In the first facility, the report noted the following, among many other issues: Reusing hypodermoclysis supplies even after sterility has been obviously compromised (e.g. a catheter pulled out and on the floor for an undetermined amount of time); Poor palliative care standards—inadequate dosing intervals for some medications... Generally very poor peri-catheterization care reported. Example: retracting penis foreskin to clean isn't happening on a widespread level. CAF have found nearly a dozen incidents of bleeding fungal infections.... Extra soaker pad: residents who routinely soil their bed despite incontinence products are not permitted to have an extra soaker pad or towel...to help protect sheets and blankets from soiling.... [The] rationalization used is that an extra pad is undignified.... New staff that have been brought to LTCF haven't been trained or oriented. [LTCF] is “severely understaffed during day due to resident comorbidities and needs.... [Medical doctors] not present and have to be accessed by phone.... CAF [members] have witnessed aggressive behaviour, which ACC staff assessed as abusive or inappropriate. In a second facility, the following were noted: Little to no disinfection had been conducted at the facility prior to CAF operations. Significant gross fecal contamination was noted in numerous patient rooms; Insect infestation was noted within [the long-term care facility]—ants and cockroaches plus unknown observed; Delayed changing soiled residents, leading to skin breakdown.... Forceful feeding observed by staff causing audible choking/aspiration, forceful hydration observed by staff causing audible choking/aspiration; Patients observed crying for help with staff not responding for 30 minutes to over two hours.... SNO reported incident of patients' enteral feed bottle not being changed for so long the contents had become foul and coagulated; date and expiration of the contents not noted on the bottle; SNO reported incident of permanent catheter being in situ three weeks beyond scheduled change date.... and, [Personal support workers] often rushed and leave food on table, but patients often cannot reach or cannot feed themselves, therefore missing meals or not receiving meals for hours. This is just a small section of the report covering two specific facilities. It is disturbing, yet these same scenes are being played out across our nation and have been going on for decades. We in this nation seem to be content with treating our senior citizens, the people who literally built this country and raised our entire nation, no better than we would treat an animal. It is a national tragedy and a national shame that thousands of Canadian seniors consider the previously mentioned incidents to be part of regular life. As I have previously mentioned in the House, in 2018, the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities released a report entitled, “Advancing Inclusion and Quality of Life for Seniors”. That report identified a number of issues surrounding long-term care and suggested a number of actionable recommendations to address those issues. It is extremely unfortunate that, over four years later, we are still moving motions to crassly declare our great outrage over an issue this Parliament was directly made aware of at the time, but did not move fast enough to address. Unfortunately, it seems to be the modus operandi of the current government to move a non-instructive motion, develop a framework, strike a working group, create a road map and do anything except actually address the issue at hand. This year's budget is another perfect example of this mentality. Despite all of the grandstanding from the government about it having the backs of our seniors, it provided $20 million in its support for seniors budget line. That is $20 million out of $56.6 billion in proposed new spending. To put that into perspective, for every dollar the government has proposed to spend, Canadian seniors get less than half of a tenth of a cent. To finish off, I would like to reiterate that I am not assigning blame to my hon. friend across the way who moved this very important motion, but more so to his colleagues on the front bench, who dither away while our Canadian seniors are suffering. I really want to thank him for bringing this motion to the floor. I hope that he will continue to advocate for Canadian seniors and press his caucus colleagues into meaningful action on this file.

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Context: House Hansard - 57 - Apr/25/22

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

Apr/25/22 1:46:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I suspect that if we were to take a look at the 10 years in which Stephen Harper was the prime minister and the number of temporary workers who were converted into permanent residents, we would find that in the last few years we have more than exceeded what he did in 10 years. More and more, we are looking at ways in which temporary foreign workers could ultimately land. With the idea of being able to study in Canada, if one is good enough to study in Canada or good enough to work in Canada, one should be able to land in Canada. That is an approach that many of my caucus colleagues believe in, and we are working toward that in a very diligent way.

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