The pandemic has shown Canadians the cost of federal government inaction and neglect. We’ve seen devastating losses of loved ones in long-term care centres across the country.
We can do better for our seniors :
- Starting immediately with Revera and making it public.
- Working collaboratively with patients, caregivers, and provincial and territorial governments to develop national care standards for long-term care and other continuing care that would include accountability mechanisms and data collection and that would be tied and backed by adequate and stable funding. We plan to invest an additional $5 billion dollars in long-term care systems across the country and we have committed to increasing the Health Transfer.
- Regulating long-term care and home care with the same principles of the Canada Health Act.
- Improving working conditions for workers in the long-term care sector, as work conditions directly affect care conditions.
Our parents and grandparents built this country. And as they age, they deserve to live in comfort and safety. And we deserve to know that our parents and grandparents are safe.
Yet because of decades of cuts, underfunding and privatization by successive Liberal and Conservative governments, COVID-19 has claimed the lives of thousands of Canadians in long-term care homes. In fact, 82% of Canada's Covid-19 deaths occurred in long-term care during the first wave of the pandemic.
Justin Trudeau made a promise to long-term care workers, residents, and their families to better fund long-term care before he was Prime Minister. Instead, he failed them by underfunding health care and by protecting the profits of big corporations and their wealthy shareholders.
Nobody should be profiting from the care of our seniors.