Human Resources committee  Okay. That's a hard one to answer with very succinctly. Obviously, the welfare of an individual resident is absolutely the key priority. I can't speak to the full circumstances of an individual. I'm sorry to hear that has been the experience. Care for individuals is overseen by physicians, and care is highly regulated, along with the funding that goes to these care homes across the country.

Human Resources committee  As I mentioned, with the aging demographic that we have, I think the provinces are incredibly challenged to provide the level of services that we know seniors need from a health care perspective. There is a lot of opportunity, I believe, for that shared responsibility approach and for ongoing collaborations.

Human Resources committee  The short answer is yes. I think there are strategies that we could work on together. Mental health is a critical issue not only for the residents in our homes but also for our workforce. We would very much like to champion developments in that regard. We have a higher percentage of female residents, so certainly there's a host of other issues that can stem from that, and we would be very open to further conversations.

Human Resources committee  Certainly on behalf of CALTC, I would say that we have long stated that there needs to be engagement with the federal government and that work between the provinces and the federal government needs to greatly expand. As we've seen in some of the data I shared earlier, we're in the midst of a tremendous transition in the Canadian population.

Human Resources committee  Yes, I do think that there were steps that could have been taken that would absolutely have helped, especially at the beginning of the pandemic. Things have come a long way since the start of this, but at the beginning there were chronic shortages. There were a lot of unanswered questions.

Human Resources committee  Thank you for the question. I do think that there was an opportunity for greater collaboration among the levels of government. Some of the challenges that we have noted were exacerbated by the COVID-19 situation, but they are long-term systemic challenges. Some of the things that were, for example, put forward by the Public Health Agency of Canada simply couldn't be done in many cases because of the shared living space that we have.

Human Resources committee  Pardon me. I know that Minister McKenna has noted that there are shovel-ready projects, and we're certainly hoping that in a post-pandemic period, the country will be ready to work with the long-term care sector and allow us to access the infrastructure funding to make that happen.

Human Resources committee  I sincerely thank you for the opportunity to present here this evening about what CALTC is, the work that the long-term care sector is doing and how we're responding to the COVID-19 situation in Canada. My name is Jodi Hall, and I'm here today as the chair of the Canadian Association for Long Term Care.