This is clearly our long-term care. Don't even get me started. It is broken; it is fundamentally broken. What has happened in our care sector is a tragedy for the entire country, and it's a shame for the entire country that we've neglected it.
Obviously the response and organization of long-term care is a provincial and territorial matter. The call to bring long-term care under the Canada Health Act is critically important. We desperately need to establish national standards that speak to the quality of care on offer.
Everything from staffing ratios to prohibition of contracting out and the imposition of private sector management strategies that basically put profit above people are critical as we reapproach this sector. We absolutely have to look at working conditions and why staff are paid so poorly and must cobble together income in order to make a sustainable wage. We have to look at how that is integrated into our immigration system, where we bring in women of colour from countries to do this low-wage work and exploit them here.
I think we have to take leadership. B.C. has taken some leadership. We have to look at provincially stepping up on labour standards.
There's no mystery here. We can't let the private corporations continue to proliferate and buy up these real estate assets to profit off the backs of our most vulnerable.
I can't say this strongly enough. This is our opportunity to stand up as a country and to fix this system, which will be good for all of us. It must be a national priority moving forward.