Thank you very much.
I want to start off by wishing every nurse in our country a happy National Nursing Week—registered practical nurses, RNs, all of them. They really carried us through a pretty traumatic year.
Members of the committee, my name is Sharleen Stewart. Thank you for hearing from me today.
SEIU represents over two million members across the United States, Puerto Rico and Canada. I proudly serve as international vice-president of our union and president of SEIU Healthcare, which represents 120,000 people nationally and 60,000 in Ontario. They are all frontline health care workers.
As I stated at this committee last summer, our elder care system has failed. It has failed working women, who make up the vast majority of frontline staff. It has failed seniors, who were robbed of dignity and life. It has failed their families, who just yesterday marked Mother's Day, mourning mothers and grandmothers who died in isolation. In short, it has failed everyday people.
On the other hand, the past year has rewarded others: shareholders who collect dividends from corporations purporting to deliver care and executives at real estate investment trusts—otherwise known as REITs—masquerading as care corporations, who earned big performance bonuses as death, suffering and economic depression descended over the women they employ.
SEIU Healthcare lost five workers in Ontario alone from COVID-19, because they went to work in service of their community. I'd like to read their names into the record: Christine Mandegarian, Arlene Reid, Sharon Roberts, Maureen Ambersley and Lorraine Gouveia. All of them were women, and all were women of colour. Meanwhile, three publicly traded nursing home chains—Chartwell, Sienna and Extendicare—have collectively paid out over $230 million in cash to shareholders in these past 12 months.
I provide this contrasting overview to demonstrate whom the system serves and whom the system fails. It serves nursing home chain owners and it fails families.
Members of this committee, I want to thank you and your respective parties for engaging with SEIU over the past year. I have had meaningful conversations with MPs from most parties, including Elizabeth May, Jagmeet Singh and Prime Minister Trudeau. You've been open and you've taken collective action.
We know that over eight cents out of every dollar spent to respond to COVID-19 is a result of decisions by MPs in Ottawa, and we thank you for that, but what is done with those federal dollars in emergency response when transferred to the provinces should concern us all.
Let's take our largest province as an example. Provincial regulations have been cut to eliminate minimum care standards for seniors. Provincial regulations have been cut to eliminate background checks for new staff.
This is skilled work. It is hard work, and it is work that must be protected and rewarded. When a province caves to the lobbying of the for-profit industry, we get more part-time work, lower pay and no accountability. We need new national standards that focus on people and care, not the real estate holdings of the nursing homes industry. We cannot allow more money for provinces to make a bad system bigger. We need standards to make a bad system better. As the recent report from the Ontario commission on long-term care indicated, we don't need to study the studies. We need to act.
Members of this committee, I ask that you champion national standards in your caucuses and in your provinces, and provide money, with strings attached, to do the following. First, increase staffing levels so that work is safe and the care is dignified. Second, put in standards that pay personal support workers and all health care workers a living wage. Third, put in standards that ensure full-time jobs where benefits are the norm and not the exception. Fourth, create financial penalties for nursing home chains that fail to meet care standards. Fifth, transform operations from a private system to a public system, like that of our trusted hospitals. These five items are not only popular among voters of all parties; they are also good public policy.
Thank you so much. I'd be happy to take any questions.