With respect to long-term care and a continuing care act, we think it should parallel the Canada Health Act. There are some important principles there, such as the principle that enables us to receive services regardless of which province we go to. The inability to move an aging parent is a major issue right now for many families.
We think, however, that one of the areas we need to address in the part of the act that would look at residential long-term care in particular, but also at home care, is the issue of health human resources. Not only do 80% of care providers constitute an unregulated group, but we don't know how many there are in the country. We can't count them. Registries are not mandatory, and voluntary registries are pretty spotty across the country. That means tremendous variation. Many of these health care workers can't speak English well enough to answer a survey. It's unclear how that affects their provision of care. In English-speaking facilities, this is an issue.
We really need to have the guidelines and the umbrella principles under which to grapple provincially with issues of health human resources in terms of both qualifications and numbers. We need the ability to count them and the ability to address the needs of that workforce. Many of these women, primarily immigrant women in urban areas, work two full-time jobs. They work 16 hours a day and are themselves a vulnerable group that is caring for this complex group. We would see this as one of the major areas for which we need guiding principles that parallel some of the principles we have in the Canada Health Act.