Hello. I want to direct my questions to CUPE. I'm going to preface them by saying that I'm asking you an unfair question, but there are no rules precluding me from asking you unfair questions.
I think you've done a very nice job at presenting your case about the very real, significant problems with chronic care homes: the poor wages of people working in those chronic care homes, the fact that people are overworked, that you don't have enough hours to give sufficient attention to people you ought to. You've pointed out how these have led to very real problems with the COVID-19 epidemic. Because of the poor wages, people go from one nursing home to another and spread the disease. That way, when people haven't been able to work because they're sick, there's no one to fill in the gaps.
As a result, you made some very good recommendations, I think, for national care standards. You also listed a bunch of proposals that you thought should be implemented to try to make things better for chronic care homes. The biggest one is that these positions be publicly funded.
I think your ideas are really good. I'm certainly sympathetic. I think that members from all parties would agree that we have to do better for our senior citizens, many of whom have spent their whole lives contributing to society and are now in a position themselves that they need a little help. I think we all agree that these are things that are needed.
Now here's the unfair question. We agree on what I just mentioned, but how are we going to pay for that as a society? For you, like me, like all of us who are part of society, there are many costs. Can we as a society afford to put that much more money into looking after elderly people? How are we going to find the money?