Staffing has been identified in report after report, not just in terms of numbers but also in terms of training and distribution.
If we'd had adequate staffing levels to start with, we wouldn't have had the kind of desperation that we've seen. If we'd had full-time jobs, we wouldn't have to be introducing the kinds of practices that were introduced in B.C., because those would already be what was happening in homes. If we had surge capacity within the homes in terms of the labour force and in terms of the physical space, then we wouldn't be having this crisis either, I don't think.
We've known this for a long time, and if we don't learn the lesson from this, then I think we are going to be in worse trouble in the future. This is one of the reasons why we want to talk about the future as well as the present.
We have a lot of evidence that 20 years ago they were saying that 4.1 hours of nursing care per resident per day was essential, and that was before we had residents with the levels of complication that we have now.
Charlene Harrington, who is one of the biggest experts in the U.S. on this issue and who I was talking to this week—she is part of our research team—said that they're now saying that it should be 4.9 hours per resident per day, given the level of acuity that is the case in most homes in Canada. We don't have any province or territory that comes even close to that, and that's in regular times.