First of all, I've been in a lot of really good non-profit homes, or homes that are publicly subsidized. In Canada we have an incredible provincial range. One of the papers out of our project, actually, is on the variation in the fees charged provincially and territorially in Canada, and whether they are means-tested. There's an extraordinary range just there. If we had some standards on that, it would help.
Everybody charges accommodation fees in the publicly subsidized homes. I think we do have some examples of working...but it needs more money. As I was saying before, what we hear about most in long-term care is staffing, food, and clothes, or laundry. Those are absolutely critical. In some provinces we're giving people three or four dollars a day to feed people in long-term care. Well, it's no wonder it tastes.... We've tasted them in every place, and I have to say we couldn't identify some of it.
We need more money but we need standards, and we don't need more regulation. I know that might sound surprising from me, but our response has been to add more and more regulations, which means they have to do more and more documentation, which takes more and more time away from providing care. We need to have more people providing the care rather than filling out forms about the care they didn't provide.