Human Resources Committee on May 11th, 2020

[Megan Town]

I would, Mr. Chair, if I may.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Please, Ms. Town, go ahead.

[Megan Town]

Thank you.

I think you hit the nail on the head, so to speak, that experiential learning is very important. As a student enrolled in a co-op program myself, I can say that one day in the workplace is certainly worth many hours in the classroom. I think as we consider the gradual reopening of the country, it will be important to consider how students' experiential learning opportunities can or cannot be translated online.

Certainly students work not just in the summer. They also work in the fall and throughout the school year to continue to gain that experience through year-long internships or shorter work placements. Not all student jobs can be conducted in a work-from-home method. As well, student jobs might be the first to be cut from organizations that usually hire student interns. I think it's important to consider how students can be supported as we work to reopen the country, and not just for the immediate term.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Is there anybody else?

[Paul Davidson]

Mr. Chairman—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

We will go to Mr. Davidson and then Ms. Oliver, please.

[Paul Davidson]

I'll yield to Ms. Oliver.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Ms. Oliver, the floor is yours.

[Meri Kim Oliver]

As I mentioned in my opening, experiential learning is critical for students in a college environment. However, I think too often we consider it as a one-way street, that the students are learning from the employer. In our current environment, the one thing we absolutely have to do is focus on the future and the skills that our students are learning by having gone to online platforms and the ideas and creativity we are going to depend on from their having gone into that workforce.

Our difficulty right now is finding those matches and the opportunities for students to engage. Not every experiential learning opportunity can be online. We have to find new and safe ways for our students to still have that experience and have the opportunity to share knowledge and ideas with future employers.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Ms. Oliver.

I'm sorry, Mr. Davidson; we're out of time for that question.

Thank you, Ms. Falk.

The final questioner for this panel is Ms. Young, please, for five minutes.

[Kate Young, Liberal, London West, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all of our witnesses. It's a very interesting discussion on students and how they've been impacted by COVID-19.

I want to start by talking to Mr. Gerrits and Ms. Town. Thank you for appearing.

I read the UCRU statement, and I just want to quote from it. It says that the government's response is “a win for current students, incoming students, and new graduates.” I think we can all agree with that.

We heard over the last hour that some of my opposition colleagues seem to think that young Canadians who might apply for these benefits might see this as a disincentive to work.

Ms. Town, I wonder if you could comment on this specific thinking on the part of some members.

[Megan Town]

Sure. Thank you very much for the question.

I do not think, and from my colleagues and peers I haven't heard it, that the CESB is a disincentive to work. Many of my peers were disappointed when their job prospects for the summer evaporated in light of the pandemic.

Mr. Gerrits highlighted that the amount provided by the CESB is enough to cover students' living expenses, but it is not enough to ensure that students are able to support themselves through the school terms, paying tuition and their living expenses in the subsequent eight to 12 months. For that reason, I think students would very much appreciate the opportunity to be gainfully employed in a full-time position where they would be making closer to their typical income for the summer months and be more financially secure in their attempts to return to school in the fall.

[Kate Young, Liberal, London West, ON]

Would you agree, though, that to be gainfully employed, you would want to match skills to jobs? I think there's a feeling that a lot of these jobs in the agriculture sector would be a match, but these are very highly skilled jobs.

I wonder if Ms. Town or Mr. Gerrits could comment on whether that would be an appropriate match.

[Megan Town]

I have to apologize; I'm not familiar with the types of jobs that are being proposed in the agriculture sector.

I think students would relish the opportunity to learn new skills, and it would be my hope that those could be applied to their field of study.

[Kate Young, Liberal, London West, ON]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Oliver, you mentioned the costs of digital transformation. Paul Davidson, you did as well. I'm hoping that part of the announced funding, the $9 billion, would go to that.

Ms. Oliver, if you could comment, do you not see that some of what you will be receiving could be used to help with this technical transformation?

[Meri Kim Oliver]

Yes, absolutely, it can. It's a mammoth task, though.

I think people misinterpret, thinking that if you can teach a class, you can teach it online. It takes significant work and time for faculty to develop online delivery. It's not as simple as standing in front of the camera and lecturing or just putting up your PowerPoint presentation. There's a huge piece that is also about education of faculty and how to deliver an effective program.

Yes, absolutely, we're grateful for that investment, and we see it as helpful. However, universal design and education of people for that is a mammoth project.

[Kate Young, Liberal, London West, ON]

Mr. Davidson, would you comment?

[Paul Davidson]

Thank you for the question. This is a really important piece of work that needs to be tackled, and I think increased investment would be very important now.

In the $9 billion, it's mostly the CESB that is really welcome investment in work-integrated learning and also volunteer service, but the cost of digital transformation for moving courses wholly online is real. The cost of being able to provide academic supports, child counselling supports and mental health supports is significant.

Also, the benefits are not only to existing students who are in that 18-to-24 demographic. They're also part of the welcome mat to international students, and they attract and retain international students, who are so important, particularly if the borders are closed.

As well, I know that many of you have constituents who have been displaced by this current pandemic. If we have fully integrated online higher education, those folks can sharpen their skills while they're at home. There's a chance for upskilling and re-skilling, which was already a part of the 2019 agenda. We're ready to advance that, but we need government partners to make it happen faster.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Davidson and Ms. Young.

I'd like to thank all of the witnesses for being with us and for their presentations today. We have another panel ready to come in, so we're going to suspend for three minutes to allow for the switchover. Your answers and your presentations will be extremely helpful to our work, and we are grateful to you for that.

Thank you. We are suspended.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

We are now back in session and ready to resume our meeting.

Thank you to our second panel of witnesses for joining us today.

From the Canadian Association for Long Term Care, we have Jodi Hall, chair, and from the Canadian Association of Retired Persons, we have Marissa Lennox, chief policy officer.

Ms. Hall, we're going to call on you first for your opening statement. You have the floor for five minutes.

[Jodi Hall, Chair, Canadian Association for Long Term Care]

I sincerely thank you for the opportunity to present here this evening about what CALTC is, the work that the long-term care sector is doing and how we're responding to the COVID-19 situation in Canada.

My name is Jodi Hall, and I'm here today as the chair of the Canadian Association for Long Term Care.

CALTC is committed to ensuring long-term care for all, and we advocate on behalf of seniors to share knowledge, insight and best practices to ensure that seniors can live and age with dignity. As the leading voice for quality long-term care in Canada, our members deliver publicly funded health care services for seniors across Canada.

To begin, I'll provide an overview of the long-term care sector and the changing demographics in Canada, with current trends.

The most current data indicates that there are over 150,000 long-term care beds across the country and over 1,300 long-term care homes in Canada. The 2016 census data indicated that for the first time in Canadian history, the number of persons over the age of 65 outnumbered those under the age of 14. Population projections show that the gap between the two age groups will continue to widen, with data suggesting that the portion of the Canadian population that is 65 and older will rise by approximately 25% by 2036. The number of seniors 80 years and older is predicted to double between 2011 and 2036.

Our seniors are living longer and are entering long-term care more fragile than ever before, and residents who move into long-term care do so with complex health issues. For example, over 60% of people in long-term care experience advanced forms of dementia, including Alzheimer's; 70% have advanced heart and circulatory diseases; and 58% have advanced hypertension-related conditions.

I want to acknowledge, as I address the issue of COVID-19, the seniors and residents who have passed away as a result of COVID-19. Our hearts are absolutely with the families. I'm sure that you can join me in extending deepest condolences to all of them.

I also want to thank all of the front-line workers who continue to provide compassionate care to Canada's seniors.

We will have a lot of time to review what has been done differently, but I think we will find that the impact of COVID-19 in long-term care homes could have been mitigated if governments had been more proactive in supporting the care sector prior to these outbreaks. Some of the challenges I will be discussing today have been exacerbated by COVID-19, but really they represent systemic issues. In many respects, these systemic issues require support from the federal government, and our members have been raising these issues for many years.

In regard to human resources for health care, we are at a crisis point in Canada with respect to our supply of health workers in the senior care sector. Attracting and retaining individuals in careers of care for Canada's seniors has become increasingly challenging, especially when preparing for a further influx of seniors who will require care for multiple and complex conditions. In my home province of New Brunswick, because of the age of our workforce and the anticipated number of retirements, we're expecting to have a need for over 3,000 care employees, who will need to be hired over the next eight years. For a small province like New Brunswick, that's a very significant number.

Supporting health care aides, continuing care assistants and personal support workers involves structured education and continued training to support these individuals in providing the highest quality of care. It also requires structured governance models to affirm health care aide credentials, conduct and competency.

We understand that the current health care assistant labour force shortage cannot be solved through the recruitment of international students and nurses alone. However, CALTC believes that recruiting international students and nurses does offer an opportunity in part to address the current supply crisis of trained staff in Canada.

To harness this opportunity, the long-term care sector requires the federal government to support policy changes that are aimed at solving the chronic labour shortage. A health human resource strategy for the long-term care sector must focus on the right number, mix, and geographic distribution of providers as well as the appropriate setting for providers to deliver the services.

CALTC is calling on health ministers across the country to pick up where they left off over 20 years ago when the original health accord was negotiated and work was done on a health human resource strategy. Through the leadership of the federal minister of health, health ministers must recognize that the significant challenges that the long-term care sector faces in supporting our aging population are still present 20 years later. Through the leadership of the federal government, there must be collaboration among the provinces, the territories and the long-term care sector to develop and implement a pan-Canadian health human resources strategy.

With regard to infrastructure, the severity of the COVID-19 outbreak has presented unique challenges for staff in the homes. Containing the spread of infection appears to have been more challenging in older homes. Many older homes still have three- and four-bed wards. They do not have private rooms, which makes it very challenging to implement cohorting plans and isolation measures. Older homes generally have narrow hallways, and often there is only one dining room on a main floor. Both of these configurations make it very hard to keep residents apart.

On April 11, the Public Health Agency of Canada released an interim guidance document on infection prevention and control in long-term care homes. Some of the guidelines, such as restrictions to certain work zones and the use of single rooms for certain types of care, are almost impossible for the majority of homes to follow, given that they were not always built to accommodate single rooms for each resident.

Older long-term care homes—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Please start to wrap it up there, Ms. Hall. You're well over time.

[Jodi Hall]

Pardon me.

I know that Minister McKenna has noted that there are shovel-ready projects, and we're certainly hoping that in a post-pandemic period, the country will be ready to work with the long-term care sector and allow us to access the infrastructure funding to make that happen.

We know there are systemic challenges that the sector has been grappling with for years, and the lack of support has led to increased challenges during this time.

We strongly urge the federal government to provide assistance in these two critical areas for housing and care, and not just in this time of crisis, but for every day.

Thank you, and I'm very happy to take any questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

You may well get a chance to address some of the things that were in the rest of your statement through the course of questions.

Ms. Lennox, you have five minutes.

[Marissa Lennox, Chief Policy Officer, Canadian Association of Retired Persons]

Hi, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to present in front of you today.

CARP, as many of you may know, is a national not-for-profit, non-partisan organization, with 320,000 members in every province and territory across Canada.

It's also important to distinguish that, while most of our members are retired and enjoy above-average education and income, an overwhelming majority consistently report that CARP represents the interests of all older Canadian across Canada. We believe that all older adults deserve to live in dignity and with respect, regardless of income level, family support or health challenges.

COVID-19 has undermined these fundamental principles of aging well and revealed the lack of planning and preparation that would secure the health and well-being of seniors during a pandemic. CARP has been actively engaged with our membership since the onset of COVID-19 in providing credible and reliable information to older adult populations on our website through programming and via surveys that we conduct to better understand our members' needs and concerns.

We hosted three virtual town hall events, each with a reach of up to 12,500 members, to provide them with a forum to ask their specific questions to trusted experts on matters related to health and finance. These sessions were recorded for television and aired on our media networks across Canada.

We've heard largely from our members, apart from the obvious, that seniors have been negatively impacted by an increase in their cost of living, from grocery premiums and delivery fees and an increase in prescription medication fees to a lack of free or discounted community services, whether that's laundry services, meals at community centres or volunteer tax preparation, all which closed down due to physical distancing restrictions.

In addition, as you know, stock markets have taken a plunge, and many seniors have seen significant declines in their retirement savings. In a survey pre-COVID, the majority of our members had already expressed that they were concerned about outliving their savings in retirement. With the recent economic impacts of COVID-19, these fears have never been more real.

While we understand the government's initial economic response was to quickly address income replacement, several weeks have passed, and there have been no meaningful announcements around addressing the financial concerns of seniors. Retirees, as you know, are ineligible for CERB. While the 25% reduction in the minimum RRIF withdrawal was welcomed, it was not retroactive, and many would rather leave their savings untouched, given current market volatility. Additionally, the $9 million that was earmarked for seniors and provided to the United Way was met with confusion on how to access it. Our own call centres and those of the United Way's 2-1-1 service have been flooded with calls to better understand how that $9 million was to be distributed and accessed.

I'd also like to speak to what my colleague from CALTC was speaking about earlier, which was a more urgent piece around how we care for older adults, particularly in congregate settings like long-term care.

If COVID-19 has revealed anything, it's revealed the following: that we warehouse frail and very ill seniors in unsafe situations, which are underfunded and understaffed, often with little or no certified training, and that we expect individuals and their families to pay a significant part of the privilege to be in those facilities. It is unconscionable that of 4,900 deaths in Canada so far from COVID-19, 82% were from a population whom we are duty bound to protect, and we failed them.

This is not the responsibility of the federal government alone, but it is very much the duty of the federal government to make sure it doesn't happen again. If we've learned anything, it's that we didn't have a real plan in place for seniors in long-term care in this kind of pandemic, despite having advance warning from other countries that have seen previous crises of similar scale, like SARS and MERS, and the experience with seasonal flu, which spreads in these settings and claims seniors' lives annually.

These are our most vulnerable residents. We can and we must do better.

Thank you.