Thank you very much for your question and for your interest in a very important issue, which is personal support workers.
As we have seen in long-term care, the lack of workers was a serious issue that caused challenges in that sector. It's also an issue in our home care. We obviously want to support seniors wherever they live: at home, long-term care, or other facilities. Personal support workers are extremely important to do that.
As you know, in the early days of the pandemic we provided $3 billion to the provinces and territories to help improve the funding and the pay of essential workers, including personal support workers. That, I understand from my colleagues and through conversations, was very helpful in helping them to keep and attract people in those roles. However, it hasn't been enough.
We have been supporting the long-term care sector with our Red Cross helping to train and get people into those facilities to help when they're in crisis. More importantly, we need more.
That is why Minister Qualtrough has been working diligently with the sector to develop an intern training program. We are going to support the creation of 4,000 interns whom we can rapidly train through online training and then place them in long-term care facilities so they can get in there and help.