Of course our division of powers was not meant to promote finger pointing. It was meant to make sure that governments work together. In this particular shared area, we're very pleased to see the federal government reach in with open arms and make profound changes and make significant investments, but we need to do more.
For full disclosure, I am part of the national long-term care standards technical working group, and I know that members will hear from the leaders of those technical working groups next.
From a legal point of view—this is where the lawyer comes out—we feel that it might be very helpful to move forward with standards but then to work collaboratively with our provincial and territorial counterparts to embed those standards in regulation. Our organization, CanAge, would like to see funds tethered to those national standards.
The $3 billion over five years across this country is a good and significant movement and signal about the importance of implementing national standards, but it's not transformative money. We need to make sure that there are specific amounts of money tied to those standards. It will be an agreement between provinces and territories. We hope very strongly that provinces will look at this not as a political football and an opportunity for grandstanding but rather as an opportunity for transformative change for seniors.