Thank you for the question, Ms. Chabot.
I think Quebec in many ways has been ahead of other provinces and has better integrated community and long-term care. When it had challenges in the first wave, it took dramatic steps, particularly in hiring over the summer, that have shown leadership.
However, when we're thinking about national standards, we're also thinking about things such as the built environment, HVAC systems, air conditioning systems and how big a space is. For these particular items, we cannot leave people to come up with ideas themselves, in the same way that building codes exist for a reason. It's therefore important that we think about making sure we're levelling up all provinces to have a good understanding that the built environment and standards of care need to have a minimum. This doesn't mean Quebec can't exceed that. We have seen, however, that when health transfers have gone to the provinces untethered—and I'll use the example of home care in 2017—the money has simply disappeared into provincial treasuries and hasn't necessarily been applied for the purposes needed.
I think we are in a transformative step and we can learn from our colleagues in Quebec given how well care has been delivered there in the second and third waves. However, Quebec care is quite different from what we can see sometimes in other jurisdictions. This is a moment of transformative change and we need to make sure that the private, public and not-for-profit homes in all provinces have the information and budgetary knowledge to know what they need to do going forward. It's going to be critically important that we draw out these standards and not restrain innovation but promote it.