Absolutely. Thank you very much MP Falk. It's nice to see you.
Personal support workers across our nation are called something different in almost every single province. In Nova Scotia they're referred to as continuing care assistants. In New Brunswick they're PSWs and health care aides. In Saskatchewan they're continuing care assistants. In Ontario we're personal support workers. I'll refer to them as PSWs moving forward.
In every single province we are unregulated. Two provinces do have registries in place for their workers, but they're employer-driven registries, which does nothing for the worker.
One thing the association has been doing on a provincial level in Ontario for over the past 10 years is lobbying quite hard for the regulation of personal support workers. We know that with title protection, regulations, accountability and oversight put in place, our most vulnerable would be much safer. Right now, to be honest, do you know who's knocking at your door? We don't know who is a personal support worker. There's no way, other than with our association, for them to identify themselves as such. That's a huge concern.
The level of abuse in elder care that's happening right now has been happening forever. A personal support worker working in long-term care, home care, a retirement home or wherever can be accused of abuse, be fired from their job, walk down the street and get a job at another long-term care facility, home care company or whatever, because no one's following them in their jobs. That is where elder abuse really starts.
I am happy to announce that the Province of Ontario has put a bill forward to regulate personal support workers in Ontario. It's currently in its public consultation process. It's Bill 283, if anyone's interested, in Ontario. Hopefully it will be an authority that oversees accountability and protections for the public regarding personal support workers.
PSWs, as you know, are unregulated, so we're not taken seriously in the job in a lot of places. We bring a lot to the table. No one else does personal care; only the PSW does.