Evidence of meeting #35 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was support.
A video is available from Parliament.
5 p.m.
Conservative
Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
Is there a timeline for when the intake of applications will begin?
5 p.m.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Income Security and Social Development Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development
We intend to run the program using community-based intermediaries who have national reach. There will be a public call for proposals to identify the organizations that will administer the program. All of those details are still to come.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
Okay. Thank you.
The staffing crisis in long-term care has exacerbated the impact of COVID-19 on the health of our seniors, and there is a shortage of health care and care workers across the country. In the fall economic statement, funds were allocated to train 4,000 support workers across the country. This committee received a written response to my previous inquiries on the topic stating that recruitment for this training started in April, with placements beginning as early as June 2021.
Given those dates, the program should be under way. Can you please provide the committee with an update on the enrolment of this program?
5:05 p.m.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Employment and Social Development
Go ahead, Alexis.
5:05 p.m.
Alexis Conrad Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Income Security and Social Development Branch and Policy Horizons Canada, Department of Employment and Social Development
Thanks.
Mr. Chair, there's actually not much more I can say other than what was provided to the committee before. The program is moving ahead. I think there have been announcements around funding, targets and working with Colleges and Institutes Canada to train thousands of personal support workers. We're still in that period, obviously, which the committee received information about, between April and June. We would be happy to follow up with information to the committee when something does change.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
Perfect.
I have a few other questions as well, but if I can't get that information, I would like the questions on the record so that when the information becomes available the department could provide it if possible.
Could you provide a breakdown of enrolment across the country and what colleges are running this federal program? Will the department be tracking the completion rate of this program or how will the success of the program be measured? How does this program measure up against other investments in training, like the Ontario accelerated PSW program, and are these programs complementary?
5:05 p.m.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Employment and Social Development
We'll come back to you, then, Ms. Falk.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
Perfect. I appreciate that.
I want to also touch on the age well initiative. I know that the minister did mention it, and it was brought up in our previous hour. We know that budget 2021 announced $90 million over three years to launch the age well at home initiative, which would be helping seniors to age in place. We know that's very important, especially for seniors attaining and having autonomy. I'm just wondering how this program is going to achieve that.
5:05 p.m.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Employment and Social Development
We're still developing the detailed program parameters for it, but the goal is to fund community serving organizations at a regional level and a national level to try to develop and put in place best practices to support seniors in the community.
We have the new horizons program platform, which we will sort of use as a base for the delivery of this new program. We have, as you know, a whole infrastructure built around it that involves us in a relationship with various support organizations across the country that are serving seniors. We'll certainly be building on that foundation—
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
5:05 p.m.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Employment and Social Development
A deadline for a call for proposals, do you mean?
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
Yes. I guess it's still under way and being developed, but it was announced in the budget.
5:05 p.m.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Employment and Social Development
We probably will have a couple of calls for proposals under the program, and we really do want to launch in this fiscal year. We're working very hard to reach that objective.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
Who is going to be targeted for eligible funding? Would it be people or seniors specifically, individually, or is it going to be the organizations?
5:05 p.m.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Employment and Social Development
It would be organizations that would apply.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
What types of activities is the department exploring that would be eligible for funding?
5:05 p.m.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Employment and Social Development
As the minister noted, organizations that are providing various supports to seniors in the community would be provided funding to organize those sorts of supports.
It came up with the minister that the volunteer model is certainly a model that's out in the community a lot already, at the local level, so building and strengthening some of those activities is certainly something we have in mind. We're also looking at trying to support the development and rollout of best practices for things that have been proven to work in order to try to support organizations perhaps in another part of the country to be able to provide a similar service. We're really trying to not reinvent the wheel but to look at some of the great success stories that are out there and trying to support organizations in different areas and different regions to build on those kinds of models.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Thank you, Ms. Gibbons.
Next, Mr. Dong, go ahead, please, for six minutes.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Han Dong Liberal Don Valley North, ON
Thank you very much, Chair.
I want to thank all the witnesses and officials for coming to the committee to give us some answers.
I want to follow up on what MP Falk was asking. We know that the majority of our seniors wish to age at home. We know that the pandemic has posed a greater challenge.
Today, Angus Reid had a survey out. I noticed that 45% of the respondents said it would be impossible to provide sufficient support for seniors to age at home without considerable help. Looking forward, budget 2021 talked about the $90 million over three years to launch the age well at home initiative.
To follow up on the previous question, why did the ministry choose or consider the avenue of volunteer service? Do we know if there will be enough volunteers to meet the needs of seniors aging at home?
5:10 p.m.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Employment and Social Development
As the minister noted, there's already a great record of volunteer participation in all kinds of community-serving organizations, and certainly for seniors there are a number of very successful ones out there, so we would be able to build on that. We know seniors themselves are very active volunteers in serving each other, so certainly that's one type of organization or one model I think we want to provide more support to.
There are a great many needs out there and a lot of different ways of supporting the community. What we're trying to do is to give a little bit of a boost to what's already happening out in the not-for-profit sector and, as I said before, where there have been success stories, we are providing supports and providing the profile and the capacity for organizations that right now don't have the resources to be able to build up a function or an activity to serve the community. We are looking at giving them the boost to do that and at giving them models through comparing with what's already happening in other places.
Lots of very interesting things are happening in communities now. We are hearing that they just need a little bit more support to be able to bolster that and to manage projects to build up capacity even further.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Han Dong Liberal Don Valley North, ON
I can support that. In my riding of Don Valley North, I know personally quite a few seniors who are helping seniors through Meals on Wheels. They are actively recruiting volunteers to cater to the diverse community we have in the riding. I hope we can enact this very quickly to provide those key supports.
I can't help but ask what checks will be in place to mitigate the risk of senior abuse, considering that if we expand this program we will be recruiting or encouraging more volunteers to come and serve. Are there any thoughts on that?
5:10 p.m.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Employment and Social Development
Are you referring to the possibility that people involved with the administration in community organizations may be doing—
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Han Dong Liberal Don Valley North, ON
Yes. Many people involved in delivering these programs will be volunteers. Are there any background checks and provisions to prevent any risk of senior abuse?