Wonderful. Thank you for the opportunity to present.
My name is James Janeiro. I'm here on behalf of the Canadian Centre for Caregiving Excellence.
We are a new organization powered by the Azrieli Foundation, and we'll launch in May.
We believe that caregiving is the next frontier of public policy in Canada, and our mission is to support and empower caregivers and care providers, advance the knowledge and capacity of the caregiving field, and advocate for effective and visionary social policy, all with a disability-informed lens.
Like many sectors of the economy, the profession of paid caregiving is plagued by systemic issues that have been laid bare by the pandemic. Low wages, unstable work arrangements, unpredictable hours and insufficient training have all be exposed in many areas of the caregiving economy. The sector is comprised of many racialized and newcomer workers, most of whom are women. We have all heard of the working conditions and staff shortages in long-term care and the impact that has had on seniors across the country.
In the developmental services sector, many staff supporting children and adults with intellectual disabilities work for more than one employer to make ends meet, or rely on gig work to supplement their wages, while both full and part-time employment opportunities go unfulfilled for months.
The same is true for home care staff who provide life saving care to vulnerable people living in their homes.
We must do better to support paid caregivers in their work. In doing so, we can make the profession of caregiving more attractive and help address long-term labour shortages across all areas of the economy. After all, paid caregiving is a job, and workers deserve to be paid an adequate wage. Unfortunately, wages in the caregiving sector are simply insufficient to draw staff into the profession and keep them in the field.
The home and community care sector in Ontario is one example where insufficient investment in wages has created a labour shortage. Frontline staff in this sector are the lowest paid of the entire health care system in Ontario.
Over the past decade, provincial budgets have created new capacity while freezing base budgets. Consequently, many providers are providing services at funding rates that are vastly out of date and do not reflect increases and the real cost of operations. It is becoming increasingly difficult to attract and retain staff, which impacts the quality of life of clients living at home and ultimately puts more even more stress on our health care system.
As the federal government contemplates the twin challenges of labour shortages in caregiving and pressures on our health care system, we submit that federal health care funding tied to increasing both capacity and base wages in the home and community care sector across the country would result in higher wages, improve recruitment and retention, improve quality of care and ultimately put less pressure on emergency rooms.
As we begin to repair our economy, we recommend that your study also consider the bigger picture of caregiving. All caregiving sectors are experiencing labour shortages. Which in turn creates other labour shortages across the entirety of the economy.
In 2018, one quarter of Canadians provided care to someone who needed it. A study published in 2013 projected that over half of all Canadians will provide unpaid care at some point in their lives to a friend or family member in need. This care is disproportionately delivered by women. Out of necessity, many caregivers need to partially or fully withdraw from the labour market to care for their loved ones, which further contributes to labour shortages across the country as these potential workers, turned caregivers, cannot work full-time for want of available paid caregiver support. In effect, this further shrinks the number of working age adults who can fill jobs. This dynamic was estimated to cost upwards of $1.3 billion in lost productivity per year. It drives down incomes and contributes to the gender wage gap.
As you prepare the study on labour shortages in caregiving, we urge you to consider the many negative effects of underfunding and low wages in paid caregiving. Addressing this issue would improve the quality of life for millions of vulnerable people who need care, including seniors able to live at home longer thanks to high quality home and community care services provided by personal support workers.
It would create new automation-proof jobs in the predominantly female, racialized and newcomer caregiving economy, and reactivate many unpaid caregivers who could rejoin the workforce when their loved ones' care needs are met. Caregiving can be a rewarding career and sustain a good quality of life if properly supported and compensated.
Thank you for the opportunity. I look forward to your questions.