Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Fry, thank you very much for joining us and testifying on a bill that I feel very strongly about. You talked about your experience as a physician. For my part, before I was a member of Parliament, I was a project manager on elder abuse and bullying awareness.
In Quebec, the Secrétariat aux aînés has a policy to counter elder abuse, and Quebec has a law to strengthen the fight against elder abuse.
The topic is particularly close to my heart and I have been following the situation closely. I worked in collaboration with various actors, including a collaborative intervention process where we brought together representatives from the health community, the police community and the community, such as the Alternative Justice and Mediation organization, for which I worked. We also developed tools for filing complaints.
Listening to you, I get the impression that the reality in Quebec is different from the rest of Canada, and I'll explain why. We have a fairly comprehensive law in Quebec aimed at addressing elder abuse. We also have a higher rate of public residences for seniors. In fact, in Quebec, 88% of long-term care facilities, or CHSLDs, are public, compared to 46% in the rest of Canada. That's a significant difference.
You talked about respect for jurisdictions in your speech. How could we ensure that this bill respects them? Putting the issue of abuse in the Criminal Code—we would be willing to do that—is a federal issue, but I would add a caveat to that. I would like your views on the issue of respecting jurisdictions because, in the case of Quebec, 88% of CHSLDs are public and under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Health and Social Services.