Evidence of meeting #7 for National Defence in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was quebec.
A recording is available from Parliament.
2:10 p.m.
Liberal
Yves Robillard Liberal Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
Okay.
Good afternoon to the witnesses.
My first question is for Carole Estabrooks.
Is it working properly this time?
2:10 p.m.
Conservative
2:10 p.m.
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
If I may, Madam Chair, in the interpretation options, there's the “mute original audio” function below “French” and “English”.
2:10 p.m.
Professor, University of Alberta, As an Individual
I have the correct one.
2:10 p.m.
Liberal
2:10 p.m.
The Clerk
Yes. At the bottom centre of the screen, there's the “interpretation” option.
2:10 p.m.
The Clerk
Choose the “French” option. Under this option, you'll have one that lets you mute.
2:10 p.m.
The Clerk
It's working for us. Let's do a test. Say something brief in French.
2:10 p.m.
Liberal
Yves Robillard Liberal Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
I'd like to welcome the witnesses.
I think it's working.
My first question is for Dr. Estabrooks.
First of all, I'd like to congratulate you, Dr. Estabrooks, for your recent appointment to the Royal Society of Canada. Given your expertise in the area, I'd like to hear your opinion about the role of women and visible minorities in long-term care facilities, particularly as personal support workers and nurses.
2:10 p.m.
Professor, University of Alberta, As an Individual
Thank you very much for the question.
Over half of the PSW workforce are immigrants. Over half of the people who are immigrants don't speak English as a first language and sometimes don't speak English well enough to understand it readily in a conversational way. It's a highly racialized workforce. We pay almost no attention to that. We don't collect that data. I have that data because we've been working for over 15 years with a longitudinal group in the west. We asked them what language they speak and where they come from, so we have that data.
When I talk to colleagues in Ontario and Quebec, it's even higher. It's not the same in some regions of B.C., and in the Maritimes it's a little bit different. It depends on the ecosystem that you're in. That is part of the reason they are so poorly compensated. They're women. They're poorly educated. They're not given any continuing education. They're not regulated, which means there aren't even criminal background checks, and we don't count them accurately in the country. What we have done is create this workforce that's largely unregulated, and we've deprofessionalized it.
In Germany, they legislated that 50% of the front-line workforce has to be regulated nursing staff, RNs. In Belgium, it's even higher, almost 65%. That's similar in other jurisdictions. Here, the regulated workforce is less than 15%, and that has been a financial decision, coupled with the belief that you don't need complex, competent skilled care for these individuals.
We can provide that care with a high proportion of unregulated staff, but we have to give them proper education. We have to give them continuing education, and we have to support them. We have to address what kinds of issues it creates if we have a highly racialized workforce in terms of the discrimination they feel. We know that COVID had a disproportionate impact on racialized groups, and we know that in some jurisdictions that was manifest in what happened in the workforce, in the nursing homes that had a particularly high proportion of people from other ethnic groups.
Poverty plays a role. The fact that they're women plays a role. All of these things come together and stack up, until you get a workforce that's quite vulnerable. On top of that, they're pretty much voiceless. They're not unlike the residents who don't have a voice; we don't give them much voice. They're at the bottom of a hierarchy, and they're not included often in a lot of decision-making, but they care. This is the thing that astonishes me through all of that. The average care aide or PSW in this country builds relationships with residents and cares and wants to do good work. We aren't even acknowledging....
That's the first step. Then we have look at what it means if a workforce is predominantly female and you have COVID and they close the schools and there's no child care. That's a problem. If you're a woman and you have children and the schools are closed and you're caring for aging parents, that's a challenge, so we have issues and we don't value caregiving. We don't value it for children, and we don't value it for the elderly. There's a very big convergence of these compounding issues of disparity and inequality in this workforce.
2:15 p.m.
Liberal
2:15 p.m.
Liberal
2:15 p.m.
Liberal
2:15 p.m.
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
I'm sorry, Mr. Robillard.
I'd like to thank the interpreters for their exceptional work. I'll do it quickly, but I want to tell them that they're exceptional.
Thank you very much.
It's not every day that we hear from a former minister of health at the Standing Committee on National Defence. You said it yourself, Dr. Hébert. I'm very happy to have you with us.
Just to be clear, do you agree with the demands of Quebec and the provinces that the federal government increase health transfers from 22% to 35%?
2:15 p.m.
As an Individual
Okay.
I believe that we need more health care funding federally and provincially. However, as I said earlier, continuing to invest in boosting physician pay and concentrating health care in hospitals is the wrong approach.
2:15 p.m.
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
Excuse me, Dr. Hébert, I don't have a lot of time. I understood that.
I was asking if, as a former Quebec minister of health, you agreed with the demands of Quebec and the provinces that the federal government pay its share.
2:15 p.m.
As an Individual
When I hear in the Speech from the Throne that there is a real focus on home-based care and residential care services, it's music to my ears. There is an important negotiation to be made with the provinces to ensure that this money is really directed to home-based care and institutional care, in Canada, in every province in Canada.
2:15 p.m.
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
So, as a former minister of health, you disagree with this demand.
I have one last question for you.
In 2013, when you were minister of health, you said that the federal government does not provide any services to the public and that this duplication of staff is expensive.
Do you still agree with that statement?
2:15 p.m.
As an Individual
Yes, there is duplication in certain areas. At the time, it was in mental health and in areas such as health care for indigenous people.
I believe we can succeed in reaching an agreement on eliminating this duplication. We have so little funding for health care that we have to be very careful to avoid needless duplication.
2:15 p.m.
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
Okay.
Thank you very much, Dr. Hébert.
We'll make sure your position is known.
My next question is for Maj Martin.
Good afternoon, Maj Martin.
Several important courses, such as career development courses, have been cancelled or offered with a limited number of candidates. This means that there are fewer trained soldiers, NCOs and officers who, in turn, could have trained other candidates. The COVID-19 pandemic really hurt everyone, especially in this area.
Would you be able to tell us what impact these delays are having on the preparedness of our forces?
2:20 p.m.
Maj Karoline Martin
The preparedness and questions about training are not within my field of expertise, but I will turn the floor over to Colonel Malcolm, who is better positioned to answer.
