Thank you, Madam Chair.
I want to thank all of you for being here.
I'm the NDP critic for seniors issues, and the briefs that you provided are going to add tremendously to my research.
I've been doing a lot of research. Quite clearly, there are a number of things that we should do, and that we can do, in terms of addressing the needs of seniors.
Ms. Kay, I want to start with you. We've heard that there is a need for some national standards in terms of long-term care. I know that in the province of Ontario there are some profound concerns. The number of hours of care continues to decline and there are fewer and fewer staff members in a facility. As a result, seniors are not getting the care they need.
Perhaps there's a level of frustration among staff that could be problematic, but there's also the reality of one patient attacking another. They've begun to mix patients suffering from Alzheimer's and dementia into general wards, so there is that kind of abuse.
Could you comment on that?
We--the federal government and the provinces--are going to be looking at the Canada Health Act in the next few years, by 2014. Do we need some national standards? How does long-term care fit into the Canada Health Act? Should the Government of Canada be very clear about the need to include long-term care, to provide the support, so that we have a standard across the country and fewer examples of abuse of seniors in facilities?