Absolutely. Thank you so much.
It's very difficult to paint it as a black and white issue. My day job is working front-line in community health care as a nurse. I've come across situations on many occasions where we suspect and are almost sure there is been abuse, but the individual who is being abused, or potentially being abused, remains cognitively intact and autonomous, so we have limitations.
When we talk about potentially having a seniors strategy for abuse prevention or abuse reporting, we need to be very careful, because there is that really fine balance of autonomy versus somebody else stepping in and making decisions.
It's a little more cut and dried when we have individuals who are more vulnerable, who have cognitive concerns or cognitive impairments. It becomes also a little easier with some of the legislation around the Protection for Persons in Care Act, in particular in Manitoba.
As a health care professional, when I suspect something is happening in a facility in regard to abuse, I have a duty. I have an absolute duty to report. But when it comes to community settings, it becomes much greyer and much less clear.
I would support a standard or a standard communication about what are the roles of individuals who come across these situations. What can you do? This is part of what our organization does. We provide resources on our website for local, provincial and territorial organizations and the kinds of things they do, because, unfortunately, there is no standard across the country. Each province and territory has slightly different things they do and they recommend, and slightly different kinds of resources available.
In my opinion, speaking for the CNPEA, we would like to see more standards across Canada so that the people who are living in Nova Scotia have access to the same services and supports as the people living in British Columbia.