There have been studies by the World Health Organization, the OECD and the ILO. Just a year ago, we were warned that we were going to face a terrible crisis in recruiting and retention in long-term care unless we did something about the entire range of working conditions, including—and this relates specifically to what you were saying—a recognition of the skills involved in this work and the valuing of the labour force.
I interviewed a resource director in Norway who said that what surprised her most when she went to long-term care was how demanding the work is and how hard people work. That's been made invisible, including all of the extra work they do without pay in long-term care.
We must have minimum staffing. We must have decent wages. We must have as much full-time employment as possible and permanent part-time to fill the rest on the casual side. We must have people work in one place, as B.C. showed us. We must recruit more people, and we must to make sure that they have training that recognizes, as Carole said about what is required in this job.
The work is medical, and it's also social. It involves the full range of people who work in a long-term care home. We need all of those things at once. It's been layed out for us again and again. As the recent Ontario long-term care commission said, and as Carole also repeated, “We don't need more studies. We need action.” In parallel with the Canada Health Act, I think we need federal action that says, “You meet these conditions, and we'll give you money,” but you have to prove that you meet these conditions, the standards that the throne speech talked about.