Madam Chair, in her speech at the beginning of this committee of the whole, the minister reiterated her plans to impose Canada-wide standards for long-term care facilities. I personally have not heard anyone in my riding say that things are not going well because there are no Canada-wide standards. I would like to know whether the minister speaks frequently with her counterpart, the Quebec minister of health, Christian Dubé, and whether she has spoken to him about this. Does she know what he thinks?
From what I have heard, the problem in long-term care centres is not down to a lack of Canada-wide standards. Rather, it is down to lack of staff, in other words, a lack of funding. Is the minister considering increasing the health transfers? The provinces are calling on Ottawa to increase its share of health care spending from 22% to 35%.
Furthermore, since staff must be paid every year for the system to work properly, this should be a recurring transfer, not a one-time transfer.