Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to inform you that I will be splitting my time with my hon. colleague from Châteauguay—Lacolle.
I thank everyone for raising this important issue in the House of Commons and giving it national attention. This matter is very personal for me as the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Seniors. We have been very hard at work throughout this pandemic.
The pandemic is extremely hard on everyone, but even more so on those fighting every day on the front lines to help people and save lives. Without hesitation, health care workers went to the front lines with a single goal in mind: protecting Canadians. They pay a very high price for their dedication. Some even made the ultimate sacrifice.
Without their hard work right from the beginning of the pandemic, even more people would have lost their lives. Words cannot express how thankful I am. We owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude that we can never repay.
From the outset of the pandemic, the government provided support to Canadians and worked with provinces. We introduced the Canada emergency response benefit to help people who had lost their job. We invested $500 million through partnerships to help seniors and others get essential supplies and services such as grocery delivery. In July, we sent a one-time tax-free payment of $300 to seniors eligible for old age security and an additional $200 to the most vulnerable seniors, in other words, those eligible for the guaranteed income supplement.
We worked with the provinces and territories to ensure the safety of residents and staff in long-term care facilities. When the provinces called on us, we were there to help. Members of the Canadian Armed Forces were deployed in more than 50 long-term care facilities in Quebec and Ontario. We also published guidelines for these types of facilities in order to prevent and control COVID-19 infections.
We are investing billions of dollars in the purchase of personal protective equipment for health workers, including the ones who are providing long-term care. Indeed, with the new essential services contingency reserve we will make sure that the men and women who take care of our seniors always have the PPE and other supplies they need.
Under the safe restart agreement, we will provide $740 million for measures to control and prevent infections, including in long-term care facilities, which means among the most vulnerable. We have provided $3 billion to the provinces and territories to increase the wages of low-income essential workers, such as staff at long-term care facilities.
Our government has taken comprehensive measures to improve the quality of life of our seniors. That is on top of the attention that we have paid to seniors since we were elected.
Since 2015, our government has implemented a number of measures to improve the quality of life of seniors across the country. Thanks to our initiatives, many seniors are able to make ends meet, receive the care they need and remain active in their communities. One of these measures includes lowering the age of eligibility for old age security and the guaranteed income supplement from 67 to 65. We did that at the very beginning of our mandate. That is how we put thousands of dollars back into the pockets of new seniors.
We also invested to give seniors greater income security by increasing the guaranteed income supplement and the GIS earned income exemption. We worked with the Government of Quebec to harmonize the Quebec pension plan. We are continuing our efforts to enhance the Canada pension plan, specifically by increasing the maximum annual CPP benefit by 50%.
In the House, the Bloc Québécois is criticizing us for small increases, when its members know very well that these are adjustments to the amounts, not increases. They are playing with words in order to misinform our seniors in Quebec and Canada.
Our government's leadership and collaboration with the provinces prove that it is possible to establish national standards for the benefit of seniors and the public while respecting provincial jurisdictions.
Furthermore, we know how important it is to help seniors live longer in their own homes. That is why we invested an additional $6 billion in home and community care and palliative care services.
Since delivering the throne speech, our government has been committed to continuing to provide the support that seniors and essential workers need. We will work closely with the provinces and territories to establish new national standards for long-term care so that seniors receive the best possible support. We have a good working relationship with the provinces and territories, including Quebec.
We are also committed to fast-tracking measures to bring in a national and universal pharmacare program in collaboration with the provinces and territories. We have also committed to proposing changes to the Criminal Code in order to explicitly penalize those who neglect seniors under their charge, thereby putting our seniors at risk.
Yesterday, our government presented the 2020 fall economic update. We know that Canada is dealing with a second wave of the COVID-19 virus. We are better prepared than we were in the spring. We have learned a few things. We have the PPE that we need to protect nurses, doctors and front-line workers, and our government is procuring even more. That is why we are creating a new $1-billion fund to ensure the safety of long-term care, which will help the provinces and territories protect people in long-term care and support the prevention and control of infections. It is a health transfer.
We are committed to providing $38.5 million, a health transfer, to support training for up to 4,000 personal support care trainees to address the severe shortage of workers in long-term care and home care.
The government is proposing to invest $150 million to help the Canadian Red Cross. This transfer will help our population and our seniors, and will help other organizations to establish and maintain a pool of humanitarian workers who will provide surge capacity in response to outbreaks of COVID-19.
We will invest $6.4 million to expand the Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvement's LTC+ initiative. Once again, this will help Quebec and all of Canada's provinces.
All Canadians and Quebeckers can rest assured that the government will continue to work closely with the provinces, territories, municipalities and indigenous communities to implement a Canada-wide response to the pandemic. There remains work to do, but our government's ambitious measures are truly making changes in the lives of our seniors. The measures implemented during the pandemic made it possible to help millions of people, and we will always be there for Canadians and Quebeckers.
We have a good relationship with Quebec. Even if the Bloc Québécois would like us to be at odds with Quebec, we will always be there for Canadians and Quebeckers during this pandemic.