Madam Speaker, I should have said that at the beginning. Yes, I will be splitting my time accordingly.
Several studies conducted throughout the pandemic have found that outbreaks at for-profit facilities have been more extensive and have led to more resident deaths. Indeed, decades of research have demonstrated that long-term care facilities run on a for-profit basis tend to have lower staffing levels, more verified complaints, more transfers of residents to hospitals and higher morbidity rates. This should come as no surprise since for-profit management practices are designed to generate returns for investors rather than provide high-quality care. These include paying the lowest wages possible and hiring part-time casual workers and those defined as self-employed in order to avoid paying benefits or providing other protections.
These workers often cannot afford to stay home when they are sick and can carry infections from facility to facility, as we learned was so deadly. For-profit models incentivize and reward cost-cutting. Indeed, we have heard countless stories of for-profit operators locking up personal protective equipment, leaving staff exposed, and rationing vital items like soil pads for incontinent seniors.
A recent review of the contracted long-term care sector in British Columbia, titled “A Billion Reasons to Care”, found that while receiving, on average, the same level of public funding, there is a pattern in the contracted long-term care sector for-profit operators paying lower wages, with care aides in for-profit facilities being paid up to 28% or $6.63 less per hour than the industry standard. Not-for-profit care homes spend $10,000, or 24% more, per year on care for each resident compared with for-profit facilities, and for-profit care homes failed to deliver 207,000 funded direct care hours per year, whereas not-for-profit care homes delivered 80,000 hours of direct care beyond what they were publicly funded to deliver.
New Democrats believe that every dollar that flows to long-term care should be spent on residents, not siphoned off for corporate profits and shareholder dividends. We know that health care is best delivered through a non-profit model, both on health and access grounds. Research clearly demonstrates a systemic pattern of lower-quality care in for-profit care homes, while there is little, if any, evidence demonstrating benefits from providing public funding to for-profit facilities.
That is why the NDP motion before the House today calls on the federal government to implement national standards for long-term care that fully removes profit from the sector. New Democrats know that this will not be accomplished overnight. However, with federal leadership, we believe it will be possible to transition all for-profit facilities in Canada to not-for-profit management by 2030.
As a first step, New Democrats are calling on the federal government to work with the provinces and territories to freeze licensing of new for-profit facilities and to ensure that measures are in place to keep all existing beds open during the transition. After decades of underfunding and cuts in Canada's long-term care sector, this strategy must be backed up by significant new federal funding tied to binding national standards of care and the principles enshrined in the Canada Health Act.
The Conference Board of Canada estimates that an additional 200,000 long-term care beds will be needed across Canada by 2035, requiring $64 billion in capital spending and $130 billion in operating spending. However, the Conference Board's cost-benefit analysis found that the benefits of these new beds would be greater than the costs, even without considering the improved health outcomes. In fact, these investments are projected to have a positive impact on the economy, contributing a net $235 billion to real GDP and supporting 120,000 jobs every year. Similarly, the demand for nurses to provide continuing care for seniors would create an increase of nearly 80,000 full-time jobs.
Simply put, our parents and grandparents built this country. They sheltered and nurtured us when we were young and vulnerable. In turn, we have a duty to take care of them as they age, but COVID-19 has revealed a bitter truth: We have abandoned this responsibility as a country. Let no one claim that we do not understand the consequences of this collective neglect. It is time to make this right. I ask every colleague in the House to join New Democrats today to start the work to do so.