Madam Speaker, COVID-19 has been hard on everyone, but we know it has been hardest on one group of Canadians. More than anyone else, our seniors and those who care for them have borne the brunt of this deadly global health pandemic, and seniors and staff in for-profit long-term care have been impacted most of all.
I know everyone in this House has heard the devastating statistics. We know that over 80% of deaths in Canada occurred in long-term care homes. We know that 12,000 residents and workers have died in long-term care homes since the beginning of the pandemic. We know this is the worst record among comparable countries and double the OECD average. We know Ontario's for-profit nursing homes have 78% more COVID-19 deaths than non-profit homes. We know that if long-term care facilities are owned by a chain, they are far more likely to have serious outbreaks.
In my riding of Edmonton Strathcona, at one point in November, over 90% of the residents at South Terrace Continuing Care Centre, a for-profit centre, tested positive for COVID-19. Heartbreakingly, many of those residents have lost their lives.
These facts and figures are alarming. They are shocking, but much more importantly, each number represents seniors our government has failed. Each percentage represents a loss of life and grieving families left behind, unable to say goodbye, unable to share final days.
What happened and what continues to happen in Canada's long-term care homes is a national disgrace. The thousands of seniors we lost to COVID-19 did not have to die. They are dead because the government failed to protect them. How many more thousands of seniors must die before we finally fix our long-term care system, before we finally decide to actually care for our elders, before we put the care of our loved ones and the workers who care and support them first?
Each December I deliver poinsettias to the long-term care centres in my riding to bring a little festive cheer and holiday spirit to the community. I pop in to say hello, I share a cup of coffee with some of the residents, I chat about how they are doing and how I can help and I talk to the staff and thank them for their incredible work. It is one of my favourite things to do.
Obviously, this December it had to be different, but I still wanted to do what I could to brighten the day of the residents and staff in long-term care homes in Edmonton Strathcona and let them know that while I cannot visit like I used to, I am thinking of them and am fighting for them in the House of Commons. Knowing I could not enter the residence, I put on my PPE, wore my mask, called ahead to make sure I was following every safety protocol and dropped those poinsettias and holiday cards off outside the long-term care centres.
That was a very hard day. I saw family members who were standing in the bitter cold waving at their loved ones through windows to keep their fathers, mothers, grandmothers, uncles and aunts safe. I saw those same seniors isolated, lonely and terrified. I spoke to long-term care workers who broke down in tears because they were so tired and scared. They had been through so much and they felt let down by their government. They were scared; they were tired, absolutely, but they were also mad.
One caregiver, a young woman named Claire, a woman who had worked at a for-profit care centre, explained that before the pandemic she had worked at several different long-term care centres in Edmonton just to pay her bills. While she and her co-workers were doing everything they could to help residents stay safe and healthy, she felt like the government had let her and the seniors in her care down.
This young woman on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic, who literally risked her life to take care of our seniors, spoke of the deplorable conditions in long-term care before COVID-19. She told me of cost-saving measures that resulted in the deterioration of care over the years, the understaffing, the increased workload. She told me that the need to increase profit for corporations that owned these homes meant seniors and staff who cared for them were already in a precarious and dangerous situation before the pandemic.
Increasing privatization has moved the focus from caring for our seniors to creating profits for shareholders. I have said this many times in this House, but let me reiterate it: Care and profit are two oppositional forces.
The only way to profit from providing long-term care is to cut the care itself, to cut the number of people providing the care, to cut their wages, to cut the time spent providing care and to cut money from the design and maintenance of the homes themselves.
Long-term care was not working in this country before COVID-19. Experts had warned us. Seniors advocates had told the government over and over again that the level of care was deteriorating and that the profit model in many care centres resulted in massive profits for corporations and increasingly dangerous conditions for seniors and staff.
The fact that there were no national standards of care also meant that there was a huge discrepancy in the quality of care provided, and this was all before the worst global health pandemic of our time.
COVID-19 hit our long-term care centres like a tornado. Every flaw in our system—every unheeded warning about overworked staff, about under-resourced centres, about dangerous conditions—was exposed.
We heard from the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions. They spoke of appalling conditions, overworked staff, rampant profiteering and a devastating loss of life. Further, they stated:
Canada’s long-term care is in crisis. Frontline health care workers have been sounding the alarm on conditions for years, but governments have failed to take responsibility and act....
The refusal to take responsibility for the crisis in long-term care has gone on for far too long and its true cost is measured in lives lost.
In my riding of Edmonton Strathcona, the vast majority of residents and staff at the South Terrace Long Term Care Home tested positive for COVID-19. Very many of those residents and staff got sick, and the loss of life was not just at South Terrace, but also at Carlingview Manor, Montfort long-term care home, Forest Heights Long Term Care Home, and McKenzie Towne Continuing Care Centre, just a few of the long-term care centres that had outbreaks and high levels of infection and death.
What do all of these long-term care centres have in common? All of these long-term care facilities are owned by one very large corporation, Revera. In fact, Revera owns more than 500 long-term care facilities worldwide. While it is not the only for-profit with large COVID outbreaks, it is unique because it is owned by the Canadian pension fund, and its board is appointed by cabinet.
It is because of this that I am joining my colleagues within the NDP to urge the government to immediately bring Revera under public ownership, and not just Revera. We have heard from specialists, we have heard from families, we have heard from workers, and we have heard from seniors themselves just how dangerous and deadly for-profit long-term care has been.
We need to work with provinces and territories to transition all for-profit care to non-profit care no later than 2030. We need more than just words and we need more than just a throne speech: We need long-term care that guarantees standards of care for our seniors regardless of where they live, regardless of how much money they have.
We need to ensure adequate funding for long-term care. The NDP would invest an additional $5 billion over the next four years in long-term care, with funding tied to respect for the principles of the Canada Health Act.
We need to ensure that workers who are caring for our seniors earn wages that reflect the value of their work and are honoured for the support they provide to our families and our seniors.
We need to begin. We need to finally begin to take profit out of long-term care, starting with Revera, by 2030.