Madam Speaker, I appreciate the reminder. I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Vaughan—Woodbridge.
It is imperative that Bill C-14 and the fall economic statement make it through the House. If members are supportive of creating better conditions in long-term care homes, then they need to support and work with us so we can provide $1 billion that will do just that.
I agree that we do need to look at profit models in long-term care homes. Like my hon. colleague who asked at question in the last round, I have family in Newfoundland. There are private long-term care homes there. My family members talk about how incredible they are as is the service that is provided.
I worry about a motion like this, with a one-size-fits-all approach. I come from Ontario where we were very hard hit with the lack of protections for our seniors. With a one-size-fits-all approach, what happens in other provinces and territories that do not have the same conditions, that have homes where the level of service is quite high?
I support looking at the idea of how we change funding models to ensure that service is at the core of what is being offered in our communities, that any federal funding or government supports is actually going to services and not just to the profits of shareholders. I think this is a fundamental approach with which we could all.
However, what I take exception to in this motion is that it feels like the NDP wants to move forward with policies written on the back of a napkin. There is no background. This motion is not based on evidence or what happens after. We have not looked at how we take the profit model and turn it into a service model or what will happen with the facilities? Would these operators just close up and leave these seniors homeless? Would they get passed on to municipalities and the public service? How would municipalities absorb that?
While I support the idea of looking at ensuring our standards are increased, I cannot get behind a motion that essentially creates a blanket approach, without looking at what would happen to our seniors. Our seniors deserve a policy that is thoughtful, one we can all understand and one that can be worked on with provinces and territories to ensure the delivery and the outcomes we want are delivered.
What we have seen from the government has been reaction and support. There has been a lot of accusations around the federal government claiming that it is not its responsibility. We have stepped up. We have provided $19 billion for the safe restart agreement, which was to help long-term care homes. In my home province of Ontario, the federal government provided funds and supports to the Government of Ontario to prepare for the second wave. These funds went unspent. These funds did not make it into the long-term care homes to protect our community members. Instead, the funds sat there.
We need standards to ensure that every Canadian across the country can access the same level of care, no matter where they live, that Canadians can hold provinces and territories accountable if they do not live up those standards and that the funding is set up to hold these service providers accountable.
In my community, we saw PPE under lock and key. That is absolutely outrageous, but the federal government was there to support these community members. We also invested in increasing wages for workers, but if provinces and territories do not move forward with legislation, then we do not see changes. This is why it is critically important.
The member for Kingston and the Islands continues to ask about consultation with provinces and territories and has yet to receive an answer. This is crucial because families deserve to know that if we are going to move forward on a policy, it can actually be enacted. If we were to pass this NDP motion without any details of how it would impact our communities and family members, if a province said it was not going to pass legislation that would change the funding model, then what would happen?
It is absolutely disingenuous to say that one wants to support seniors and increase standards in long-term care and then come forward with a motion that is nothing but optics and would do nothing to actually create the change we need to see. We need to see changes in infrastructure and national standards to ensure that every Canadian across this country gets a standard of care, and stop playing politics with seniors' lives and move forward on policies that would actually make a difference in this country.