Health committee  I'm not sure who you are addressing your question to, but you said “nurse”, so I'll jump in. Welcome to this committee. You'll see it's the best committee on the Hill. It's very productive. The federal government did it before, and we have to remind ourselves of that. The last crisis in health human resources was in 1997.

Health committee  Well, Mr. Davies, you've been on this committee for a long time. You know that all of us have been promoting and delivering care in a different way. We started back in the 1990s with more community health centres to provide better primary care, and we're still, in 2022, asking for better primary care.

Health committee  That's just as old as me, because I've been around as long as Paul-Émile Cloutier.

Health committee  Well, in your beautiful province, Doctor, it's 1,300. That is a very clear number. It's easy to go from facility to facility and count the vacant positions. In the province of Ontario, there are over 20,000 vacant positions. Again, it's a very large number. We're not even trying to reach the OECD average.

Health committee  The numbers are very similar to what Dr. Smart said. We're talking about a 50% increase, but there's a difference. There's a difference between feeling burnt out, as in just wanting to hide underneath a desk or in a corner, and the over 30% who need clinical mental help. That's where we're seeing a big lack, because there's a lack of services everywhere.

Health committee  Good afternoon, Dr. Ellis. Hello from another Maritimer. No, we don't know. Dr. Smart was very clear that this is one of our asks, that the federal government take the lead on getting the proper data. Where we know there's been an increase is in the personal care worker workforce.

Health committee  Good afternoon, everyone. I'm calling from Ottawa, the beautiful land of the Algonquin and Anishinabe people. Mr. Chair and committee members, thank you for inviting me to present to this committee on behalf of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions. As stated, my name is Linda Silas.

Health committee  It's Linda here. May I interrupt? We're not asking permissions here. We're asking our employers to respect our professional judgment when we're in front of the patient.

Health committee  Justice Campbell was clear: We had never put occupational health and safety, the safety of workers, in our health care system. And we didn't. I was educated as a nurse. For a lot of doctors, it was always, “Put patients first.” Today, since SARS, we've been faced with the reality that we have to put workers on an equal footing.

Health committee  Sick, sick, sick. It goes against all our training in disease prevention. Any training that we ever got is that you have to derobe after you leave the patient. You have to throw away anything from one patient to the other. And of course, as soon as it is soiled, never mind grossly soiled, you have to discard it.

Health committee  Politicians do, but not the scientists, and then hearing Dr. Drummond, I'm shaking my head. When you do not know for certain how the virus is transmitted, that is when you up your personal protection equipment. It is not when you bring it down. That is where the frustration lies.

Health committee  No, nor did they in 2007-08 with H1N1 or Ebola. The precautionary principle was engraved by Justice Campbell with the SARS commission report. We worked with the Public Health Agency of Canada. CMA was there. The ER doctors were there also during H1N1 and Ebola, and again today.

Health committee  Yes, and we're denouncing their guidance.

Health committee  We wrote to Dr. Tam on January 24 reminding the Public Health Agency of their legal requirement under occupational health and safety. We asked them to be involved in the guidance document, as in the past with Ebola and H1N1. On February 25, we met with the Minister of Health, because we hadn't had any response from PHAC.

Health committee  Thank you very much. I'd like to thank the members of this committee for coming together to tackle what represents our generation's biggest challenge. I have the honour of being invited here as president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions, but I'm also here to give a voice to the close to one million health care workers across Canada.