Human Resources committee  I'm going to proceed until I'm told we don't have time. I just want to remind people again of Pat Armstrong's words, “The conditions of work are the conditions of care.” As a reminder, compared to the OECD average over the last couple of years, Canadians had fewer care workers p

Human Resources committee  Yes, it was devastating. It was not uncommon to hear of women in shelters or finding other places, such as living with other family members. The minimum wage in home care right now is $16.50 an hour. That's barely over the minimum wage in the province of Ontario. Of course, we a

Human Resources committee  Absolutely. Some of these women, especially in the last week, have [Technical difficulty—Editor] by the dozen, saying they can't do it anymore. What's sad about that is that the home care services they provide [Technical difficulty—Editor] at home. It's a financially responsible

Human Resources committee  Good morning, everybody. I apologize. Two years in....

Human Resources committee  Thank you so much. Members of the committee, my name is Sharleen Stewart. Thank you for hearing from me today. The Service Employees International Union, SEIU, represents two million members across the United States, Puerto Rico and Canada. I proudly serve as international vice

Government Operations committee  Certainly. Thank you for that, Mr. Green. It is really emotional. I have had too many conversations with families, calling them and asking what the union can do for them, and hearing their stories about their mothers and sisters passing away. These were women who passed away. It

Government Operations committee  It's been varying between sectors. Long-term care obviously was the first to get it, and then hospitals are now getting their first vaccination. Today we had a good announcement that they're going to move them up to priority for the second one, so that they're fully vaccinated, b

Government Operations committee  First I want to thank, like I said, many of you with whom I had conversations, and I want to acknowledge that they were very collaborative conversations. We definitely did talk. May seems so long ago when we all look back at what we were identifying. Some of the conversations w

Government Operations committee  We had conversations with some of the federal employees, not so much the MPs, about how we start to collect that—

Government Operations committee  We have had them with staff from the government.

Government Operations committee  Again, the announcements are a start, but there is a lot of work to do. There's going to be a need to put a lot of dollars into stabilizing the sector. Again, you saw some improvements in Ontario where they legislated higher levels of care staff or hands-on care for hours, but th

Government Operations committee  It's now putting it into action, like transferring it into the provinces and having them be accountable to make sure the money goes where it's directed.

Government Operations committee  Yes, we did, just as recently as this week. There still remains some concern over N95 accessibility. The unions are trying to get the government to agree to making it mandatory that all frontline workers have access to and use the N95. In some of the long-term care facilities,

Government Operations committee  Thank you very much. I want to start off by wishing every nurse in our country a happy National Nursing Week—registered practical nurses, RNs, all of them. They really carried us through a pretty traumatic year. Members of the committee, my name is Sharleen Stewart. Thank you f

Government Operations committee  Absolutely, and as I said in my opening statement, we have to be ready for the next wave and to make sure that there's proper personal protective equipment in these homes. We must have infection control measures. When we try to talk to these corporations, they're not talking to u