To build a better future for seniors and ensure tragedies like this never happen again, we need to make sure the conditions of work reflect the care standards our seniors deserve. That’s why we will work with provinces and territories, respecting their jurisdiction, to support seniors with an investment of $9 billion over 5 years to support safer conditions for seniors and improved wages and working conditions for personal support workers.

— Forward. For Everyone., retrieved 2021-09-02

Improve the quality and availability of long-term care homes and beds.

Implement strict infection prevention and control measures, including through more provincial and territorial facility inspections for long-term care homes.

Develop a Safe Long-Term Care Act collaboratively to ensure that seniors are guaranteed the care they deserve, no matter where they live.

— Forward. For Everyone., retrieved 2021-09-02

Raise wages for personal support workers, including a guaranteed minimum wage of at least $25 per hour.

Train up to 50,000 new personal support workers.

— Forward. For Everyone., retrieved 2021-09-02

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New Democrats believe that families need access to quality home care and long-term care no matter where they live. To that end, we will end private, for-profit long-term care and bring long-term care homes under the public umbrella, beginning with the federally-owned long term care company Revera.

We will work collaboratively with patients, caregivers, and provincial and territorial governments to develop national care standards for home care and long-term care, regulated by the same principles as the Canada Health Act. By doing so, a New Democrat government would legally protect access to home care and long-term care services, and ensure a consistent quality of care across the country.

This process will be backed by funding tied to meeting these standards, and include determining a core basket of home care services that will be available and covered by provincial insurance plans, and setting minimum national care standards for long- term care residents. We will also work with the provinces to develop and support workforce strategies and violence prevention to recruit and protect front-line staff, and ensure a safe working environment for personal support and health care workers.

Better long-term care starts with making sure that the workers providing this care have better wages, stable jobs and health and safety protections. Paying and protecting long term workers will be an essential part of our approach to national standards.

— Ready for Better, retrieved 2021-08-27

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1. Bring Long-Term Care under the Canada Health Act

● Universal care will ensure that every person in long-term care in Canada has access to quality, affordable care.

2. Improve the quality of care in Long-Term Care facilities

● Create enforceable National Standards for LTC.

● Provide transformative investment for Seniors’ Care including infrastructure and staffing funding.

● Require Emergency and Pandemic Preparedness for LTC, including providing proper and adequate supplies of personal protective equipment and testing for COVID-19 for staff, family caregivers, and residents.

● Set a national standard of four hours of regulated care per day for each LTC resident.

● Enforce National Standards of Care through accountability and penalties, including criminal prosecution.

● Ensure safe family access to LTC facilities.

● Provide all needed vaccinations to all residents, staff and caregivers for LTC (not only COVID-19, but also influenza, pneumonia, diphtheria, whooping cough, etc.).

3. Improve the quality of life of workers in LTC

● Increase and stabilise staffing in LTC homes and improve training, fair pay for workers, benefits, and paid sick leave.

● Invest in training and education to support ongoing professional development and specialization for LTC workers.

● Prioritize senior care and long-term care skills for immigration status.

4. Invest in home and community care

● Provide a dedicated Seniors’ Care Transfer to provinces and territories for specific improvements to home, community and LTC separate from the federal health transfers.

● Shift LTC policy towards aging in place by having the Seniors’ Care Transfer include transformative investment in home and community care (such as naturally occurring retirement communities, co-housing models, and enhanced home support programs).

● Increase the proportion of LTC investment in community and home-based care from 13% to 35% in order to match the OECD average.

● End for-profit LTC facilities and reorient LTC towards community-based models.

● Make the Caregiver Tax Credit a refundable tax credit so that family caregivers have more flexibility (from its current earned tax credit status).

● Change the Home Renovation Tax Credit from $10,000 per household to $10,000 per person for more people to age in place.

— Be Daring., retrieved 2021-09-11

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