Provincial governments need to show courage and co-operation as the solution to better health care actually lies in interprovincial cooperation and a focus on health, not just money.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on August 15, 2022.

OTTAWA—Is health care burning in Canada?

Professionals leaving in droves think so, and so do provincial premiers seeking a major cash infusion from the federal government.

The issue is front and centre in Ontario after the Doug Ford government promised to review all options in tackling health-care problems.

Privatization is on the table, along with all other “innovations and opportunities,” according to Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones.

Jones was in the hot seat after the Progressive Conservative government announced that it was looking at all options in an effort to fix the system.

Jones revealed that she has been in talks with hospital corporations across the province in an effort to solve the problem.

But that statement alone is a glaring example of how the system will not be fixed.

As long as the health-care system is strictly based on improving hospital care, it will not tackle the issue of wellness.

And the incorporation of multiple hospitals’ systems is actually part of the problem.

At the moment, Ontario has 141 public hospital corporations spread across 217 sites.

According to a 2021 report from the Economic Research Institute, the average salary of hospital CEOs in Ontario was $600,000.

That figure was up to six times higher than the average CEO salary in most not-for-profit industries and compares very well to a prime ministerial salary of $357,800.

In comparison, the average salary of a long-term care facility CEO was $106,000.

The problem is not just a money issue. It is an organizational issue.

In the world of informatics, every hospital corporation has its own authority to develop information collection with absolutely no requirement for interoperability.

For example, in the city of Ottawa, patients are saddled with two different applications depending upon which hospital they may have been treated at.

Neither hospital applications will cross-pollinate, leaving patients to log into two separate and complicated websites for follow-ups on test results or appointment information.

We have known for years that thousands of hospital beds are occupied by chronic-care patients who should be in retirement homes, but the shortage of those beds is so acute that the hospital has become a substitute chronic care facility.

Hospital corporations also do their own buying. The economies of scale that should apply in a public system do not exist.

Some hospitals form regional groups in order to benefit from more attractive purchasing power. That is another cost that could be reduced if there was an integrated informatics and buying system for the whole province.

More attention should be focused on community care supports to keep people out of hospital. That is not going to happen when the main leaders in the debate are hospital corporation presidents.

The second issue that needs to be tackled is the lack of portability in the Canadian health-care system.

Each province guards its authority aggressively, hence there is very little sharing of health information cross-provincially that could assist in tackling root issues of illnesses in Canada.

Provinces claim it is all about the Constitution, but they do not hesitate to blame the health-care problems on federal underfunding.

During the height of COVID, we saw what could happen when provinces work together with the federal government.

We had bulk-buying of vaccines and ancillary COVID-fighting equipment. That move alone kept the costs of vaccines, tests etc. down to a reasonable number.

Why not apply that same purchasing power to regular medical challenges?

Surely, innovation should involve all these hospital corporations banding together to cut costs and apply some of those savings to hospital worker salaries.

Worker retention should be a top issue, and that goes far deeper than simply in hospitals.

That is a solution that needs to include community health-care workers and those whom we have cited with great pride as the front-line crisis workers in retirement and long-term care facilities.

If the “innovation” discussion is strictly limited to the hospital care sector, we will fail once again to tackle the root of the problem.

And if each province is simply patching its own system without considering the value of informatic interoperability between jurisdictions, we will continue to offer 19th century solutions to 21st century problems.

In the new world of cyberspace, every single Canadian could have access to their own health care record from cradle to grave.

Provincial governments need to show courage and co-operation as the solution to better health care actually lies in interprovincial cooperation and a focus on health, not just money.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

Armed with today’s knowledge and technology, it only makes sense to issue an international vaccine for anyone who plans to travel.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on July 26, 2021.

When does personal freedom blind us to professional responsibility?

When the health-care system permits unvaccinated workers in facilities housing vulnerable people.

It is the state’s job, first and foremost, to protect those who are under its care in public hospitals or long-term communal living arrangements.

The Quebec government understands that. Last April, it became the first jurisdiction in Canada to require health-care workers to either vaccinate or provide thrice-weekly COVID tests to their employers.

Alberta, on the other hand, is clinging to the notion that a vaccination requirement is a violation of civil liberties. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney is even considering amending a 100-year-old Alberta law that gives the government the right to mandate vaccines in certain circumstances.

Why would any government assume it is okay to allow employees who have not been vaccinated to come to work?

Ontario Premier Doug Ford told reporters last week that he thinks it is a constitutional right that, “no one should be forced to do anything.” With that perspective, we should all stop paying taxes.

Someone should ask the premier what happened to the constitutional rights of the frail and elderly in long-term care facilities who depend on us to protect them. Many other countries have already decided it is not a personal freedom issue but a health responsibility for those who work in facilities that look after the vulnerable and hospitalized.

Several European countries have already mandated vaccinations for all health-care employees. France, a country which has some of the strongest worker protection laws in the world, has imposed a deadline of Sept. 15 for health-care workers to be vaccinated or lose their jobs.

Throughout the pandemic, politicians have repeatedly stated that it is their job to listen to the science.

The Canadian Medical Association Journal has been calling on provincial governments to make sure they bring in vaccination rules that cover all facilities, not just those in the public sector. The CMAJ also believes that mandatory vaccinations in those facilities would pass a Charter challenge even though a previous call for mandatory flu vaccines was disallowed.

In this case, the disease transmission and death rate from failing to vaccinate is much higher than for a flu vaccine, and there are already a number of vaccination requirements mandated for hospital employment that have passed Charter scrutiny.

Health-care associations in Canada have been calling on premiers to act quickly and save lives.

Voiceless patients in long-term care facilities, many of whom died during this pandemic, have every right to be fully protected.

On-site testing is not enough.

What is even more egregious is that the cost of refusing the vaccination is not even being borne by the anti-vaxer, but by the rest of us.

In many instances, health-care professionals are required to have tests to prove they are COVID-free. In New Brunswick, unvaccinated workers in long-term care facilities must be tested every second day. If the test is molecular, the cost is approximately $200 each, so in the course of a single week, $800 could be spent to guarantee the employment rights of anti-vaxxers.

A simpler solution would be to make the vaccine mandatory and deliver it quickly.

British Columbia’s chief medical officer of health stated last month that mandatory vaccination was one of the options being considered in their long-term care facilities.

According to the Ontario Medical Association and the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario, mandatory vaccines in the health care system could help prevent a third wave of infection caused by the delta variant of the Coronavirus.

On the science side, the verdict is unanimous: a health care vaccination program would have a significant impact in reducing the possibility or severity of a third wave of variant Covid infection.

There is zero reason for politicians to play the civil liberty card on this one.

I still carry a federal vaccination card that was co-issued by Health Canada and the World Health Organization as a requirement to comply with international health regulations when entering various countries. The vaccines were administered and signed off by Health Canada and you could not enter certain countries without this vaccination certificate.

In those days, we were not dealing with a virus that morphed into a pandemic.

Armed with today’s knowledge and technology, it only makes sense to issue an international vaccine for anyone who plans to travel.

And it is about time the Canadian government and the provinces got their act together and realized that saving lives trumps vaccine liberty.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

According to the study by the Canadian Institute for Health Information, 69 per cent of Canada’s COVID-related deaths occurred in long-term care. That represents one of the highest mortality rates in the world. The international average was 41 per cent.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on April 5, 2021.

Shame on Canada.

When it comes to quality of life, we rank very well in the world on many fronts. But the treatment of incapacitated seniors has always been our dirty little secret.

COVID-19 has exposed the real story behind many of our long-term care facilities.

Last week’s report on Canada’s global status in residential care mortality rates is a must-read for anyone interested in improving lives for vulnerable elderly.

According to the study by the Canadian Institute for Health Information, 69 per cent of Canada’s COVID-related deaths occurred in long-term care. That represents one of the highest mortality rates in the world. The international average was 41 per cent.

The CIHI also underscored the COVID cost to those seniors dying from other causes.

Because of the focus on COVID, during the first few months of the pandemic, doctors’ visits and hospital transfers for other reasons also dropped dramatically.

The shameful conclusion: Canada suffered the worst record for COVID-19 deaths in long-term care homes compared with other wealthy countries.

The CIHI also reviewed the general trend of resident deaths, which was exacerbated during the pandemic.

Mortality rates ranged from a high of 28 per cent in Ontario to a low of four per cent in British Columbia. According to the report there were 2,273 more deaths during COVID than the number of deaths during the same period over the previous five years. Not surprisingly, the largest hike came during the peak of the first wave in April of 2020.

There are currently multiple inquiries going on across several provinces to get to the bottom of the issue. But clearly this story needs a pan-Canadian perspective to offer the insight that will inform future decisions.

According to the report, more than one-third of all Ontario long-term care homes and 44 per cent of homes in Quebec suffered an outbreak, compared to only eight per cent in British Columbia and 17 per cent in Alberta.

But as health-care delivery is provincial, each province is doing their own autopsy without reviewing the situation from a national perspective.

Most federal reports will get widespread attention for a few days and then get filed under the “federal interference in provincial jurisdiction” subject matter.

Provinces are generally more interested in protecting their autonomy than in actually protecting their vulnerable, elderly populations.

If British Columbia managed to keep its COVID outbreaks to single digits, it has something to teach the rest of the country. But because of our bifurcated system, the lessons will likely stop at the Rockies.

Instead, we will end up with 13 studies of how to improve an internalized process.

Some solutions are simple. Obviously, an injection of money into chronic care support will be required, especially to increase the salaries of those frontline workers who were struggling to make ends meet.

The issue of part-time employment is definitely one that needs to be tackled. It is not surprising that personal service workers are forced to take more than one job when their salary is limited to part-time work as a way of avoiding payment of benefits and labour law protection for full-time workers.

In British Columbia, a strong union has been able to negotiate better working conditions. The province had a prohibition on health-care workers operating in more than one home, and that single rule minimized the spread of COVID from one institution to the next.

According to federal New Democrats, the only solution is to close down all private facilities and replace them with public sector solutions. However, there were a number of poorly run public sector facilities that suffered deaths.

The issue involves developing a set of applicable standards, with the funding to support it, that can be implemented across the country.

Instead of solving 13 problems, the country would be finding a unified solution.

Surely the challenges in long-term care management cannot be that different from Newfoundland to British Columbia. So why not tackle the problem from a pan-Canadian perspective?

The CIHI report should serve as a wake-up call that the time has come to look beyond politics and focus on what is best for those most vulnerable seniors who end up in long-term care facilities.

Most of them have lost the ability to fight for themselves, and so it is up to the rest of the country to fight for them.

Long-term care facilities have been deteriorating for years.

We need a concerted national effort to clean up Canada’s sorry treatment of our aged.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

In a minority situation, an election can happen at any time if parties clash on spending priorities. But these are not ordinary times. In the middle of a pandemic, even getting to the polls is complicated.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on September 28, 2020.

OTTAWA—The election cat and mouse games begin.

In a minority situation, an election can happen at any time if parties clash on spending priorities.

But these are not ordinary times. In the middle of a pandemic, even getting to the polls is complicated.

The British Columbia government just called an Oct. 24 election. Hours after the call, it was revealed that voting results could take weeks to tabulate.

Because of the second wave of the pandemic, many people are limiting their movement amongst larger crowds.

Within hours of the election call, 20,000 requests for mail-in ballots had been sent to Elections BC.

According to officials, they expect a mail-in participation of up to 40 per cent, which means 800,000 ballots, compared to only 6,500 people in the 2017 campaign.

Election law says that absentee ballots cannot be tallied until the final results of the polls are counted, and that could be up to 13 days after the vote.

Given Canada Post’s COVID-based backlog as more people shop via the internet, the arrival of that many ballots could clog up the system for up to three weeks.

British Columbia Premier John Horgan called the snap election a year sooner than the end of his mandate, but his announcement came as no surprise. He and his team have been busy rolling out pre-election promises for weeks.

The early call is a gamble for Horgan, but he is also banking on the pandemic bounce that has been felt by leaders across the country.

New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs recently launched a similar quick COVID call two years into his minority mandate and was rewarded with a comfortable majority.

Popularity numbers for Ontario Premier Doug Ford and François Legault have also risen during the pandemic.

Even though both provinces are plagued by high levels of contagion and an increasing concern with the arrival of the second wave, the electorate has been happy with their work.

Voters are also witnessing unprecedented federal-provincial harmony which provides a peaceful backdrop in a world pandemic that could easily morph into panic.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is not oblivious to the crisis bump.

When the Corona virus impact appeared to be waning, the summer was replete with scandal stories like the one that caused WE Canada to shutter its operations.

But with the return of kids to classrooms, and more people back at the workplace and larger social gatherings, the predicted second wave is upon us.

The prime minister’s televised national address was designed to promote calm but also encourage Canadians to stay the course with limited social contacts and self-distancing.

He has also set out a plan designed to put the Liberals on a collision course with all opposition parties.

On the left, New Democratic Party Leader Jagmeet Singh is doing his best to put his party’s stamp on promised items like national pharmacare and childcare.

But the Liberals are crowding their space with the intention of securing support from voters who might swing between both parties.

On the right, Erin O’Toole is going to have to refrain from coming away from the Throne Speech as Mr. No. His focus on the deficit and spending may sit well on Bay Street but it does not comfort Main Street Canadians who are losing jobs, homes and life savings because of the financial havoc wreaked by the pandemic.

Then there is the Bloc Québécois. Trudeau’s promise to introduce national standards for long-term care facilities, a direct result of the deaths of thousands of innocent seniors, has raised the hackles of the premier and the nationalists in the province.

They claim that Ottawa should merely increase health budgets and that will solve all the problems.

However, the image of the premier calling in Canadian soldiers to clean up the mess in multiple facilities was not lost on the ordinary Quebecer.

Long-term care is solely the provincial jurisdiction, but it is obvious that the basic rule of protecting the health of citizens and workers was sadly ignored in multiple institutions in more than one province.

Canadians are wise enough to know that it makes sense to work on a national plan in a pandemic that has already killed almost 10,000 people. There is a public interest argument that trumps federal-provincial fights.

Trudeau is itching to test his vision in a federal election, but he risks a backlash if the Liberals are seen to provoke it.

However, Liberals would be happy if an opposition party pulls the plug,

Meanwhile the political war games are on.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

The time has come to move as a herd.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on June 1, 2020.

OTTAWA—Surgical sterility is great for an operating room. But it does not work in the real world.

The notion that after almost three months in lockdown people are expected to either stay home or go to places where they are not allowed to sit down for fear of transmitting COVID is unworkable.

In Calgary, people gather in bars and restaurants in a convivial atmosphere. In Ottawa, you cannot even sit down on picnic tables at the Dairy Queen for fear of an infection outbreak.

In the olden days, Hogtown had another nickname, Toronto the Good. It was based on laws with a distinctively Presbyterian flavour that restricted drinking, dancing, and all things purportedly sinful.

The new normal has unleashed a wave of righteous caterwauling the likes of which we have not witnessed since the seventies (of the last century).

The blowback on the Trinity-Bellwoods park exuberance, was a case in point.

Everyone from the premier to the mayor jumped on the finger-pointing bandwagon, instead of realistically assessing why there was only a postage-stamp park in an area of multiple, low-income high-rise dwellings.

Not everyone has a private backyard to COVID in. In Toronto, the possibility of having your own personal space is even more remote.

So, on a sunny Saturday in May, when the province had announced the loosening of rules to stage two, people came out in droves.

On the fish-eye lens shots that immediately circulated on social media, it looked as though thousands were elbow to elbow.

But when the television cameras arrived, it was clear that people were trying their best to ensure social distancing.

But the armchair critics jumped in to attack millennials, claiming their irresponsibility was putting lives at risk.

At one point, a COVID-commentating doctor was almost in tears on television because he could not understand why people would be undermining the contribution of health-care workers in this thoughtless romp in the park.

Across the pond, critics are vicious in their attack British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s top aid for defying lockdown rules and driving to his mother’s home to drop off his four-year-old with grandma. He claims he and his wife were sick, and therefore the trip was about necessary childcare while they convalesced.

Without drilling down into the details of his explanation, the revelation rocked the country. People are stuck at home and obviously hurting when the rules that apply to them do not apply to others.

But the COVID epidemic has also unleashed the vitriol of unhappy people who normally keep their acidic worldview to themselves.

In today’s world, the COVID police are everywhere, ready to pounce on someone who veers too close on a walking path or accidentally steps in the wrong spot in a grocery store.

The old nosy parker, who was into everybody’s else’s business, is now doing it with impunity, as though their observations on everyone else are in the public interest.

In the condo in which I live, some dwellers have taken to counting the empty visitor parking spots every weekend to make sure that no interlopers are sneaking into the premises.

Last weekend, I hosted two family members for a dinner. It was within the rule of five, and we had covided in their backyard (with self-distancing) several times over the past few months.

To enter the apartment without neighbourly reporting, we made sure family entered through the underground parking, so as not to be outed by anyone looking out their window into visitors’ parking.

I have a friend who is struggling alone to support her husband, suffering with brain cancer. We have a weekly COVID meeting in the passageway between our apartments.

Last Friday, she broke down in tears, describing the loneliness of watching her partner slowly slip away, without the support that would normally attend a dying family member.

Horror of horrors, I hugged her. She needed a human connection and two meters of space just did not cut it.

Perfection may occur in hospital settings, but I think the public’s attention would be far better focused on eliminating risk in long-term care facilities.

With the high ratio of deaths in vulnerable populations, it is shameful that we need the military to expose germ-infested, understaffed conditions in health facilities.

But while we focus on not touching each other, the death rate numbers are largely driven by long-term care neglect.

Canadians have been very supportive of the new normal. But enough is enough. The time has come to move as a herd.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

The problem is the absolute patchwork of oversight when it comes to long-term care facilities. That problem should be solved with a national strategy. One of the after-effects of the pandemic will be a genuine interest in working collectively to upgrade the level of seniors’ care across the country.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on May 25, 2020.

OTTAWA—The latest post-mortem theory on Canada’s COVID deaths is that beefing up hospital resources fuelled the death rate in nursing homes.

That appeared to be the dubious conclusion in a front-page story last week in The Globe and Mail.

An elderly patient was transferred from an Oshawa hospital into a long-term care home, where she died three weeks later.

The inference in the article is that the transfer caused her death.

But the context reflected a superficial, and misguided critique, of the current triage system in Canadian hospitals.

For the past 40 years, critics have been pointing out that up to one-third of acute care hospital beds are being taken up by long-term patients who would be better served in a retirement facility setting.

The COVID crisis prompted a long-overdue transfer of patients from hospitals to nursing homes to free up acute care beds to treat patients in acute, current distress.

It appears more likely the reason this unfortunate death happened was entirely because the long-term care home to which she was transferred to was a COVID-19 hotbed, with 77 deaths.

But the journalists fail to ask the key question. Why do some retirement homes have zero infections while others are rampant?

The issue is not patients’ transfer, but rather the level of hygiene and best practices in nursing homes.

In a good home, infection isolation strategies were in place long before the pandemic struck. In a retirement home, if a flu bug is not properly managed by isolation and hygiene practices, it can and will spread like wildfire.

Proper medical practices, employed by medical staff and personal care workers, prevent the virus affecting a patient in one room from spreading to the rest of the facility.

Appropriate lockdown strategies, early in the game, while difficult for families, have also kept the virus out of some facilities.

So, the problem is not caused by moving chronic patients out of acute care hospitals. The problem is caused by lack of oversight of the chronic-care facilities that house our seniors.

The Globe report said that most patients have a preferred list of long-term care homes. Families aren’t stupid and when it comes to checking the quality of care in a retirement facility, you only have to look at the waiting list.

The longer the wait-list, the better the care.

The best long-term care facilities have not been hotbeds of infection.

The Globe goes on to reveal another shocking headline that “nobody is tracking deaths inside seniors’ facilities at a national level.”

That should surprise no one because health data is collected and managed by provincial governments.

Each province tracks its seniors’ facilities deaths.

But the real questions were not asked by the reporters.

Why are there some facilities with vulnerable patients who have managed to completely avoid COVID-19 infections while others are hotbeds?

What is the infection correlation between publicly run facilities versus privately provided care homes?

What impact did the reduction in inspections of Ontario nursing homes have on the infection rates?

What is the influence of differing labour laws in different jurisdictions?

British Columbia moved immediately to restrict health-care workers from working in more than one facility. Quebec waited until mid-cycle to do the same thing.

What is the correlation between salary scales in individual facilities and infection rates? Some of the largest companies in the private elder care business had zero national strategy to secure sufficient personal protective equipment for their patients and employees.

They left the decisions on equipping homes and health-care staff up to each retirement facility. Some obviously did not do a very good job.

Contrary to The Globe claim, the move of chronic care patients out of hospital is actually key to saving and supporting health care.

The problem is the absolute patchwork of oversight when it comes to long-term care facilities.

That problem should be solved with a national strategy. One of the after-effects of the pandemic will be a genuine interest in working collectively to upgrade the level of seniors’ care across the country.

Let’s not just throw money at the problem. We need to ensure proper accreditation and real consequences when homes fail to meet the basic statutory requirements. When was the last time a home was shut down because of improper eldercare, bedsores, and infection spread, all signs of a poorly managed facility?

Let’s tackle the real problem. We need an end to the patchwork of oversight currently governing Canadian nursing homes.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

The debate about that strategy could well decide the next election.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on May 18, 2020.

OTTAWA—The prime minister’s admission that we are not doing well by our most vulnerable seniors should come as no surprise.

In reality, we live in a culture obsessed with the fountain of youth.

Media messaging is mostly about how to look young, stay young, be young.

Face creams and rejuvenating emollients do not target older women, they seek to influence the buying power of 20-year-olds.

The spike in plastic surgery and Botox enhancement procedures amongst young people is a direct result of the value we place on the superficiality of looking young.

Trendsetters include the Kardashians whose only claim to fame appears to be what they can wear and who they can sell it to.

Just try getting a job when you reach middle age. At the ripe old age of 50, it is not uncommon to lose your job, whether on a shrinking assembly line or because of a business failure or sale.

It matters little that you might have multiple years of experience in your field. Experience is generally not considered an asset. Employers want younger people whose wage rates are lower.

The survival of many companies actually depends on hiring less experienced people at reduced wage rates.

Just look at the pay differentials between an employee of Air Canada and Tango.

When I left politics at the ripe old age of 52, I was headhunted by a number of potential employers but in the final analysis my advanced age was a factor in their decision to go elsewhere.

Ageism is not only alive and well in the workforce, it is particularly prevalent in politics.

This is the only area where the more experience you get, the more people want to get rid of you.

When Justin Trudeau was elected in the sweep of 2015, the majority of his caucus and cabinet were under the age of 45. There were a few experienced ministers, like Lawrence MacAulay, Ralph Goodale, and Carolyn Bennett. But the general feeling amongst most Liberals was that the Prime Minister’s Office preferred to work with those who had little political experience, but met the age demographic.

After all, having an attractive young minister in front of the camera looks good for the party and the caucus.

The second term has brought more wisdom to the job, with ministers who are older and wiser by all accounts.

Some have learned on the job and other newer, but senior faces have been appointed in the last cabinet shuffle by a more wizened prime minister facing a minority government.

There is a nation-wide consensus about the problem. Something needs to be done to secure safe living accommodations for vulnerable people in long-term care. But consensus on the solution will be much harder to reach.

The Bloc Québécois has made it very clear, that it wants cash with no conditions.

The prime minister promises to respect the Constitution, which clearly designates the provinces as responsible for delivery of care but determines it is a shared responsibility.

Of all the provinces, COVID containment in long-term care facilities in Quebec has been the least successful. The number of deaths there is almost equal to all deaths in the rest of the country.

According to an article in The Globe and Mail, as of May 7, 2,114 of the 2,631 Quebecers who died of COVID-19 lived in an elder-care facility. That’s nearly twice as many as in Ontario, where 1,111 long-term care residents died. In addition, Quebec’s health-care system is missing 11,600 workers who are either sick, quarantined, or unwilling to show up.

So, the notion being floated by the Bloc Québécois that Ottawa should hand over money with no strings attached is a non-starter.

Almost 40 years ago, the Canada Health Act solidified the role of the federal government in establishing standards for institutional hospitalization.

That move is a model that could be considered in any attempt to reform the patchwork of care standards currently in place across the country.

The New Democratic Party proposition to shut down all private nursing homes is completely unworkable.

There are thousands of Canadians living in non-contaminated circumstances in homes across the country and the Canadian government cannot afford to nationalize their living quarters.

The fact that NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is promoting nationalization is proof that his party’s last-place status is not about to change any time soon.

We need a national strategy to restore confidence in long-term care.

The debate about that strategy could well decide the next election.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.