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.