Throne speech priorities: Housing and child care
B.C. government says in throne speech it will increase staffing, funding details expected in Feb. 20 budget
The first full look at the NDP’s post-election agenda shows the government is bound and determined to dive into the housing and child-care issues, spending whatever it takes to tackle them.
Tuesday’s throne speech declared “making life more affordable” the first and most urgent priority. Housing progress and a splashy promise on child care were big parts of the NDP election campaign, but the government is behind their original schedule on both fronts.
Their platform last year promised immediate spending on a $400-a-year renters’ rebate. It didn’t materialize in the government’s first budget update in September and it wasn’t mentioned Tuesday. The throne speech identified housing as the single greatest challenge to affordability. It includes four pages of rhetoric that not only promises progress on all aspects of the problem, but sets the sights on a common enemy — speculators.
All the hand-wringing about how multi-faceted the housing-real estate crisis is are cleared away by the speech. Arguments about supply, demand and zoning delays are put to the background. The NDP is going to focus on real estate profiteers and curb them in a big way.
“Safe, decent housing is a right that is under threat by speculators, domestic and foreign, who seek windfall profits at the expense of people who work, live and pay taxes.”
The NDP blames speculators for distorted markets, sky-high prices and empty homes.
“Your government believes that people seeking to profit from B.C.’s real estate must also contribute to housing solutions.” Next week’s budget will include new measures to address speculation.
The position mirrors a key point in a report by municipal leaders last week, that the continual debate about supply and demand obscures the role speculation plays in making housing unaffordable.
It will likely be a popular move, because it simplifies all the complexities and distils the blame down to one easy-to-hate villain. Whether it works or not remains to be seen. The throne speech formally acknowledges for the first time that the real estate and rental markets are “out of control.”
So the main measure of success will be curbing the price spiral, or deflating the bubble. While waiting for that to happen, there will be a crackdown on real estate fraud, and a huge new investment in social and rental housing. Look for a big new residential building program at universities, where regulatory hassles will be cleared away to streamline more student residences.
A similarly large program is being assembled on child care. The campaign platform called for big spending in the current year on the “$10 a day child care” program. It didn’t materialize in the September budget update.
Although Tuesday’s speech outlined big plans to vastly enhance child care in the coming year, the “$10 a day” campaign phrase doesn’t appear in the speech, and there is a warning the “journey ahead will take time.”
Premier John Horgan said there’s more to come and “we’re not backing away from anything.”
It will start with a conversion of unlicensed spaces to licensed regulated day cares, and a “dramatic” increase in training child-care workers.
Horgan said he has spent “more time than I anticipated” defending his government’s threat to curtail diluted bitumen shipments through B.C., something that sparked a heated trade war with Alberta. But the speech downplayed the threat, relegating the oil war to four innocuous lines near the end. It’s not going away, though. With Ottawa bound to back Alberta in the looming showdown, Horgan’s government will be anxious to ensure that the federal commitments that are crucial to his housing and child-care plans don’t fade away.
B.C.’s New Democrats say they will increase the hands-on care time that seniors in residential care receive.
In its speech from the throne on Tuesday, the minority government said it will increase the time caregivers spend with seniors and train more people to meet future demands for care.
What money is behind that pledge won’t be known until the budget is delivered on Feb. 20.
An extra 20 minutes of care for a frail elderly person in residential care could mean a shower rather than a sponging, a bathroom visit rather than diapers, or even just a conversation.
The HEU has been calling on the B.C. government to provide immediate funding for a minimum three hours and 36 minutes of hands-on care per resident per day, as recommended by the province.
Jennifer Whiteside, secretary business manager for the 49,000member Hospital Employees’ Union, said the throne speech acknowledged that 85 per cent of B.C.’s care homes don’t meet minimum staffing guidelines and committed to addressing these and other health-care challenges.
“We look forward to seeing the details in next week’s provincial budget,” she said.
Island Health currently provides three hours and 32 minutes per patient per day in health authority owned and run facilities — four minutes shy of the minimum. It’s providing three hours and 13 minutes in publicly funded contracted facilities — 23 minutes shy, according to a report from B.C.’s Seniors Advocate.
While the publicly run beds are the ones closest to meeting the three hours and 36 minutes daily standard, only one third of the almost 28,000 publicly funded beds in B.C. are owned and operated by health authorities.
Whiteside argues that an extra 23 minutes — the amount Island Health is falling short — could have a significant impact.
When care aides are rushed off their feet, there’s not enough time to answer call bells, make sure residents are well hydrated, or comfort distressed residents, suffering from dementia, she said.
While Health Minister Adrian Dix says the funding is “starting to flow,” it’s nowhere near the more than $113 million annually that Darryl Plecas, the former parliamentary secretary for seniors, said is needed.
In his Residential Care Staffing Review released in March 2017, Plecas said it would cost more than $113 million a year to increase staffing to meet an average of three hours and thirty-six minutes per resident per day by health authorities in both publicly run and contracted facilities.
That was the promise made by the former Liberal government: a four-year, $500-million plan announced just before the last election.
“There was only one problem with that $500-million plan — there wasn’t $500 million,” Dix said.
Some of the money was to come from a federal program for long-term care, but that wasn’t applicable, he said, adding funding in the third and fourth years was not budgeted.
It would take 1,500 new jobs — about 900 care aides, 300 licensed practical nurses, 165 registered nurses and other health workers — to meet the daily requirement of three hours and 36 minutes, Dix said.
It’s just not a matter of finding the money, he said — the shift would require spending time and money on recruitment and training.
“It’s a very significant challenge … we’re just starting to get the job done and it’s step by step.”
Plecas conceded in his review that “even if new funding could be made available, the likelihood of increasing to [three hours and 36 minutes] per resident day within a short time frame is unlikely, given the challenges with the supply of health human resources required.”
Dix said his government is committed to bringing the care hours up to the minimum over the next few years. “[There’s] $20 million starting to flow into three hours and 36 minutes — this is continuing funding,” Dix said. “My answer is yes, we’re going to do it — that we are starting to do it.”
The pressure for funding comes on the heels of a recent report by B.C.’s seniors advocate, Isobel Mackenzie, showing 85 per cent of residential care homes in 20162017 were still failing to provide the minimum amount of care hours. That’s down from the prior year, when it was 91 per cent.
“At this pace, it will take at least another six years before 50 per cent of care homes receive enough funding to meet minimum guidelines,” said Whiteside, adding health authorities should look at all the options to increase part-time care staff to full-time and to increase training of health workers.
Whether there’s a boost in funding to get those health authority averages up to the recommended minimums will only be known after B.C. Finance Minister Carole James makes her budget speech next week.
“We’re going to work week after week, month after month to raise the care standards and meet the test,” Dix said.
Mackenzie said she believes the government is committed, but has yet to see the cash behind that promise, or the timeline.
Island Health is working hard to achieve the provincial guideline of three hours and 36 minutes of direct daily care for people living in residential care, said Tim Orr, director of residential services, in a statement.
“Our first priority is to increase staff funding at affiliated sites,” said Orr. “We expect to see small improvements in the delivery of direct care hours for people in residential facilities before the end of our fiscal year — March 31, 2018.”