O’Toole rejects national standards for LTCs

OTTAWA—Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole is rejecting the idea of imposing national standards on long-term-care homes as provinces struggle to address the industry’s crisis.

O’Toole said the “Ottawa knows best” approach is the wrong one for dealing with the crisis in long-term care, which dates back decades but has been laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I think we have to partner with the provinces,” O’Toole told the Star’s editorial board on Monday. “And so specifically in areas of provincial competency and provincial jurisdiction, you can’t have a top-down mandatory approach. That’s not collaborative federalism.”

While the regulation of long-term care falls under provincial jurisdiction, the COVID-19 crisis has once again raised questions about provincial competency.

After the pandemic drew attention to the horrific conditions some Canadian seniors were living in, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government proposed a set of national standards for longterm-care homes.

The proposal stalled after it was met with strenuous opposition from some premiers, particularly Quebec Premier François Legault.

“The federal government should not be involved in the management” of longterm-care homes, Legault’s spokesperson told the Star in December, pushing instead for more health-care funding from Ottawa.

The opposition came even after the members of the Canadian Armed Forces were deployed last year to assist in long-term-care homes in Ontario and Québec that were ravaged by COVID-19. The CAF documented “extremely troubling” conditions in Ontario homes, including cockroach infestations, forcefeeding and residents left to sit in soiled diapers.

Last week, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh announced his intention to make national standards for long-term-care homes an election issue.

“While we respect jurisdiction, there is no excuse for the federal government not to play a leadership role,” Singh said.

“There’s no way that we can’t find a way to work together with the provinces to put forward the best practices to establish

“There are different approaches to long-term care, to home care and front-line health care in each province, so Ottawa needs to allow the provinces to set their priorities.”

ERIN O’TOOLE

FEDERAL CONSERVATIVE LEADER

how we can care for seniors.”

O’Toole was repeatedly pressed on the long-term-care issue Monday, but said he would push for a more “collaborative” approach with the provinces instead of imposing standards.

“There are different approaches to long-term care, to home care and frontline health care in each province, so Ottawa needs to allow the provinces to set their priorities, and be a better and faster funding partner,” O’Toole said.

“If we can (share) best practices, and collaborative federalism, that has to be the goal as opposed to an ‘Ottawa knows best’ approach to a diverse set of challenges across the country.”

Asked about the appropriateness of for-profit long-term-care companies issuing dividends to shareholders and giving bonuses as seniors suffered, O’Toole said “it really didn’t matter if there was public versus private ownership” of homes in terms of outbreaks in the pandemic’s first wave.