Is Doug Ford finally getting serious about long-term care?

What can be done to fix the mess that is Canada’s longterm-care system?

Clearly, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau won’t take the lead. As he told reporters this week, he views nursing homes as a provincial responsibility. And while his government seems prepared to give provinces more money to help finance long-term care, it is not willing to attach conditions as to how these extra funds would be spent.

So when federal Health Minister Patty Hadju says, as she did last week, that “our government is very open to reviewing how long-term care is delivered in the country,” don’t assume that Ottawa is preparing to ride to the rescue of ailing seniors.

The federal government will provide resources. It will even send more soldiers if the provinces want them.

But otherwise, take Trudeau at his word: When it comes to long-term care, Ottawa intends to remain very much the junior partner.

In part, this is simply good politics.

In some provinces, notably Ontario and Quebec, long-term care is a disaster. Why would the Liberal federal government want to take responsibility for fixing problems it didn’t create?

As well, any federal government that tried to muscle its way into areas of provincial responsibility would risk alienating Quebec’s so-called soft nationalists.

The Trudeau Liberals need these voters if they are to win enough seats from the separatist Bloc Québécois in the next election to form a majority government.

Bloc leader Yves-Francois

Blanchet has made it clear that his party will vigorously oppose any attempt by Ottawa to levy conditions on new money going to Quebec.

In short, don’t expect Trudeau to try solving the nursing home problem. The politics are not right for such a move.

That leaves the provincial premiers, which in Ontario’s case is Doug Ford.

Ford is an unlikely champion of long-term care reform. One of his government’s first acts was to announce spending cuts in this area.

As well, his response to the report of a public inquiry into the murder of long-term care residents has been minimalist.

That 2019 report reaffirmed what had been already known: Nursing homes are short of money and inadequately staffed. Residents are expected to die.

Indeed, there is so little attention paid to the death of longterm care residents that serial killer Elizabeth Wettlaufer, a nurse, was able to murder unnoticed for years.

You might have thought these revelations would have shaken up the system. They didn’t.

Then came COVID-19. So far, the coronavirus pandemic has literally mowed down more than 1,200 nursing home residents.

Again, no surprise. Staffing policies designed to cut costs ensured that nursing home workers would have to hold two or three part-time jobs in different institutions just to survive.

It was as if the virus had been invited to spread.

New Democratic Party leader Andrea Horwath wants another public inquiry.

I’m not sure this would be much use.

A public inquiry would take a couple of years and probably tell us what we already know — that long-term care in Ontario is in crisis.

It is woefully underfunded. Its workers are equally woefully underpaid. There is little protection from communicable diseases. Nor is there much notice taken when residents begin to die from such diseases.

Who will fix long-term care? Justin Trudeau? Probably not. Doug Ford? Perhaps. If public outrage continues, he may have no choice politically.

This week, following in the footsteps of British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec, the Ford government reluctantly issued an edict allowing it to temporarily replace the management of any nursing home in the province.

Does this mean Ford is finally getting serious about long-term care?

We can only hope.