Ottawa should renounce ownership in for-profit long-term-care sector
Ontario Premier Doug Ford was shocked and appalled last week. He felt as though he had been kicked in the gut. He said he had not understood the “full extent” of the horrors in the province’s nursing homes until he read the report from the Canadian Armed Forces. Meanwhile in Ottawa, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he had found the soldiers’ account of what they discovered while assisting at five nursing homes “deeply disturbing” and “extremely troubling. We need to take action.”
Action, yes. But what action? And when?
As health care comes under provincial jurisdiction in the Constitution, responsibility for fixing the nation’s broken long-term-care (LTC) system — especially the forprofit sector, where the worst problems exist — falls primarily to the governments of the provinces. They will need large infusions of federal funds to do the job.
Ottawa could do more than open its chequebook. It could start the process going and set the example of what needs to be done by renouncing its ownership of forprofit LTC facilities.
In a column on May 11, I reported that the federal government owns 100 per cent of the second largest chain of for-profit nursing homes and retirement residences in Canada, Revera Inc., which, as it happens, is also the second largest forprofit operator in the United States.
That ownership is held through a Crown corporation, the Public Sector Pension Investment Board, which invests the pension contributions of federal public servants, Canadian Armed Forces and the RCMP. PSP Investments, as it known, created Revera in 2007 when it purchased retirement residences and LTC homes from the Reichmann family.
Although none of the five nursing homes in the military report is owned by Revera, the company has been the focus of considerable controversy and legal activity. Its Forest Heights Long-Term Care Centre in Kitchener has been the epicentre of the COVID-19 crisis in Waterloo Region, as another Revera property, McKenzie Towne Continuing Care Centre, has been in Calgary.
Dozens of lawsuits have been filed over deaths at Revera homes in Western Canada and Ontario. In the largest COVID-related class action in Canada, six representative plaintiffs are seeking $120 million in damages against Revera and Sienna Senior Living Inc., another for-profit chain. Even without the COVID-19 deaths and lawsuits, why the government would want to be in the business of squeezing profit from the care of frail, elderly citizens is a question that deserves to be asked.
It was not until last Thursday, however, that the question finally got asked, by NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, and answered, after a fashion, by Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland. She said federal pensions funds are managed by independent Crown corporations — in addition to the PSPIB, there is a separate Crown corporation for the Canada Pension Plan. But, she added, the “ownership structure” of LTC facilities “is something that needs
Why the government would want to be in the business of squeezing profit from the care of frail, elderly citizens is a question that deserves to be asked
on be on the table.”
I am puzzled by the PSPIB. In its 2019 annual report, the investment board expresses sensitivity to environmental issues: “We strongly believe that environmental, social and governance factors — such as climate change, health and safety and ethical conduct — are material to long-term returns and that we need to integrate them into our investment decisionmaking processes.”
But there is no indication in the report that the board has any interest in the care, or lack of care, of patients in the LTC homes it holds for the federal government.
It is unfathomable to me why the government (or its investment board) would want to have anything to do with a for-profit industry that stands accused in last week’s military report of neglect and abuse of residents, not to mention the cockroaches, unchanged diapers, and COVID-infected patients being left to wander around to infect others.
But maybe, just maybe, Chrystia Freeland was sending a small signal when she referred to “ownership structure” as needing to be “on the table.” Maybe the government is prepared to dump Revera. It is time.