Seniors issues and pensions

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The evidence is clear, overwhelming and tragic: Canada has a fundamental problem providing quality long-term residential care (LTC) to those whose lives and well-being depend upon it. Although many LTC homes did not experience high COVID-19 death rates, over two-thirds of Canada’s overall deaths occurred in these homes, a ratio more than 50% higher than in other OECD countries.
TORONTO – With licenses for more than 30,000 long-term care beds set to expire in 2025 and 15,000 new beds in the works, a group of eminent public policy experts is calling on Queen’s Park to develop them all as public non-profit beds as a first step in “an orderly and phased reduction of for-profit long-term care in Ontario.”
In the Speech from the Throne this September, the Trudeau government said it “remains committed to a national, universal pharmacare program and will accelerate steps to achieve this system.” That is an improvement over the Liberals' pledge, during the 2019 federal election, to provide $6 billion over four years as a "down payment" on pharmacare. How much of an improvement remains to be seen. 
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the critical importance of federal government leadership in health care. The pandemic’s impact has been particularly dramatic in long-term care homes, exposing a fragmented and under-resourced system that is heavily reliant on for-profit delivery.
TORONTO, VANCOUVER—Two veteran seniors care researchers have detailed federally mandated standards to reform long-term care amid a second wave of COVID-19 in a new discussion paper by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
Illustration by Michael DeForge
The summer issue of the Monitor features two previously published reports on the crisis in Canada's nursing homes, one from the CCPA's national office, Re-imagining Long-term Residential Care in the COVID-19 Crisis, and one from the CCPA-BC,
TORONTO— Dans la tourmente, le système de soins de longue durée de l’Ontario nécessite un investissement supplémentaire de 1,8 milliard de dollars par an pour atteindre les niveaux de qualité des soins et de sécurité recommandés, selon une nouvelle étude du Centre canadien de politiques alternatives (CCPA).