Last week’s news cycle was especially lively, with things kicking off again in Ottawa, starting with a throne speech.
There are plenty of notable new announcements to discuss, as well as a lot of old ones. In the former category, the feds are looking to implement a national . . .
child care and pharmacare program, which likely won’t resonate too much in these parts considering that Quebec already has provincial versions of both. These programs will have to be agreed upon by the premiers, an uphill battle in the best of times (the national carbon tax is currently before the supreme court).
In the latter category, Liberals reiterated their incredibly dumb idea to tax “internet giants” like Google or Facebook for sharing and distributing news content on their platforms, as well as enforcing Cancon rules on the internet. Earlier this month, Heritage Minister Stephen Guilbeault went so far as to call the practice of sharing news without payment “immoral”. He’s wrong, but that’s a topic for another editorial.
One final note on the whole pony show that took place last Wednesday, are all the props and costumes really necessary? I get that we have to have some semblance of a traditional ceremony, but if we cut out the tricorn hats and ornate walking sticks, would anyone complain? Maybe it’s just me.
The same day the red carpet was being rolled out in Ottawa, Quebec quietly released reports on two of the province’s hardest hit long term care facilities, CHSLD Herron in Montreal and CHSLD Sainte-Dorothée in Laval.
The former was a private facility where more than 30 residents died during the early weeks of the pandemic. The building was staffed mostly with new hires and temp workers, most of whom eventually walked off the job due to a lack of PPE and non-existent support from management. As a result, dozens of vulnerable people were left unfed, dehydrated and lying in their own waste for days before the local public health authority intervened.
The report concluded that the management of private homes needs to be reassessed and that managers of such facilities should be more accountable. It also suggested that the use of temp agencies be phased out for health care positions.
The latter facility was a public home that saw more than 200 residents and 173 staff become infected, as well as 100 deaths. Its report concluded that facility managers need more leeway to make quick decisions in emergency situations, and highlighted the need for adequate stockpiles of PPE as well as training in how to use it.
On top of these new documents, which were completed in the summer and only released last week on a day that guaranteed they would get limited airtime, Quebec’s chief coroner will be conducting a much more wide-ranging investigation into the state of long term care in the province. The process is set to get underway early next year.
The way our society treats the elderly and disabled people that populate these facilities is disturbing, and it was a fact that was known long before a global pandemic broke out. They’re largely out of sight, out of mind, and it’s only following disasters like these that they make headlines. If the authorities can’t even keep these places staffed in normal times, what hope do they have of responding to a crisis like this? Quebec’s government in particular gets extremely prickly when it comes to the feds “meddling” in its affairs, but they were pretty quick to call for the Canadian Forces when their arses were hanging in the breeze.
This issue should be at the forefront of everyone’s minds, especially with cases on the rise again. We have an obligation to treat the most vulnerable people in our society with dignity, and quite frankly, they’ve been let down.
Caleb Nickerson
