In the spring, health policy expert Steven Lewis summed up the unfolding catastrophe<\/a> in long-term care as a \u201cpolicy failure that has exposed our values and priorities and placed too many at the mercy of the pathogen.\u201d Of the COVID-19-related deaths in Canada, data has shown 80 per cent occurred in long-term care facilities<\/a> \u2013 many of those vulnerable residents dying in isolated circumstances as their loved ones were unable to be with them in their final days. What intolerable anguish.<\/p>\n What has made the tragedy even harder to absorb is that the deficiencies in the system have been well documented in research reports that have piled up on government shelves over the years. Funding lies at the heart of the issue \u2013 not only insufficient funding for long-term care, but also for home care<\/a>, which would allow many more seniors to live out their years where they\u2019re most comfortable. Canada trails other wealthy OECD countries<\/a> in the number of nurses and care workers who work in with people over 65 in the home, leaving families to pick up the slack. The inadequate pay and protections<\/a> given to the people (often racialized) working in long-term care is part and parcel of the overall funding challenge.<\/p>\n Other countries<\/a> have already embraced public insurance system<\/a>s that tailor public spending to the specific needs of the elderly rather than automatically moving them into long-term care. It\u2019s an idea that needs to be fully explored, with concerted attention, by federal and provincial policy-makers.<\/p>\n Child care<\/strong><\/p>\n Back in 2006, the then-Conservative government axed a national child-care plan, explaining that parents should have the \u201cchoice\u201d of who was taking care of their kids rather than have government fund institutional spaces. But, of course, the idea that legions of aunties and grandmas were standing at the ready to take care of our children was always preposterous, and the challenge for parents to find quality spaces festered for another 14 years.<\/p>\n Then the pandemic hit, and suddenly even Conservative premiers were forced to declare child care an essential service \u2013 not just something nice to have. Perhaps the challenge only came into sharp focus when all Canadians \u2013 men, women, rich and low-income, even politicians \u2013 experienced what it was like not have the option for care.<\/p>\n Without care, parents \u2013 more often than not mothers \u2013 can fall out of the labour force<\/a>. U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren summed up the issue well<\/a> at the Democratic National Convention: \u201cWe build infrastructure like roads, bridges, and communications systems so that people can work\u2026It\u2019s time to recognize that child care is part of the basic infrastructure of this nation \u2013 it\u2019s infrastructure for families.\u201d<\/p>\n In the fall economic statement<\/a>, the federal government committed to \u201clay the groundwork for a Canada-wide child-care system,\u201d by creating a federal secretariat. Let\u2019s hope that we\u2019re past the point where child care is politicized along right-left lines, and seen instead as a way to leverage more economic growth and provide real equity to Canadian women.<\/p>\n The gaps in our social safety net<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n When millions of Canadians suddenly found themselves temporarily out of work or laid off completely, the federal government moved swiftly to provide Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) cheques. What was clear right from the outset was that the existing Employment Insurance system wouldn\u2019t be an adequate safety net for many Canadians, including those who worked in non-standard, self-employed and ultimately precarious jobs \u2013 part of the gig economy. Too many Canadians are simply ineligible for EI, in many cases despite having paid into the system.<\/p>\n There are plenty of smart people who have been banging the drum for change. Carleton University\u2019s Jennifer Robson has made the case<\/a> for moving toward a \u201ctrust-but-verify\u201d approach to EI payments, which issues payments more quickly and uses existing tax data to verify an individual\u2019s income and work history after the fact. Economist Tammy Schirle has highlighted<\/a> how the incomes of self-employed individuals tend to be low, but that much more research is required before figuring out how to protect them. David Gray and Philip Leonard, meanwhile, pointed out in a recent study<\/a> that benefit exhaustion (when a person runs out of benefits) is a common occurrence, and Ottawa has had to use ad hoc benefit extensions during most of the last 20 years to plug these gaps for certain workers.<\/p>\n And then there are the Canadians who have not just lost work, but also a roof over their heads. Research shows<\/a> that among homeless Canadians (roughly a quarter million Canadians<\/a>),\u00a0 the majority are single persons \u2013 hardly surprising given that the average welfare income of singles on social assistance is less than $10,000 per year<\/a>. In the early days of the pandemic, the homeless were quickly moved into temporary housing (including arenas) to address public health concerns. \u201cWhen we have come through this crisis, are we prepared to push people back out to where they were, on the streets and in shelters?\u201d Dr. Naheed Dosani pointedly asked<\/a>.<\/p>\n The lived reality of racialized Canadians<\/strong><\/p>\n For the first time this year, Statistics Canada began to collect disaggregated labour-force data based on race, and immediately highlighted in its releases that racialized Canadians were disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. StatsCan research manager Ren\u00e9 Morissette noted that COVID-19 exposed<\/a> \u201csignificant vulnerabilities and inequalities that were largely hidden in Canada prior to the pandemic,\u201d with Indigenous people and recent immigrants among those who were more financially vulnerable to begin with. Professors Ana Ferrer and Bessma Momani have underlined the uneven impact on immigrant women<\/a> in particular, noting that higher levels of education did not insulate them from losing their jobs.<\/p>\n Beyond just the labour impact, racialized Canadians were also hit the hardest by the disease itself<\/a>, largely due to the front-line, low-paid work done by people from those communities.<\/p>\n Still, data and evidence aren\u2019t always enough to convince the most senior of policy-makers. Quebec Premier Fran\u00e7ois Legault refused to acknowledge systemic racism<\/a> exists in the province, even following the grotesque treatment of Atikamekw woman Joyce Echaquan by hospital staff in Joliette, Que., which Echaquan captured on her cellphone shortly before she died.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/CP111921521-scaled.jpg\")
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