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[Reporter] Canadians have watched in horror
as the COVID-19 death toll climbed in 
Canada’s long-term care facilities.
Now over 6,000.
In Australia, just 29 people.
Greg Shaw, who runs the 
International Federation on Aging
is uniquely positioned to compare 
the two countries.
The building standards are very different 
in Australia.
[Reporter] He lives in Toronto but
previously served in senior roles
in Australia’s health ministry.
He says that to start with, Australia’s
aged-care facilities had a detailed plan to
deal with a pandemic while Canada did not.
When COVID-19 was known 
and came to Australia
many of the care providers basically 
locked their homes down
and implemented their pandemic plans 
for infection control.
So they stopped families from coming in.
They didn't have staff working from one
facility to another facility.
And generally, that's not the case in Australia anyway.
[Reporter] One of the most striking differences between
Canada and Australia
lies in the inspection regime for senior facilities.
Australia is much more strict.
Graeme Prior runs one of the largest for-profit 
aged-care providers in Australia.
He owns dozens of homes
and says the inspections of them are rigorous.
[Graeme] If we get a report for the federal authorities
in 6 months’ time from an inspection
and it's a negative one
we've got 28 days to fix it.
There's no mucking around.
There's no -- "I'll think about it."
We'd be sanctioned.
We'd be out of business in 6 months.
[Reporter] 12 homes were shut down 
in Australia in 2018.
Zero in Ontario.
None again last year.
Tamara Daly of York University is 
a senior-care expert.
[Tarama] We don't seem to have the kind of teeth
that they've given to their inspectors.
And we don't act as readily to shut a home down.
So they remove accreditation really fast
and as a result of that, I think that they are getting
better compliance
with their standards.
[Reporter]  Government spending on senior care is about the same in Canada and Australia
but they seem to get more for their money.
As of 2015, all senior homes in Australia have private rooms for singles
or semi-private for two people sharing.
[Graeme] Basically no more than two people per room with their own en-suite.
In terms of toilets and showers
there's no more than six residents in an older home 
for one shower or toilet.
[Reporter] In Canada, 38% of homes 
have rooms for four residents.
A factor that worsened 
the spread of COVID-19.
Canadian personal support workers often 
have to care for up to 36 residents.
That leads to a big difference in the two
countries’ approaches to patient bathing.
If I wanted to put my mother 
in one of your homes and said
“Look, I 'd like her to have a bath every day.”
Could I make that request?
Would it be fulfilled?
Well, of course, she can.
You'd be looked at like I'm looking 
at you right now - quite quizzically.
Everybody gets a bath every day.
I mean that's the way it works.
What about in Ontario, would that happen in Ontario?
In Ontario, no.
Ahh, no.
You are entitled to two bath times each week.
[Reporter] Many trace the drop in Ontario senior-care staffing levels back to the 1990s
when Conservative Mike Harris was premier.
Harris actually budgeted an extra billion
dollars for senior care in Ontario
but his government directed 60% of that money to private for-profit providers.
And he cut staffing requirements.
[Tamara] Mike Harris did, in fact, get rid of
the minimum staffing level for all front-line staff.
Cutting minimum staffing has had a very negative impact on the sector overall.
[Reporter] After he left politics, Mike Harris became the Chairman of Chartwell Homes.
One of Ontario’s largest for-profit 
senior-care providers.
As you might expect, Chartwell has had staffing-level issues.
Consider this one Chartwell home 
in Kingsville, Ontario.
Government inspection reports show that the
home has been cited dozens of times in recent years
for not maintaining adequate staffing.
Follow-up inspections often found that
the Chartwell operators repeatedly 
“failed to comply” with regulations.
But there has been little consequence for them.
They're getting away with it because there aren't serious consequences.
Tell me where the -- in any province in Canada, 
where the government said
"You're not meeting the standards now that you should be meeting
we're actually putting in an administrator, to bring the care standards in the home
and the service provisions up to standard before we will allow you to take it over again.
And you've got to be able to demonstrate to us that you're capable of running the nursing home.
[Reporter] Doesn’t happen?
It doesn't happen.
[Reporter] As a result of the COVID-19 crisis
the Ontario government has announced it would finally take over nine senior homes.
None of them belong to Chartwell, which does not have the worst death-record among providers.
A crucial tool to find major problems is for
inspectors to arrive without warning.
In Australia, recent records show 3,099 unannounced inspections in one year.
CBC News discovered that in Ontario last year there were only nine unannounced inspections.
There are some stark examples in Canada of
egregious behaviour in senior-care homes.
In 2013, at the St Joseph’s facility 
in Peterborough Ontario
Camille Parent noticed suspicious scratches and bruises on his 85-year-old mother
who suffered from dementia.
After numerous complaints to facility management
with no result
he placed a hidden camera at his mother’s bedside
which recorded regular abuse from care-givers.
Four low-level personal support workers were fired.
But again, there was little consequence 
for the management.
[Graeme] In Australia, the system would have said 
there is a systemic issue in that home
around the treatment of its residents.
And there would have had to be sanctions put on that home
where couldn’t take any new residents, 
any new transfers
until such time as they’re able to demonstrate 
that they have a training program
to mitigate abuse in that home in the future.
[Reporter] Of the six worst-hit seniors’ homes in Ontario
where the Canadian government 
was dispatched to help out
five were for-profit homes.
[Tamara] We know, even before COVID happened
that non-profit and public homes pour money in 
and have higher staffing levels
as well as better workplace protections.
So they have more permanent staff.
They have more staff that have benefits.
[Repirter] In Canada, the cost of senior care varies a lot depending on the province
whether it is public or private
urban or rural.
Greg Shaw thinks that's a big argument
to have a federally-regulated and controlled 
senior-care system
as they have in Australia.
It doesn't matter where you live in Australia,
you can access the same level of service
at the same cost and the same care provision
with the same measurable outcomes.
Irrespective of where you live.
A national system certainly works well 
in the Australian context.
[Reporter] In Ontario, a great deal of the money 
spent on senior care
ends up in executive compensation and 
shareholder dividends for the private providers.
The Toronto Star reports that for Mike Harris’s
Chartwell Corporation
that figure was $845 million over the last 10 years.
At the end of last year, he personally had a
7-million-dollar stake in the company.
We also do have quite a bit of profit-taking
in the sector
and so we need to ask really, really clear questions
about how we want public dollars used
and what we need to demand.
[Reporter] Ontario Premier Doug Ford
has pledged to completely rethink 
senior care in his province
but he will face a determined campaign 
by the for-profit sector
to guard its stake in the existing system.
He admits that he has already received
a call from former Premier Mike Harris
since the pandemic outbreak.
I had, I think, one call in the last six weeks
from former premier Harris 
to ask how I was doing.
And to be frank, I didn't even know 
he was the chair of Chartwell.
Mike Harris at Chartwell homes has just hired
his former Ontario Conservative 
campaign manager, Leslie Noble
to lobby the Ford government on this file.
Doug Ford will also be lobbied by his own former campaign spokesperson, Melissa Lantsman.
And his former marketing director, Lauren MacDonald.
Who both have just been hired as lobbyists 
by other for-profit providers.
A few weeks ago, Justin Trudeau speculated aloud
about how the federal government should 
get more involved in senior care.
He was quickly shot down by 
Quebec Premier Francois Legault
who basically suggested the federal government 
should mind its own business
and stay in its own jurisdiction.
The politics of this situation have pushed
Trudeau to back down
because, at the moment, the senior care homes 
are seen as a terrible problem
that tarnishes any politician responsible 
for the mess there.
There is some question as to whether 
the COVID-19 disaster in long-term care facilities
will change that political calculation
because the public might demand change.
Terence McKenna. CBC News. Toronto.
