TORONTO -- The federal government is looking at creating a training program for unemployed Canadians to provide assistance in long-term care homes amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
"We may create, working with the Homecare Workers Associations of Canada, some kind of training so that people who aren't in those jobs now -- maybe people who are at home and unemployed -- can take a shortened version of this training and be able to perform the less complicated tasks that are required at these homes," Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion Minister Carla Qualtrough said in an interview that aired on CTV's Question Period Sunday.
Qualtrough added that the initiative would be similar to the National COVID-19 Volunteer Recruitment Campaign that Health Minister Patty Hajdu enacted in April. The program asked Canadians to volunteer in helping with coronavirus case tracking, health system surge capacity and data collection.
"Canadians who want to step up, we will help them with the training," Qualtrough said. "Hundreds of thousands of Canadians are ready, we just have to make sure they're trained and they're safe and that they too are not put at risk."
Despite long-term care homes being a provincial responsibility, Qualtrough said the initiative would be available to any provinces seeking help in those facilities amid the outbreak.
"We're going to make that available, ideally some kind of workforce that the provinces can avail themselves of to help them provide some backstopping of these positions," Qualtrough said. "We have been working with provinces, there's been no formula, of course, but the need has been identified."
Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan announced on Thursday that the Canadian Armed Forces has 1,020 personnel committed to helping 20 long-term care homes in Quebec for the next month.
He says that includes 670 medical and support staff inside the facilities, as well as 350 members providing outside support such as delivering personal protective equipment. There are also 265 Forces personnel assisting at five facilities in Ontario.
"We know that the military only has a certain capacity and we've been looking at ways in my department of training up additional people so that they can be ready in a month or six weeks, whenever to take on and be the next wave of support in these long-term care facilities," Qualtrough said.
Qualtrough said the initiative is not yet official and is just "one of 100 ideas" that the federal government is looking at to support long-term care homes.
Qualtrough would not say whether the Liberal government would call a national inquiry into long-term care facilities following the pandemic.
"We'll definitely have a conversation in this country coming out of this on how we can do better and what that will look like," Qualtrough said. She added that the crisis is not just hitting long-term care homes, but "all collecting living situations," including residential care facilities for people with disabilities.
"Any collective living situation needs to be really, honestly dissected, and we need a better way forward in Canada on this," Qualtrough said.
According to a recent report by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) at Ryerson University in Toronto, over 3,300 deaths have occurred in long-term care homes due to COVID-19, accounting for 82 per cent of the total fatalities in Canada.
With files from The Canadian Press
