Further to your inquiry on seniors’ care and housing, please see attached to statements on the topic(s) you raise.  I trust they provide insight to the NDP’s plans.  Should you have other questions, please let me know. Thank you and we hope for your support on October 19 to build the just and tender Canada many feel we have lost.

IMPROVING SENIORS’ CARE

    The challenge:  As the number of seniors in Canada doubles over the next 25 years, our healthcare system needs to be prepared to meet the challenge of providing quality care at every stage of life.  Seniors need timely access to ongoing quality care without having to go to an emergency room.  But right now, 14% of acute care hospital beds are filled by seniors who don’t need to be there because there is no home care or long-term care available to them.

    Wait times for long-term care beds currently average as high as 230 days, with reports of seniors being moved to a nursing home up to hours away from home.  Although most Canadians would prefer to die at home surrounded by their loved ones, only a fraction of Canadians have access to hospice palliative care and end-of-life services – 16 to 30% depending on where we live.  Home care, long term care, and palliative care services need to be fully accessible, whatever a patient’s income, and provided at the same high quality and standards wherever they live.

    Harper’s plan just isn’t working:   Stephen Harper abandoned a strong leadership role for the federal government in healthcare, refusing to meet with the provinces to address important challenges and imposing reckless, unilateral cuts to funding.  Under the Conservatives, hospitals are struggling with ‘Code Gridlock,’ with hospital beds occupied by patients who don’t need to be in stressful hospital care, but don’t have another option for care.  In 2007, Stephen Harper disbanded the Palliative and End-of-Life Care Secretariat and stopped work on the national palliative and end-of-life care strategy, forcing too many Canadians to end their lives without adequate care and far from their loved ones.

OUR COMMITMENT:  A New Democratic government will invest $1.8 billion over four years to help provinces improve seniors care, including stronger home care, more nursing home beds and better palliative end-of-life care.

This funding, which is part of Tom Mulcair’s plan to reverse Stephen Harper’s health cuts, can:

  * Expand comprehensive home care services to 41,000 more seniors;

  * Help provinces build 5,000 more nursing home beds; and

  * Establish a $30 million palliative care innovation fund to help provinces improve access to end of-life resources, services and support.

    A Tom Mulcair government will work closely with provinces, respecting their role in health care delivery, to target these much-needed resources to areas each province identifies as a priority.

 QUOTES:

    “CARP members will welcome the NDP promise of comprehensive funding to make the home care promise a reality. A federal role in setting standards backed up with sustained funding is critical.” – Susan Eng, Executive Vice President, Canadian Association of Retired Persons (CARP)

    “The Canadian Nurses Association welcomes today’s New Democratic Party pledge of $1.8 billion in new health-care funding. A portion of these funds will be used to create 5,000 new nursing home beds across the country to increase the options for seniors care and better support home care and long-term care. CNA is also pleased with the party’s vow to work with its provincial/territorial government partners on improving and expanding health-care services outside of Canada’s hospitals. Another key measure is the NDP pledge to provide $30 million in new funding to enhance end-of-life care and palliative care alternatives for Canadians.” – Canadian Nurses Association (CNA)

Thank you for your letter and your patience in waiting for my response. I too, feel very passionate about ensuring our seniors have safe and accessible housing.

Last election, Stephen Harper promised not to cut public pensions, but months later he raised the age of eligibility for OAS/GIS from 65 to 67. His move will cost middle class Canadians $13,000 and could push thousands more seniors into poverty. We knew that seniors have growing health needs like long-term care, and yet the Conservatives have cut $36 billion from health care. I feel that this is unacceptable.

I am proud to stand with the only party that has a national seniors strategy, built on consultations with Canadians. Part of this strategy includes investing in affordable housing, bringing together all levels of government to secure every senior’s right to safe, decent, affordable housing that’s free of unreasonable barriers. This includes reinstating door-to-door mail delivery, and working with the provinces to expand long-term and home care services.

I hope this is helpful and please do not hesitate to reach out again if you have further questions.

TANYA DE MELLO

Federal Candidate Etobicoke Centre
Canada’s New Democrats | Le NPD du Canada

tanyademello.com

email us at: votedemellondp@gmail.com
@tjdemello

Today, one in four Canadian households is paying more than it can afford for housing – or more than the recommended limit of 30 percent of income.

One in eight households cannot find affordable housing that is safe, suitable, and well maintained. Without affordable housing, many Canadians simply cannot make ends meet. It makes it harder to look for work, care for children, or to get and keep a job. Stable, decent housing is essential to a strong economy, and is crucial for the middle class and those working hard to join it.

 

Far too many Canadians are being priced out of home ownership. This places increased pressure on already crowded rental markets, and on crumbling affordable housing units. Liberals understand that affordable housing is part of the solution to many of the challenges facing our communities. Better housing can make a meaningful impact on child poverty, high student debt, and retirement security for seniors. It can also provide much-needed stability to people with serious health, mental health, and addiction conditions.

The Harper Conservatives have refused to take federal leadership on housing, and are even in the process of ending rent-geared-to-income support for co-operatives and other social housing.

 

Tackling the housing shortage
 requires collaborative planning
 between orders of government and
 sustained funding. A Liberal government 
will invest in a National Housing Strategy that 
makes direct investments in affordable housing, provides tax incentives to expand affordable rental housing, improves data collection, reviews policies on housing in high-priced markets, and offers more flexibility for new home buyers.

A Liberal government will make it easier for Canadians to find an affordable place to call home:

• As part of our new, ten-year investment of nearly $20 billion in social infrastructure, we will prioritize significant new investment in affordable housing and seniors facilities. This investment will renew federal leadership in housing, help build more housing units and refurbish existing ones, renew current co-operative agreements, and provide operational funding support for municipalities, including renewing support for Housing First initiatives that help homeless Canadians find stable housing.
• We will increase the new residential rental property rebate on the GST to 100 percent, eliminating all GST on new capital investments in affordable rental housing. This will end the tax penalty on developers interested in building new, modestly priced rental properties, as well as provide $125 million per year in tax incentives to increase and substantially renovate the supply of rental housing across Canada.
• We will direct the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and the new Canada Infrastructure Bank to provide financing to support construction by the private sector, social enterprises, co-ops, and the not-for-profit sector of new, affordable rental housing for middle- and low-income Canadians.
• We will conduct an inventory of all available federal lands and buildings that could be repurposed, and make some of these available at low cost for affordable housing in communities where there is a pressing need. This work would be done in partnership with municipalities, provinces, and territories as they develop their urban growth plans.
• We will modernize the existing Home Buyers’ Plan so that it helps more Canadians finance the purchase of a home. We will allow Canadians impacted by sudden and significant life changes, such as job relocation, the death of a spouse, marital breakdown, or a decision to accommodate an elderly family member, to access the program and use money from their Registered Retirement Savings Plan to buy a house without tax penalty.
• We will undertake a review of escalating home prices in high-priced markets – like Vancouver and Toronto – to determine whether speculation is driving up the cost of housing, and survey the policy tools that could keep home ownership within reach for more Canadians.
• To better support good decision-making, a Liberal government has already committed to making Statistics Canada fully independent with a mandate to collect data needed by the private sector, other orders of government, not-for-profits, and researchers. We will also immediately restore the mandatory long-form census to ensure data-driven decision making, including on housing.

Dear Iris,

Thank you for your letter regarding affordable housing.  Liberals believe that every Canadian has the right to safe and affordable housing, of which Canada is facing a critical shortage.

 

Far too many Canadians are being priced out of home ownership, placing pressure on already crowded rental markets and on crumbling affordable housing units. One in four Canadian households is paying more than they can afford for housing, and one in eight cannot find affordable housing that is safe, suitable, and well-maintained. Yet, Harper’s Conservatives have made the situation worse by failing to renew rent-geared income subsidies for co-operative housing and other social housing projects that make affordable housing more accessible.

 

Liberals have a better plan. We will make direct investments in affordable housing, put incentives in place to expand affordable rental housing, and increase flexibility for new home buyers. Our plan will make housing more affordable for those who need it most—seniors, persons with disabilities, lower-income families.  A Liberal government will prioritize investment in affordable housing and seniors’ facilities as part of a historic ten-year investment of nearly $20 billion in social infrastructure. This will build new units, refurbish existing ones, renew co-operative agreements, and provide funding for municipalities.

 

We will provide $125 million per year in tax incentives to increase – and substantially renovate – the supply of rental housing across Canada, as well as finance the construction of new affordable rental housing for middle- and lower-income Canadians.  Safe, adequate, and affordable housing is essential to building strong families, strong communities, and a strong economy. Instead of ignoring these needs, Liberals will make it easier for Canadians to find an affordable place to call home.

 

Thank you again for contacting us, and please be in touch if you have any more questions or concerns.  Kind regards,

MICHAEL LEVITT

info@michaellevitt.ca

Here is a response from Ahmed Hussen, York-South Weston Candidate for the Liberal Party

Hi Iris – thanks for your email. I feel strongly about the issue of public, accessible housing, being a former resident myself. In fact, when I lived in Regent Park, I founded the Regent Park Community Council, so that residents voices had a way of being heard.