Thursday October 1, 2020 | VICTORIA, BC
Socioeconomic Analysis | by Mary P Brooke, B.Sc., Editor | Island Social Trends
Seniors care is not about ‘beds’ but rather about the people who live there. And it’s more than just providing adequate medical care.
That’s what the BC Greens are saying this week about long-term care homes in BC, following a BC NDP promise to introduce $10 billion into the capital plan to build more appropriate seniors care facilities. That’s primarily about all accommodation eventually being private (one-person) rooms.
The private room model is not new (and is known to help diminish the possibility of infectious spread) but it’s more costly. BC Green Leader Sonia Furstenau says “neither the BC NDP or the BC Liberals have had the courage to fix a system that is clearly broken”.
Battling for foundational change:
This approach to shifting the delivery of care for seniors away from a bed-count and fulfilling medical instructions seems right and fair to most people. But of course this comes at a cost.
The deeper movement here is the titan battle between capitalism and democratic socialism, which underlies most of the big-picture angst in North American society.
In northwest Europe including Scandanavian countries and to some extent France and Germany — where much of this struggle has been sorted out (higher taxes but better services in health, education and child care) — eyes look to Canada and the USA with curiosity over our fear-based, greed-driven system motivated by profit and getting ahead (i.e. social mobility).
COVID-19 has stopped social mobility in its tracks, for now. Structures around income-generation (i.e. jobs if you’re an employee and businesses if you are a self-employed entrepreneur or gig worker) are already crumbling, and from that things can be renewed.
Mid-COVID ballot-box gamble produces risk:
The biggest danger about this shift in the current British Columbia context, and more specifically in the context of this 42nd General Election campaign, is that a vote for the BC Greens is currently very likely a vote siphoned from the similarly progressive NDP — but where the NDP will almost certainly win more seats than the Greens in the 2020 landscape.
Furstenau’s vision for forward-thinking in the legislature is laudable. But during a pandemic if British Columbians are left with a minority government situation even less cohesive than the last (2017-2020), is the goal of systemic change worth the potential chaos and possible failure of essential service delivery during the COVID pandemic?
The seats in the BC Legislature at dissolution on September 21 were 41 NDP, 41 Liberal, 2 Green, 1 independent, and 1 vacant. This leans to a high probability of another very close result as was seen in May 2017.
In addition to any socially-minded BC Liberal voters shifting to a Green vote in this election, the Furstenau and her Greens could conceivably topple a few ridings that were held by NDP at dissolution.
If that results in a majority of seats for the BC Liberals, it actually throws the socioeconomics of BC back toward the model where those with resource get ahead much faster than those who are stuck in the middle or plastered onto the bottom of the socioeconomic pyramid. Much of the socioeconomic disparity as bared raw by the pandemic is a result of this divide that flourished in Canada over the past 30 years, particularly in BC.
The Greens have ideas based with heart-and-soul in the right place. But at this time the danger of falling back to a non-progressive majority government (as in 2001-2017 under the BC Liberals) is the wrong landing pad during the ongoing pandemic.
Snap election has ratcheted up the anxiety of COVID-times:
Yes it could be argued that Horgan calling a snap election has thrown us all into this mess… economic and governance uncertainty in the midst of a second wave of COVID-19 infections.
Hoping to gun for an NDP majority would, indeed, help solidify the continuation of the NDP people-first agenda. Frankly, without that agenda already well underway when COVID hit — and executed with fine and attentive touches during March to September this year — most of us would be struggling much more than we presently are in the perilous conditions of this pandemic.
It should be noted that BC topped up or refined various federal economic and social service initiatives. And within the strata of that was the work of federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and his fellow MPs who secured the CERB lifeline (amount and duration) upon which millions of Canadians have relied.
Editorial perspective:
After watching Horgan in political action up close for now over 12 years, this editor has honestly assessed that the BC NDP Leader genuinely at heart hopes to engrave more people-first funding, policies and systemic change into BC’s society and economy. When he says he wants four more years to do that, we can believe that in his heart and mind he believes the good work of his 2017-2020 government deserves continuation as the pandemic grinds on (forecasted by public health as a few to many years).
In that context, Horgan’s gamble to call an election at this time is well-considered. Enormous change does take a longer period of time, and he wants a four-year run at it — not for himself (retirement would arguably be so much easier at this point) but for the people he has served in elected office since 2005.
However even Horgan himself has said about this election that nothing is a sure thing. The snap election potentially allows more vote-splitting on the progressive side, and the BC Liberals could march right up the middle.
Placed by providence in BC for the five million or so souls in this province during such a dangerous and transformative time, hopefully Horgan knows something that the most of the rest of us don’t, about being able to pull off a majority win in the election on October 24.
Otherwise, much of what his progressive government has achieved in 3.5 years and during the pandemic (supported well by the BC Greens until recently, he said on September 21) will be seriously jeopardized.
Ballot-voting technicalities:
And getting civic-technical here for a moment, the final ballot results will probably take another three weeks or so after October 24. That’s due to the enormous volume of mail-in ballots that are likely being executed by voters.
Over 474,000 packages have already been requested (as of 11:59 pm on September 30). People could still end up voting at the advance polls or on election day. As well, voters may not return their vote-by-mail package by the deadline and all vote-by-mail packages must be screened before being accepted for counting (some may end up being uncountable or ‘spoiled’).
But even if half the mail-in ballots are completed and sent to Elections Canada, the current system (requiring ballots to be relocated to the appropriate riding for tabulation, and then so only after 13 days) sees the current ‘caretaker government’ under the NDP continuing well into November.
Horgan has gambled that enough people are satisfied with BC’s handling of the pandemic
COVID-19 precipitated this call for change:
The majority of deaths from the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (aka COVID-19) in 2020, this most startling of years, have been among seniors and elders given the presumed greater health challenges (particularly less robust immune systems than in younger people).
Seniors and elders packed into communal living gave the COVID-19 virus a feast of a playground for achieving its attack on the human body.
It should be noted that all indoor enclosed spaces where people share poorly ventilated air are a potent breeding environment for COVID19. But in communal living where people are also receiving hands-on personal bodily care the potential for the spread of COVID-19 obviously skyrockets.
Ending taxpayer funding of for-profit seniors care:
Today on this first day of October (day 11 of the provincial election campaign) the Greens released their first platform commitment — to end the taxpayer funding of for-profit senior care.
“COVID-19 has revealed the flawed state of senior care in our province,” the Green Party says in a release today.
“Reports have shown that with the same level of public funding, for-profit care homes deliver less care hours and make 12 times the profits in comparison to non-profit.”
Furstenau says that “the health and care of our seniors are not commodities for investors to profit from. It’s time to shift our tax dollars away from for-profit long-term care in B.C.”
BC position on long-term care:
The BC Green plan to end the public funding of for-profit care is part of a series of commitments they are making concerning seniors care in BC, says Furstenau, which includes:
- Beginning to shift the sector away from a for-profit private company model to a mix of public, non-for-profit, community-based services and co-ops;
- Ensuring that public funding is only being used to support direct care for seniors, and enhancing accountability by requiring annual inspections, financial statements and audited expense reports;
- Establishing caregivers as a recognized healthcare profession with the salary they deserve;
- Giving the Office of the Seniors Advocate more independence and an expanded mandate.
It should be noted that, for years, BC Seniors Advocate Isobel Mackenzie has been persistent in recommending that seniors be enabled to live independently as long as possible, as opposed to presuming long-term care as the default.
Yesterday BC NDP Leader John Horgan got this conversation rolling with his promise to put the money into the system to upgrade and build-new the communal facilities in which older and frail seniors reside.
Also pinned to the facility capital funding promise was an NDP commitment to continue paying to top-up careworker wages as a way to ensure single-site employment (to help stop the spread of infection).
BC Liberals going along for the ride:
BC Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson also committed to maintaining the higher careworker wages (attached to single-site goals) on the campaign trail yesterday.
For now that is the only sensible thing for the opposition leader to say, so as not to rock the boat. That is no guarantee that a BC Liberal government would hold to that.
===== About the writer: Island Social Trends editor Mary P Brooke holds a B.Sc. in health science (nutrition) with a second major in sociology, as well as practical experience in the delivery of community health education. Her publishing ventures focus on promoting progressive socioeconomic change in Canada.