Private seniors’ care trending up

At one time, all seniors’ care was in private hands in Canada. Then, following the birth of Medicare in the mid-1960s, a drive to bring seniors’ care under public ownership took place.

However, since the late 1990s and early 2000s, in many provinces, depending on the political stripe of the government in power, there has been a sustained and deliberate effort to move away from public care and back to private seniors’ care.

In Ontario, successive Progressive Conservative governments aggressively expanded for-profit, long-term care beds during their time in power between 1996 and 2003, and then again from 2018 to today.

In 1998, Premier Mike Harris’ government committed to building 20,000 new long-term care beds. The majority went to forprofit corporations. This shifted long-term care in that province from one dominated by public and non-profit operators to one that is now majority private – nearly 60 per cent of all operators are now for-profit.

Now, more than 20 years later, the next generation of Ontario Conservatives are picking up where the Harris regime left off. Coming out of a pandemic where Ontario’s long-term care

NOTEBOOK homes experienced among the worst death rates in the world, Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government took two actions on seniors’ care. First, in 2021, they legislated an end to shared rooms of more than two people, requiring the renewal of 30,300 outdated beds by 2025. Then they pledged in 2022 to build 30,000 new beds by 2030.

The catch is that most of these renewed and new beds are slated to be run by for-profit corporations. But it gets worse, say public health care advocates.

“As part of their privatization drive, the Ford government is awarding corporations that have a long history of poor care coupled with some of the highest pandemic death rates,” says Ontario Health Coalition executive director Natalie Mehra. “In fact, the top 10 bid-winners are all for-profit chains, including those with the very worst records for resident deaths, negligence, and inadequate care.”

Back here in B.C., a similar shift to private care took place under the BC Liberals, now BC United, starting in 2001.

At the beginning of their 16 years in office, less than one-infive seniors’ care homes were operated by for-profit companies.

By the end of Premier Gordon

Campbell and Christy Clark’s combined reigns in 2017, about a third of B.C.’s care homes were operated by private for-profit operators, a third by non-profits, and a third by public health authorities.

“Thankfully, the ability to privatize more beds was constrained following the election of a BC NDP government,” says HEU secretary-business manager Meena Brisard. “Plus, modest efforts are now underway to build new public and non-profit beds helping reverse the trend under the BC Liberals.”

That said, with a provincial election looming in just under a year’s time, the trend for seniors’ care could shift back to private interests. And that’s why, Brisard says, HEU will be looking to secure a firm commitment from party leaders that any new care spaces built going forward be only publicly or non-profit-run – and not operated by private companies.