Summary#

Bill 235, the Support for Seniors and Caregivers Act, 2024, would amend Ontario’s Fixing Long-Term Care Act, 2021 and Retirement Homes Act, 2010. Its stated goal is to improve seniors’ care and support families and caregivers; those are goals, not guaranteed results.

• Long-term-care home licensees would have to provide organized dementia-care programs and programs to recognize residents’ cultural, linguistic, religious and spiritual needs, including reasonable opportunities to practise religious and spiritual beliefs.
• The bill would make abuse or neglect of a long-term-care resident an offence for listed people, including licensees, managers, staff, volunteers and certain health and social-service professionals. It would also make it an offence for a licensee to break any provision of the Act or its regulations.
• Each long-term-care home would have a Clinical Director, who must be a physician or a registered nurse in the extended class. The director would advise the licensee on medical care and consult other health professionals as required by regulations. The explanatory note says current law requires a physician Medical Director.
• Long-term-care inspectors could require licensees to pay for specified expert examinations or tests, but not tests of a resident’s medical or health condition. New investigation powers include warrant-based searches and production orders; searches without a warrant would be allowed in exigent circumstances (urgent circumstances that make getting a warrant impractical).
• Retirement-home residents would gain a right to ongoing support from caregivers, as defined by regulations. Ministry senior employees could direct retirement-home licensees on preventing and managing specified infectious diseases; licensees must implement directions and consider recommendations.

What it means for you#

• Long-term-care residents and families: Homes would have to organize dementia care and recognize residents’ cultural, language, religious and spiritual needs. The bill does not set out detailed service standards.
• Long-term-care licensees and staff: Licensees would face new program duties and offences. The bill names people who could commit an abuse-or-neglect offence; for residents receiving care away from the home, the offence applies in specified circumstances. It also creates offences for obstructing an investigation or destroying or altering relevant records.
• Retirement-home residents and caregivers: Residents would have a right to ongoing caregiver support, but who qualifies as a caregiver would be set by regulations. The bill does not require a caregiver to provide support.
• Retirement-home licensees: They would have to implement applicable ministry directions on the specified diseases. For recommendations, they must consider them and decide whether to act. Directions or recommendations would not override specified local medical officer advice or recommendations about an outbreak, orders under the Health Protection and Promotion Act, or other prescribed matters.
• Placement co-ordinators: They would have to provide a report when requested by the Director about long-term-care placement or admission.
• People affected by enforcement: A judge or justice of the peace could authorize warrants and production orders on stated grounds. In exigent circumstances, an officer could use specified investigative powers without a warrant.

Money#

No publicly available information on the bill’s total cost.

• The bill requires licensees to pay for expert examinations or tests that an inspector requires, subject to the ban on tests of residents’ medical or health condition.
• Long-term-care homes would have to provide staff and programs, but the bill gives no staffing numbers or cost estimates.
• The text does not set out an appropriation, fees or savings.

What is unclear#

• The parent Acts were not supplied, so most changes could not be checked against the full current law.
• Regulations would determine caregivers, Clinical Director duties and consultations, and some other details. Those rules are not included.
• The bill does not set detailed standards for dementia-care or cultural, linguistic, religious and spiritual programs.
• It does not specify the process, duration or review of infectious-disease directions, or define the diseases beyond naming respiratory and gastrointestinal infections.
• Some changes would start only on a date set by proclamation, including the new care-program duties, Clinical Director requirements and caregiver right. The text does not give those dates.

Case for#

• The bill appears intended to address care needs that can be missed by general requirements, by requiring organized dementia-care and cultural, linguistic, religious and spiritual programs.
• Requiring a Clinical Director with defined qualifications could give homes a designated professional to advise on medical care.
• A right to ongoing caregiver support could recognize the role caregivers play in residents’ well-being.
• Investigation powers, including court-authorized warrants and production orders, could help officers gather evidence of offences.

Case against#

• The bill requires programs and support but leaves important standards and definitions to regulations, so the practical level of care is not clear from the bill.
• New duties could require staff, expertise and spending by homes, but the materials provide no cost estimate.
• The bill gives ministry senior employees power to issue binding infectious-disease directions, while the text does not explain how those directions are made or reviewed.
• The investigative powers are broad, including searches without a warrant in exigent circumstances. The bill sets conditions, but their use would still raise questions about safeguards and oversight.