Spotlight on Long-Term Care
The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare major gaps in Canada’s long-term care system and raised questions about our heavy reliance on institutional care. Will Canada’s governments put long-term care reform near the top of their post-pandemic agendas? Long-term care has recently been a central focus for IRPP research, the Centre of Excellence on the Canadian Federation, Policy Options, and a webinar series. Explore our latest offerings below and download the PDF of related articles to keep as a reference.
Research on Aging
The aging of Canada’s population will present a host of complex social and economic challenges for governments at all levels over the next few decades. The IRPP’s Faces of Aging research program and its Centre of Excellence on the Canadian Federation have both produced recent research publications examining this demographic phenomenon and its implications for public policy and society at large.
Long-Term Care Financing: What’s Fair and Sustainable?
| Canada’s long-term care system is under intense pressure, and the situation is projected to worsen as we begin to experience the full force of population aging. A new IRPP study by Carleton University professor Frances Woolley explores options to help alleviate that pressure. The study evaluates how long-term care is financed in Canada and compares it to several international approaches. |  |
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Life and Death in Long-Term Care
| The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating effect on long-term care homes. Governments and policymakers should use the experience to create a better model of care that puts the needs and interests of recipients first. This study by Michel Grignon and Harneet Hothi presents a novel approach to measuring the performance of long-term care institutions during the pandemic, and identifies the factors behind their performance. |  |
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Assessing Cash-for-Care Benefits to Support Aging at Home in Canada
| In this study from the IRPP’s Faces of Aging research program, University of Ottawa professor Colleen M. Flood and her co-authors show that cash-for-care benefits could give Canadians more autonomy in choosing the care they receive, while reducing unwanted admissions to LTC institutions. Such benefits are widely used in other OECD countries to ensure that LTC services are more readily provided where most people want to receive them: at home. |  |
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Federalism as a Strength: A Path Toward Ending the Crisis in Long-Term Care
| In this publication from the IRPP’s Centre of Excellence on the Canadian Federation, University of Toronto professor emeritus Carolyn Tuohy shows that the most promising path to federal-provincial cooperation can be found in two key areas where both orders of government already have a history: old-age security and immigration. |  |
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Webinar Series: Long-Term Care Reform
Will Canada’s governments put long-term care reform near the top of their post-pandemic agendas? We convened some of the country’s leading experts on long-term for a series of webinars on this critical topic.
Policy Options: Kick-starting Reform in Long-Term Care
Over the last 20 years, numerous commissioned reports have called for reform and improvements to long-term care. This Policy Options feature series aims to better understand the reasons for the decades-long inaction by governments, and to start a conversation on how to ensure officials tackle the root causes of system failures through fundamental reforms.
