CAPE is joining the “Make Revera Public” campaign launched by the Canadian Health Coalition, calling on the government to make Revera Inc. public. The company has come into controversy this year as the private, long-term care (LTC) operator responsible for several Covid-19 outbreaks and deaths in its residences. The federal government, through the crown corporation Public Sector Pension (PSP) Investment Board, is the sole owner of Revera Inc. – and therefore the owner of Canada’s second-largest chain of for-profit LTC facilities.
CAPE joins PSAC, PIPSC and many others in expressing outrage and asking the government to make Revera public as the first step in bringing all privately owned, for-profit LTC facilities into public ownership and operation to ensure better care for residents and in building a more ethical federal pension investment portfolio.
Revera operates LTC homes in Winnipeg, Edmonton, Scarborough and Etobicoke. Since March, there have been 87 outbreaks at Revera residences, resulting in hundreds of deaths, with a fatality rate of 30%, as reported by PressProgress.
CAPE invites its members and the public to sign an online letter to federal government officials overseeing PSP Investments, including the President of the Treasury Board, Jean-Yves Duclos, and the Minister of Finance, Chrystia Freeland. A copy will also be automatically sent to the sender’s local MP.
Support the petition, sign the letter!
The online letter is available here: https://www.healthcoalition.ca/make-revera-public-works/
For-profit facilities, Revera, the centre of catastrophic outbreaks
During the “first wave” of Covid-19 infections in Canada, it was widely reported that the country’s LTC facilities had become a significant centre of outbreaks, transmission and deaths. Several media and academic researchers began to report that these problems were far more serious in for-profit facilities than in others.
The Canadian Medical Association Journal published data in August showing that the per capita rate of death due to Covid-19 was four times higher in for-profit homes compared with publicly owned homes.
As the poor performance of the for-profit LTC sector came under scrutiny, it was also reported that Revera, one of the three largest for-profit corporations operating LTC facilities, is fully owned by PSP Investments, a federal crown corporation charged with investing the pension monies of federal government employees, including workers in the public service, the RCMP, and many in the armed forces and reserves.
