Letter of agreement to amend bilateral agreements for home and community care and mental health and addiction services

The Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos
Minister of Health
House of Commons
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6

March 30, 2022

Dear Minister Duclos,

As you know, the COVID-19 pandemic has created significant challenges for Canadians, and has disproportionately affected those residing in long-term care facilities, assisted living facilities, and seniors’ residences. Outbreaks in these facilities have taken the lives of some of Canada’s most vulnerable citizens, and forever changed the lives of families and caregivers. To address this crisis, since spring 2020  Saskatchewan has been working to improve the safety of care for those living in long-term care settings, and those who care for them, through a broad range of measures for enhanced infection prevention and control and supported by federal investments and resources, including most recently  the $740M from the September 2020 Safe Restart Agreement funding.

Further to the Government of Canada’s commitment on November 30, 2020 to further support provinces and territories through a new Safe Long-term Care Fund, providing jurisdictions an additional $1 billion, Canada and Saskatchewan agree, through this Letter of Agreement, to amend the Canada-[insert P/T] Home and Community Care and Mental Health and Addiction Services Agreement (the Bilateral Agreement), in accordance with appendices A and B to this Letter, with the aim of further protecting Canadians who reside in these settings through increased infection prevention and control measures. 

The amendments in Appendix A establish the terms and conditions that apply to the Safe Long-term Care funding and include the following:

• The Government of Canada will provide Saskatchewan with total funding of up to $32,046,667 in fiscal year 2021-22 under the Safe Long-term Care Fund for eligible expenditures incurred from December 1, 2020 to March 31, 2022.
• The federal funding through the Safe Long-term Care Fund will support Saskatchewan to increase infection prevention and control in long-term care facilities, supported by this funding will include:
  • additional staff that support restricted dining;
  • staff/resident/visitor screening and testing
  • enhanced cleaning and infection control; and
  • cohoring staff to one facility to ensure safe infection prevention and control practices
• Saskatchewan has attached an amended action plan (Appendix B) which includes: the background on long-term care in Saskatchewan;  efforts undertaken since spring 2020 to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 in long-term care settings, and particularly efforts to enhance infection prevention and control, details on the new or enhanced initiative that will be supported by the Safe Long-term Care Fund, along with a breakdown planned expenditures; and performance measures to track progress.
• Saskatchewan is allocating the entirety of its funding under the Safe Long-term Care Fund to publicly owned and operated long-term care facilities and those public facilities operated by not-for-profit organizations. Private, for-profit long-term care facilities in Saskatchewan will not benefit from the federal investments.
• Saskatchewan will amend its performance measurement section of the action plan and will further update this section to provide information on results, with a view to showcasing to Canadians the progress achieved to protect vulnerable Canadians in long-term care settings through its initiatives for increased infection prevention and control.

Appendix B to this Letter of Agreement sets out Saskatchewan’s amendment to its action plan (Annex 2 to the Agreement) which provides information on the initiatives, expenditures, expected results and performance metrics on the initiatives supported by the Safe Long-term Care funding. Except as set out in the appendices to this Letter of Agreement, the terms of the Bilateral Agreement will remain in effect.

This Letter of Agreement to amend the Bilateral Agreement will be effective upon both of our respective signatures.  It, along with the updated Agreement and annexes, will be made public online by Health Canada.

The Honourable Paul Merriman,
Saskatchewan Minister of Health
March 31, 2022    

The Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos,
Federal Minister of Health
March 31, 2022