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In May 2020, the Canadian military reported “horrifying” and “heartbreaking” conditions in some Toronto-area long-term care facilities, with cockroach infestations, feces and vomit on the floor and walls, and residents dying from dehydration.

One year later, the Ontario Long-Term Care Covid-19 Commission released its final report, which concluded, among other things, that “residents died of neglect due to staff shortages.” In response, former long-term care minister Merrilee Fullerton said “our government is fixing it.”

It's not fixed yet — the Fixing Long-Term Care Act was only proclaimed in force in April of this year — but the Ontario government is barrelling ahead with legislation that will exacerbate the staff shortages and other problems that still exist.

In an effort to free up acute care hospital beds, Bill 7 will allow for the transfer of patients from hospitals to LTC homes if they are deemed not to require acute care.

To pass the legislation in September, Ontario has decided to bypass committee and public hearings. The process silences the voices of Ontario's most vulnerable residents, their advocates and caregivers. And the law itself jeopardizes the physical and emotional welfare of seniors, people with disabilities and their families.

The decision to move to long-term care — or the decision to move a family member there — is always fraught: Like any move, it's a major life decision, but it's one that has profound consequences not just for where you live but how you live.

It's no surprise that many resist the move. And with the reports from the military and the COVID Commission, it's no wonder many people vow never to set foot in a home.

To be sure, not all of Ontario's LTC facilities are created equal. Quality of care varies widely from home to home, and while there's no official ranking of home quality, people do learn, largely through word of mouth, about facilities to avoid.

Yet it is exactly these facilities that typically have vacancies, and it is therefore these homes to which people will likely be transferred. The government has stressed that the transfer is only temporary, until a vacancy arises in the preferred home. But the high-quality facilities have long waiting lists, which means many people never leave their “temporary” home.

Since the government first announced its intentions to do this, the questions and concerns have only grown. For example, Long-Term Care Minister Paul Calandra had said that no one would be moved without their consent. But now comes news that those who refuse could be on the hook financially. Uninsured costs could ring in at about $1,500 a day.

Furthermore, Bill 7 makes no guarantee that patients will be moved to a facility close to family. And we learned during the pandemic that family members provide indispensable care and reduce the burden on LTC staff.

Bill 7 therefore attempts to solve one problem by creating another and suggests Ontario has forgotten everything it learned about the LTC sector during the pandemic.

Now that said, the shortage of acute care beds in hospitals is a serious problem. The hospital is not an ideal place for people who need the services of long-term care. Intended as they are for acute care, hospitals don't provide the wide variety of programs and activities common in LTC.

But the solution must come, not from casting people into sub-par homes, but in improving the quality of those homes, and ensuring all Ontario facilities meet a satisfactory standard of care.

The Health Standards Organization is working on national standards for LTC that include everything from infection control to meaningful, individualized resident-centred care. Such standards will only prove effective if governments commit to them, and that will require a major investment.

On the LTC transfers, answers are owed, on the potential costs to families, the distance of potential moves and the quality of those facilities meant to accept these transfers. With so much at stake for elderly and disabled patients and their families and so little clarity, the government needs to stop the mad rush with its hospital bed shuffle.

Correction — Aug. 31, 2022: Bill 7 will amend Ontario’s Fixing Long-Term Care Act. To pass the legislation, the province has decided to bypass committee and public hearings. A previous version of this editorial erroneously said the federal government will bypass committee and public hearings.

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