This enactment amends the Criminal Code to create an offence for long-term care facilities, their owners and their managers to fail to provide necessaries of life to residents of the facilities.

The enactment also allows the court to make an order prohibiting the owners and the managers of such facilities from being, through employment or volunteering, in charge of or in a position of trust or authority towards vulnerable adults and to consider as an aggravating factor for the purpose of sentencing the fact that an organization failed to perform the legal duty that it owed to a vulnerable adult.

Her Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate and House of Commons of Canada, enacts as follows:

long-term care facility means a residential facility, or part of a residential facility, the primary purpose of which is to provide long-term accommodation, meals, assistance and care to three or more adults who reside in the facility and who

• (a) are unrelated to the owners and managers of the facility by blood or marriage, and

• (b) are unable to provide themselves with the necessaries of life by reason of age, illness, mental disorder, disability or frailty; (établissement de soins de longue durée)

manager, in respect of a long-term care facility, means any person who is responsible for

• (a) hiring or scheduling staff who provide care to residents,

• (b) purchasing or directing the purchase of medical and other supplies that are used in providing necessaries of life to residents,

• (c) directing the daily operations of the facility, including planning and coordinating the provision of care to residents and how the staff who provide care to residents perform their work,

• (d) supervising staff who provide necessaries of life to residents,

• (e) controlling and evaluating the quality of care provided to residents, or

• (f) monitoring the effective implementation and assessing the adequacy of policies, protocols and procedures in relation to the provision of necessaries of life to residents.

It does not include a person who is employed on a casual basis. (gérant)

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  (b.‍1) as an owner or manager of a long-term care facility, to provide necessaries of life to residents of the facility; and

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• (b) with respect to a duty imposed by paragraph (1) Insertion start (b.‍1) or Insertion end (c), the failure to perform the duty endangers the life of the person to whom the duty is owed or causes or is likely to cause the health of that person to be injured permanently.

Prohibition order

215.‍1 (1) When an owner or manager of a long-term care facility is convicted, or is discharged on the conditions prescribed in a probation order under section 730, of an offence referred to in paragraph 215(2)‍(b), the court that sentences the offender or directs that the accused be discharged, as the case may be, in addition to any other punishment that may be imposed for that offence or any other condition prescribed in the order of discharge, shall consider making and may make, subject to the conditions or exemptions that the court directs, an order prohibiting the offender from seeking, obtaining or continuing any employment, or becoming or being a volunteer in any capacity, that involves being in charge of or in a position of trust or authority towards an adult who is vulnerable by reason of age, illness, mental disorder, disability or frailty.

Duration

(2) The prohibition may be for any period that the court considers appropriate, including any period to which the offender is sentenced to imprisonment.

Court may vary order

(3) A court that makes an order of prohibition or, if the court is for any reason unable to act, another court of equivalent jurisdiction in the same province, may, on application of the offender or the prosecutor, require the offender to appear before it at any time and, after hearing the parties, that court may vary the conditions prescribed in the order if, in the opinion of the court, the variation is desirable because of changed circumstances.

Offence

(4) Every person who is bound by an order of prohibition and who does not comply with the order is guilty of

• (a) an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years; or

• (b) an offence punishable on summary conviction.

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  (a.‍1) whether the organization was under a legal duty that was owed to vulnerable adults and failed to perform that duty;

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