Pandemic did not change the structural problems for long-term care facilities — or for law firms, argues Tim Wilbur
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit Canada in March, everything seemed to change all at once. Canadians who could worked from home, unemployment spiked, and the daily infection rates transfixed Canadians. As things settled down into late spring, however, the term “flattening the curve” was replaced with the “new normal” as the catch phrase of the day.
Everything had changed, and it was now about adjusting to a new world.
And while the pandemic no doubt changed a lot, it has also highlighted structural problems that existed well before March.
Heather Suttie, who for decades has advised law firms that are restructuring, argues that the current pandemic will force law firms to deal with their pre-existing economic health. “Legal service providers that went into this pandemic in a weakened state are vulnerable,” she writes. “Some will continue to drag their historical legacy like a ship drags an anchor and the results will mete out.”
For the Canadian public, the pandemic has also highlighted structural issues with our long-term care facilities. Since most of the deaths from COVID-19 took place in these facilities, they have received much more scrutiny from the public and politicians across the country.
As we see in our July-August issue cover story, lawyers are pushing for reform to long-term care facilities on many fronts. While the wave of infections reported in some facilities does not necessarily reflect a problem across the board, structural reforms seem to be inevitable, as an insurance defence lawyer we spoke with pointed out.
Personal Injury lawyers are using individual cases and class action suits to highlight systemic issues. Lawyers for advocacy groups are campaigning for greater family involvement and raising questions around funding and staffing issues. Across practice areas, many of these lawyers want to see a broad public inquiry after the pandemic has passed.
While it may feel like the pandemic changed everything, it did not change the structural problems for law firms and long-term care facilities. It just put them out there for everyone to see.
It is up to us to decide if the “new normal” is about changing things, or simply reacting without changing a thing.
