Alberta’s Continuing Care Act creates one legislative framework for facility-based care, supportive living services and home and community care. It replaces separate regimes governing nursing homes, supportive living accommodations, resident and family councils, and long-term care information, while preserving detailed regulation-making authority for standards, staffing, admissions, fees and licensing.
The Act combines public funding rules with a licensing and enforcement system. Operators need licences, must follow prescribed standards and agreements, and face inspections, corrective orders, stop orders, administrative penalties and prosecution.
Residents and clients gain formal complaint protections, resident and family council rights, and notice requirements when enforcement action threatens the continuity of their care.
At a Glance
What It Does
The Act defines three main service categories—facility-based care, supportive living services, and home and community care—and requires prescribed standards, codes and rules to govern their delivery. It establishes licensing for continuing care homes and supportive living accommodations, creates eligibility and payment rules, and authorizes fees and accommodation charges within regulated limits.
Who It Affects
The framework applies directly to continuing care home operators, supportive living accommodation operators and home and community care providers. It also affects residents, home-care clients, families, legal representatives, staff, inspectors, the Minister of Health and organizations that handle related personal or health information.
Why It Matters
The Act shifts Alberta from several sector-specific statutes to a single oversight model. Its practical impact will depend heavily on regulations: those regulations can define services, staffing requirements, exemptions, fees, agreements, complaint procedures and the standards that operators must meet.
More articles like this one.
A weekly email with all the latest developments on this topic.
What This Bill Actually Does
The Act treats continuing care as a connected system rather than a collection of separate facility types. A continuing care home provides facility-based care, which combines prescribed accommodation, health and other goods and services.
Supportive living accommodations provide prescribed services intended to help residents live independently, while home and community care covers prescribed services delivered in an individual’s home or community. Hospitals and temporary accommodation for people experiencing poverty or homelessness remain outside the Act, and the director can designate additional exemptions through the regulatory framework.
Funding and eligibility depend on assessment and residency rules. Alberta may pay for prescribed health and other services for eligible residents in continuing care homes and for eligible individuals receiving specified home and community care.
Eligibility can be lost when a person no longer needs the assessed level of care or when another federal or provincial program bears responsibility, including workers’ compensation, Veterans Affairs or the Department of National Defence. Residents may still have to pay for prescribed other services, accommodation and portions of home care, subject to regulations, exemptions and maximum accommodation charges set by the Minister.The licensing regime covers both existing operators and proposed operators.
Licences can run for up to four years and may carry conditions; they cannot be transferred. Operators must notify the director about ownership changes, planned closures and changes to specified providers or services.
An operator that is refused a licence, fails to comply with a stop order or has a licence cancelled becomes ineligible to apply for two years, subject to the specific limits in section 15.Compliance powers extend from routine inspections to court-backed intervention. Inspectors may examine records, take samples, conduct tests, make recordings and interview relevant people.
Entry into residents’ private areas generally requires consent or a court order, and entry into a private dwelling used as a home-care office also requires consent or judicial authorization. The director can impose specified measures, stop activities or services, cancel a licence, appoint an official administrator where residents’ health or safety is seriously threatened, and require operators to notify affected residents or clients.The Act also creates procedural safeguards and information duties.
People can complain to the director, and operators cannot retaliate against complainants. Certain licensing and administrative-penalty decisions go to appeal panels, while stop orders and licence cancellations go to the Court of Queen’s Bench.
The Act permits specified public bodies, organizations and health-information custodians to share information without consent for listed oversight purposes. It also carries forward existing facilities, licences, inspections, complaints, orders and appeals through transitional rules as the former statutes are repealed.
The Five Things You Need to Know
A continuing care home or supportive living operator needs a licence, and the director may issue, renew or amend it for a term of up to four years, with conditions.
Operators must report planned changes to ownership, operations and specified accommodation, health or other service providers, as well as other prescribed events.
A stop order can require an operator or home-care provider to cease a contravention, activity, facility operation or specified type of home and community care, either permanently or for a stated period.
An administrative penalty can reach $10,000 per contravention and, for continuing conduct, $10,000 for each day or part of a day; a prosecution cannot also proceed for the same contravention.
An offence can attract a fine of up to $100,000, plus up to $100,000 for each day of a continuing offence, and corporate officers, directors or agents may be personally liable when they directed, authorized, acquiesced in or participated in the conduct.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Scope and service definitions
These provisions establish the Act’s vocabulary and boundaries. They distinguish facility-based care, supportive living services and home and community care, define the operators subject to the Act, and address temporary drops below the resident threshold for supportive living accommodations.
The director may designate facilities, operators or provider classes as exempt to the extent set by regulation. That flexibility can accommodate different service models, but it also means the statute alone does not reveal the full perimeter of regulated activity.
Care standards, funding and resident charges
Operators and providers must deliver care in accordance with the Act, regulations and incorporated standards, codes, guidelines or rules. Continuing care home operators and home-care providers generally need approved agreements before providing the relevant care, while the Minister may make payments for prescribed services tied to an individual’s assessed needs.
The payment architecture separates publicly funded health services from chargeable goods, services and accommodation. Regulations will determine assessment, eligibility, exemptions, waivers and payment mechanics. The Minister must set and publish maximum accommodation charges, and operators cannot exceed the applicable maximum.
Licensing and operator eligibility
Operators of continuing care homes and supportive living accommodations cannot operate or provide the relevant services without a valid licence. Licences may include conditions, cannot be transferred, and generally must be displayed. The director must give written reasons when refusing an application, amendment or renewal and must explain the applicant’s appeal rights.
Section 15 adds a two-year application bar for operators whose licence applications or renewals were refused, who failed to comply with a stop order, or whose licence was cancelled. The provisions also require advance notice of ownership changes, planned service changes and intended closures, giving the director visibility into events that could disrupt care.
Inspections, complaints and intervention
The Act gives inspectors broad access to facilities, records, equipment, food and relevant personnel, while imposing consent and court-order protections for private resident areas and private dwellings. Inspectors can investigate unlicensed operations as well as licensed providers. Courts may authorize entry or records access when consent is unavailable or someone obstructs an inspection.
Following an inspection, the director can issue a specified measures order, stop order or licence cancellation. Stop orders can be enforced through court orders, civil contempt and authorized entry, with recoverable enforcement expenses. The Minister can also appoint an official administrator to take over a continuing care home where the operator’s conduct threatens residents’ health, well-being or safety. Complaint handling includes referral to police or other authorities and an express anti-retaliation rule.
Appeals and review routes
Operators can appeal licence refusals and administrative penalties to three-person appeal panels, generally within 15 days. Panel decisions on those matters are final under the Act. Stop orders and licence cancellations follow a different route: the affected operator must apply to the Court within 15 days, although a judge may extend the deadline.
A stop order remains in force during an appeal unless the Court stays it. The Court can confirm, vary or revoke a stop order, and can confirm or reinstate a cancelled licence. The Act makes these remedies independent of whether the underlying conduct also constitutes an offence or has resulted in a conviction.
Resident rights, information and enforcement framework
Residents, legal representatives and people identified as family—including friends, caregivers and guardians—may initiate resident and family councils. Operators must post notice of that right when no council exists. The Minister and director receive powers to publish information, require reporting, collect and share personal or health information for oversight purposes, and direct operators or other regulated persons in the public interest or for health and safety.
The enforcement framework includes protected terminology, mandatory incident notifications, administrative penalties, offences, vicarious liability and corporate officer liability. The Minister and Lieutenant Governor in Council receive extensive authority to fill in operational details by regulation, including staffing, records, admissions, trust accounts, agreements, complaints, information publication, penalties and incorporated standards. Temporary deficiency and transitional regulations expire after five years unless an earlier date applies.
Transition from the former statutes
This Part moves nursing homes, qualifying auxiliary hospitals and supportive living accommodations into the new framework. Existing certifications and licences generally convert into continuing care or supportive living licences on the same terms and expiry dates, subject to additional conditions. Certain non-Alberta residents and people already receiving services receive transitional eligibility protection.
Unfinished inspections, complaints and investigations move into the new process, while existing orders and some appeals continue under the former legislation. The Act repeals the Long Term Care Information Act, Nursing Homes Act, Resident and Family Councils Act and Supportive Living Accommodation Licensing Act, and makes coordinating amendments across health, privacy, public health, tenancy, insurance and other statutes.
This bill is one of many.
Codify tracks hundreds of bills on this topic across all five countries.
Explore this topic in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Residents of continuing care homes and supportive living accommodations, who receive a unified complaint, notification, council and enforcement framework rather than protections split across separate statutes.
- Home and community care clients and their legal representatives, who gain formal eligibility, provider oversight, incident-notification and stop-order processes tied to the services they receive at home.
- Families, friends and caregivers, who can help establish resident and family councils and may be identified by a resident or representative as family for that purpose.
- Operators that work across multiple care settings, which can deal with one primary statute and one core licensing structure instead of navigating several overlapping regimes.
- Regulators and the Minister of Health, who receive standardized inspection, information-sharing, emergency-management and penalty tools across the continuing care system.
Who Bears the Cost
- Continuing care home and supportive living operators, which must obtain and maintain licences, meet conditions, preserve records, report operational changes, support inspections and comply with corrective or stop orders.
- Home and community care providers, which face agreement requirements, assessed-service limits, reporting duties, inspections, information requests and potential penalties for continuing non-compliance.
- Residents and home-care clients who are charged for prescribed accommodation, other goods and services or portions of care; the Act authorizes those costs even though regulations may provide exemptions or waivers.
- The families and residents of a facility subject to a stop order, cancellation or official administration, who may face disruption, relocation or uncertainty while authorities protect health and safety.
- Government departments, appeal panels and courts, which must administer a consolidated regime, process appeals and support transitions from four repealed statutes and their outstanding proceedings.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The Act tries to make care safer and more accountable through centralized licensing, information access and rapid intervention, while continuing care is delivered in people’s homes and private living spaces. The stronger the regulator’s ability to inspect, disclose information and stop services immediately, the greater the need for careful limits, procedural fairness and continuity plans for residents and clients who may be harmed by disruption as well as by poor care.
The Act’s most consequential details are delegated to regulations. The statute authorizes rules on staffing models and qualifications, service definitions, fees, admissions, assessments, agreements, exemptions, complaint handling, information disclosure and incorporated standards.
That makes the framework adaptable, but it also leaves operators and residents unable to determine the full compliance burden or cost structure from the Act alone.
The enforcement model is deliberately strong but creates operational and procedural pressure. A stop order remains effective during a court appeal unless stayed, and the director can pursue court enforcement even while an appeal is pending.
Operators must quickly disclose resident or client contact information and notify affected people within 24 hours, which supports continuity of care but raises practical questions about privacy, replacement services and the consequences of incomplete contact records.
The Act also draws a difficult line between oversight and autonomy. Inspectors receive broad access to records, interviews, samples and electronic data, but private resident rooms and home-care offices receive additional consent and judicial safeguards.
The framework must protect vulnerable people without allowing privacy protections or provider resistance to prevent timely investigation of unsafe or unlicensed care.
There's more to this law than the bill.
Codify Laws traces every connection across the legislative lifecycle.