Silas: Implementing mandatory nurse-patient ratios is the key to patient safety and nurse retention.
October 23, 2025 (Ottawa, ON) – Amidst an ongoing crisis in health care and widespread staffing shortages, the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions (CFNU) is leading the creation of a national council to implement nurse-patient ratios – a vital tool for the safety of both nurses and patients. The council will include government representatives, employers, academics and nurses’ unions.
“All across the country, this is the number one ask from nurses, and there’s a good reason for it,” said CFNU President Linda Silas. “Strong nurse-patient ratios respect the reality that nursing is a safety-critical industry, where decisions about staffing are made based on safety. That means that there are always enough nurses to give patients the best quality of care, just as there are always enough pilots to safely fly a plane.”
A wide body of academic literature over several decades has consistently found and continues to call for higher nurse staffing to improve nurse and patient safety.
British Columbia became the first jurisdiction in Canada to commit to establishing minimum nurse-patient ratios in April 2023. Nova Scotia followed suit only months later, committing to develop a safe staffing framework to determine the appropriate number of nurses for safe care in different settings.
The creation of a National Council was the top recommendation that emerged from the National NPR Summit held in the fall of 2024.
“This council will be focused on implementation of nurse-patient ratios with an eye on nurse retention and wellness. Safe staffing models have proven to do just that – retain nurses. They are being brought into effect in British Columbia and Nova Scotia, and we know strong implementation is critical to success and to bringing safe staffing across the country,” Silas said. “We don’t need more studies – we need a concrete framework to bring this life-saving policy into all health care settings across the country.”
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The CFNU is Canada’s largest nurses’ organization, representing 250,000 frontline unionized nurses and nursing students in every sector of health care – from home care and LTC to community and acute care – and advocating on key priorities to strengthen public health care across the country.
For more information, please contact Adella Khan, media@nursesunions.ca, 613‑807‑2942.
From coast to coast to coast, we acknowledge the ancestral andunceded territory of all the Inuit, Métis and First Nations Peoples that call this land home. The Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions is located on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishnaabeg People. As settlers and visitors, we feel it’s important to acknowledge the importance of these lands, which we each call home. We do this to reaffirm our commitment and responsibility to improve relationships between nations, to work towards healing the wounds of colonialism and to improve our own understanding of local Indigenous Peoples and their cultures
The Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions (CFNU) is Canada’s largest nurses’ organization, representing frontline unionized nurses and nursing students in every sector of health care – from home care and LTC to community and acute care – and advocating on key priorities to strengthen public health care across the country. We are proud to advocate for our members and promote the nursing profession on the national level, and we work tirelessly to protect the quality of health care for our patients and our universal public health care system.
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