Remembrances Of Things Past (And Present)

I suspect it is only the very young and the profoundly naive who believe that justice is blind, that all are treated equaly under the law. While a pleasing fiction that governments like to perpetuate, nothing could be further from the truth.

Consider the latest revelations about the Canadian Revenue Agency's shoddy hypocrisy, begun under the Harper regime but showing no signs of abatement under the Trudeau government.

The Canada Revenue Agency offered amnesty to multi-millionaire clients caught using what's been called an offshore tax "sham" on the Isle of Man — a reprieve that was supposed to remain secret and out of the public eye until it was uncovered by a CBC News/Radio-Canada investigation.

Canada Revenue officials demanded, and offered, secrecy in a no-penalty, no-prosecution deal to high net worth clients of accounting giant KPMG involved in a dodgy offshore tax scheme.

The amnesty allows for "high net worth" clients of the accounting giant KPMG to be free from any future civil or criminal prosecution — as well as any penalties or fines — for their involvement in the controversial scheme.

The clients simply had to agree to pay their back taxes and modest interest on these offshore investments, which they had failed to report on their income tax returns.

While this might come as no surprise to many, what compounds this egregious injustice is the fact that the CRA is far less forgiving of ordinary people, many of whom, through no fault of their own, found themselves the victims of very punitive CRA action:

Toronto tax lawyer Duane Milot, who represents middle-income Canadians in disputes with the CRA, says his clients are routinely dragged through the courts for years by Canada Revenue.

"It's outrageous," he told CBC News after reading the leaked document. "The CRA appears to be saying to Canadians, 'If you're rich and wealthy, you get a second chance, but if you're not, you're stuck.'"

Just how much contempt the CRA feels for non-wealthy people is evident in the first four minutes of the following report:



Will relief for such iniquitous inequity be forthcoming from our 'new' government? In his finely-honed prosecutorial style, Thomas Mulcair asked some hard questions of the Prime Minister in the House. I was less than reassured by the answers he was given:


I couldn't help but note that in the response he gave, Mr. Trudeau sounded alarmingly like his predecessor, deflecting the questions by criticizing the questioner and then launching into some pious platitudes.

It seems that in some ways, our new government is getting old very quickly. Consequently, the CRA's foul practices continue apace.

The Archbishop And Assisted Dying

One of the things that I think distinguishes progressives from rabid reactionaries is that the latter tend to have reflexive positions on key issues, while the former can appreciate nuance. I hope the following helps to reflect that difference.

The other day, the Archbishop of Toronto, Cardinal Thomas Collins, issued a statement and a video about assisted dying, read and shown in over 200 churches in the Archdiocese of Toronto:



If you watch the above video, you will note that Collins is citing from a 70-page report tabled Thursday, called "Medical Assistance in Dying: A Patient-Centred Approach," a report that sets out the recommendations of a special committee of MPs and senators on who should be eligible to request assisted suicide. When I first heard what he had to say, I thought that Collins was engaging in some dishonest fear-mongering, but closer examination shows that, for the most part, he was not.

The report includes the following recommendations:

- the right to assisted death should not be limited to physical conditions, and that Canadians with psychiatric conditions should not be excluded from doctor assistance to end suffering.

- a two-stage legislative process. The first would apply to competent adults 18 years or older to be followed by a second stage with competent mature "minors" to come in to force no later than three years later.

- establish a process to respect health care practitioners' freedom of conscience.

- doctors opposed to assisted suicide would have to recommend someone willing to perform it.

While there is much more to the report, including safeguards against abuse, I must confess that I feel deeply ambivalent about the anticipated legislation for a number of reasons. I am cautiously supportive of its overall goal, to offer a way to end intractable suffering, but it is the parameters of how that suffering will be defined that bothers me.

For example, when one ventures into mental suffering, one cannot help but wonder if such a request for termination would spring from a failure of all treatment modalities, or an inability of the sufferer to access those modalities. Waiting lists for treatment can be very long indeed. Can a person truly be deemed competent to choose death over life in the midst of crippling mental illness?

The proposal to lower the age of consent to include minors also troubles me deeply, especially if we are talking about suffering that is not strictly physical. As well, can a minor, no matter how mature, truly make such a momentous decision. I can't help but think, for example of the 11-year-old girl, Makayla Sault, who, with her parents' support, opted to end treatment for her leukemia, treatment that would have likely resulted in a cure. She died as a consequence of that decision.

The matter of a doctor's conscience also causes me some concern, While some go so far as to argue that a publicly-financed hospital should provide a completer suite of services, including assisted suicide, most seem satisfied that they provide a referral to someone who will. However, I can see that in such a contentious issue, even that might be too much for some medical practitioners. What will be the consequences of a refusal to refer?

As you can see, I have but scratched the surface of this issue. While I have no window into the suffering that others experience, I do believe that much more vigorous debate is needed on this question. It demands that we examine our own values, and the values we think are important in our country, so that we don't plunge headlong into a practice that, once begun, could lead to consequences that none of us desire.

More On Freelands's Double-Speak

Recently, I wrote a post about CETA, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement; part of it examined the double-speak of Chrystia Freeland when she talked about both the protection of investor rights and the benefits of the deal that will redound to Canada. To me, the two are mutually incompatible, especially since the former allows for the virtual abrogation of our sovereignty rights over any issue that could adversely affect corporate profits.

Reading this morning's Star, I was glad to see that others are rightfully suspicious of our International Trade Minister's claims. Here is what reader Mary Crosato of Burlington had to say:

Re: Canada-EU trade deal could take effect in 2017, March 1

International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland says, “This is a gold-plated deal. It’s going to bring tremendous benefits to Canada.”

Please show us in black and white what benefits Canadians will receive from this agreement. What manufactured goods are we going to be exporting to create more jobs here, in our country? Are we just going to keep importing substandard products and clothing, some of which are made by underaged children in Third World countries?

We must start taxing companies that choose to manufacture goods offshore and continue making billions of dollars to increase their bottom line. We have to create a level playing field for companies that want to manufacture in Canada.

I hope Ms Freeland will not be bullied into accepting any agreement that is not fair or beneficial to Canadians.

I'm not so sure it is bullying that we have to worry about so much as the seduction of Ms. Freeland by the siren call of neoliberalism.

Looking In The Mirror

A recent Toronto Star piece about climate change chose to explore, not the well-known physical peril it poses, but rather the mental one. Citing a 2012 report from the U.S. National Wildlife Federation, it offered the following grim predictions:

... cases of mental and social disorders will rise steeply as the signs of climate change become clearer and more frequent, and as more people are directly affected by heat waves, drought and other extreme events that put pressure on clean water resources, food prices and public infrastructure.

“These will include depressive and anxiety disorders, post-traumatic stress disorders, substance abuse, suicides and widespread outbreaks of violence,” predicted the report. It singled out children, the poor, the elderly and those with existing mental health problems as those likely to be hardest hit.

It is an article well-worth reading in its entirety.

In today's Star, readers respond to it with their usual perspicacity. While I reproduce only a few below, all are worth reading:

Thanks to David Ouchterlony for expressing what many of us must feel about the lack of concern over climate change. I find my sense of hopelessness and despair is directly related to my increase in knowledge of our situation.

I refuse, however, to buffer my mental well being by “disengaging” my concern over the future of our planet. I do not know what type of a catastrophe it will take to bring climate “delayers” and “deniers” into acceptance of the dire situation all living creatures now face, but I know I must continue to try. For me, inaction will only increase my anxiety.

We must all confront this issue now before it is too late, and perhaps in numbers we can create the political will to mitigate this disaster.

Sue Braiden, Erin

I am sure I am not alone in having suffered from environmental anxiety since I was a teenager in the 1960s, when the Cuyahoga River caught fire, among other unbelievable events. In my 50 years of adulthood I have watched humans double and triple our world population, dump toxins and plastics into the air and water, pave everything around major cities, deplete animals and plants, and generally behave badly as citizens of the world.

We don’t seem to be able to stop ruining everything, despite both evidence and predictions. We seem to think Mars is the more beautiful planet, which Earth should emulate.

Martha Gould, North Bay

Climate change is destroying our coastal cities, causing unprecedented chaotic floods and now we are learning how this is wreaking havoc on our mental health. This mounting evidence should be a wake-up call.

However, the wealth of evidence that environmental change is caused by global “greed versus need” does not seem to have resulted in drastic changes that each of us are called upon to make – urgently.

Are we pushing our governments, and especially ourselves, to take tough measures to counter climate change and save planet Earth?

Rudy Fernandes, Mississauga

No government can fix global warming and stay popular, but we Canadians can reduce our CO2 emissions by burning less gas, eating less meat, and turning off the heat and lights when we’re out. If we each do our part, there’s no need for despair. Everything will cost a bit more, but not as much as doing nothing.

Canada should lead, not wait for Americans to change their thinking.

Simon Leigh, Toronto

As the letter-writers make abundantly clear, we all have a responsibility here, both in the creation of the catastrophe, and in the measures that must be taken to mitigate it. The ball is indeed in our collective court.

Apparently, Size Does Matter

Given its increasing preoccupation with boyish concerns, the Republican 'presidential' debates are turning out to be anything but magisterial. With a persona carried over from his reality show, Donald Trump is apparently managing to convince a lot of people that it would be great fun to have a president who would be their own 24-hour-a-day, 365-days-a-year reality program. And in what I imagine reality shows demand (I'm sorry, but I am not an aficionado of the genre), at least a soupçon of vulgarity is de rigueur:



Clearly, he represents a bargain for the American public: demagoguery, mockery, and an opportunity to "make America great again."

Not to be outdone on the size front, a stout proponent of states' rights, Tennessee, has adopted this as its 'official state rifle':

The Barrett .50 caliber rifle is a powerful gun. Widely used in the military, its rounds can "penetrate light armor, down helicopters, destroy commercial aircraft, and blast through rail cars".

At least now we know that both nationally and statewide, size does indeed matter.

Don't Confuse Me With Facts

That does seem to be the attitude of Mr. Trump's ardent supporters, doesn't it?

A Bold Experiment Or A Necessary Support?

The concept of a guaranteed annual income just won't go away. It is regarded by some as an effective way of addressing the increasingly wide disparities afflicting our society, and reviled by others as an affront to individualism and a disincentive to work. I fall into the former camp, and empirical evidence appears to be on my side.

Here is a brief backgrounder:



A certain momentum seems to be building. Senator Art Eggleton, for example, is calling upon the federal government to initiate a pilot program:

“Quite frankly, the social welfare system that we have throughout this country, mainly run by provinces, it’s just not working,” said Eggleton. “We have one in seven people living in poverty in this country. That’s a shameful thing in a country as rich as Canada.”

Instead of pouring billions into a system that doesn’t help lift people out of poverty, he said, “I think it’s time to try a new approach. And I think a basic income could be that approach.”

There is interest in other jurisdictions as well. Quebec is onboard with the idea, and Ontario has announced plans for a pilot project, the details of which are yet to come.

A recent opinion piece written by Laura Anderson and Dr. Danielle Martin argues that considering the many possible positive outcomes, such a pilot program needs to be designed carefully. A past flirtation with the idea can be instructive.

Labour market outcomes were a major consideration in the 1970's Dauphin, Manitoba experiment with a guaranteed annual income. No one wants a plan that discourages people from working. Anderson and Martin point out that the Dauphin experiment did not discourage participation, with but two exceptions:

The first was women with infants at home, who effectively used the BIG [basic income guarantee] to purchase maternity leave. We should expect a different response from women in modern-day Canada, where maternity leave benefits are much more extensive. But where child care and other supports for working parents are insufficient, we may see responses to a BIG that will show us those cracks in the system.

The other group whose employment levels decreased under Mincome was teenage boys. A closer look reveals that with a basic income guarantee, male high school students were more likely to make the decision to stay in school until graduation. Given the Ontario government’s aim of increasing graduation rates and the need for a highly educated population, it will be important to understand how people’s labour market decisions interact with other important choices.

Perhaps the biggest changes that would come with the elimination of poverty are to be found in healthcare outcomes:

Poverty is the biggest determinant of health. As such, we should expect to see significant improvements in health among recipients of a basic income. For example, the Mincome data showed that under a BIG, hospital visits dropped by 8.5 per cent. This included fewer emergency room visits from car crashes and domestic abuse, and fewer mental health visits. In Ontario today, these indicators along with others — such as low birth weight, avoidable hospitalizations, and health system expenditures — are already measured, and a close look at the impact of a BIG on those metrics must be included in a basic income pilot.

The connection between poverty and poor health worldwide is a well-established one. Impediments such as low education levels, poor diets, smoking and sporadic contact with healthcare providers are all factors contributing to this relationship, a fact brought home recently by The Hamilton Spectator's Steve Buist:

An analysis of provincial data shows cancer in patients from poorer parts of Hamilton is more advanced by the time the disease is detected. The findings raise questions about access to health care, patient education, screening programs and the gap between rich and poor.

The statistics are telling:

The Spectator's data analysis shows that the lower part of the former City of Hamilton had 20 per cent more diagnoses than would be expected based on population.

Meanwhile, the five suburbs of Stoney Creek, Ancaster, Dundas, Flamborough and Glanbrook had about 12 per cent fewer Stage IV cancers than would be expected based on population.

The reason for this disparity is not hard to fathom. Says lung cancer specialist Dr. Peter Ellis:

"We know in general that people who come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds have delayed access to health care," said Ellis. "These people tend to delay seeing a doctor, they don't necessarily understand some of the symptoms they see, they may be less inclined to undertake screening behaviour.

"If you don't necessarily have access to a family doctor, if your way of dealing with problems is to present to the emergency department or some sort of urgent care — which certainly happens more in those lower socioeconomic areas — then you're not going to get the continuity of care.

While a guaranteed annual income would hardly be an instant panacea, over time, as evidenced by the Dauphin data, improvements in a variety of outcomes would, it appears, be inevitable. All that is missing so far is a consistent political will.

Can our 'leaders' rise to the occasion?