A Good Friday Observation

A friend sent this along. I hope it prompts some sober reflections on this Good Friday.

A Call For Leadership

Jason Kenney's UCP has achieved a majority in Alberta. Proclaiming that Alberta is open for business and that “[h]ope is on the horizon,” he joins Ontario's Doug Ford both in identical sloganeering and rabid contempt for all measures related to carbon taxes or anything else that would discourage the consumption of fossil fuels.

The failure of the political class to confront the world's greatest crisis, climate change, is manifest. It therefore seems an apt time to reproduce the thoughts of a Star letter-writer about our predicament, to which I have added emphasis to underscore key points:

After the last five years of two serious droughts, a spring and summer with twice the normal annual rainfall and this unprecedented winter with wild swings in temperature and weather virtually every week, I’ve become a believer that climate change is largely man-made and very real. While some say that it’s just the vagaries of weather, I suggest that these past five years represent a serious shift in climate trend. I took up farming when I retired from a business career and the last five years have been completely uneconomic. In the farming community, there is an old saying: If it swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a safe assumption to say it is a duck! Why can’t Conservatives see this?

Which brings me to my point in this letter, as a lifelong fiscal conservative, I am gob struck by the Conservative party (Progressive in Ontario and God knows what federally) who simply spout “anti” everything when it comes to climate change. At the federal level, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer plays politics on the issue and still has not provided a single shred of a positive, credible climate change plan. Further, Scheer continues to endorse a party-sanctioned candidate right here in Ontario, Cheryl Gallant, who proudly insists that climate change is a hoax. I might add that Gallant was the only MP out of over 300 to vote against the Canadian Parliament sanctioning the Paris climate accord.

Climate change is the issue of our generation and those of our children. Surely, some politicians have sufficient moral integrity to recognize the seriousness of the situation. There are real economic costs to climate change and a price on carbon is the least among these. It’s past time for Conservatives to show some genuine leadership on climate change, otherwise I’ll be supporting the only real agenda for climate change and voting Liberal for the first time in my life.

J. Hugh Brownlee, White Lake, Ont.

Over 300 years before the Common Era, Diogenes said he was looking for an honest man. More than 2300 years later, it seems he is yet to be found.

Sounds Like Corporate Extortion To Me

Given all of the revelations about how the Liberals legislated Deferred Prosecutions with SNC-Lavalin expressly in mind, it is perhaps no surprise that Big Pharma is now attempting to flex its muscles to prevent legislation that would benefit all Canadians. Andy Blatchford reports the following:

Brand-name drug companies could put off introducing new medicine in Canada and scale back research here if the country makes a major shift to cheaper generic alternatives under a national pharmacare plan, according to an internal federal analysis.

The concerns were included last year in a briefing document for federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau that explored the feasibility and costs of a pharmacare program.

For those who pay obeisance to corporate power, the document was sobering:

... the briefing note to Morneau said national pharmacare could influence the revenues of drug companies in several ways. Among the possibilities, it said a shift in favour of more generic drugs, mass-produced after patent protections for new medications expire, could lower costs.

But that could come with a cost for patients.

“For example, brand-name pharmaceutical companies may respond to a broad shift to generic drugs by delaying the introduction of new drugs in the Canadian market or by reducing the R&D activities that they undertake in the country,” said the analysis, labelled “secret,” which was obtained by The Canadian Press under access-to-information law.

To use the old cliché, Big Pharma is threatening to hold Canadians hostage should legislation beneficial to them emerge:

“Innovative Medicines Canada, which represents pharmaceutical patent holders, has warned that a national pharmacare program focused on cost containment may result in reduced access to medicines for Canadians.”

Such a threat, if followed through, would be part of larger pattern of pharma's failure on behalf of Canadians.

The briefing to Morneau said research and development investments by pharma companies in Canada already “significantly lag” spending in other countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, a group of 34 countries with advanced economies.

“Since 2003, industry investment in R&D has been less than 10 per cent of sales — the target that the pharmaceutical industry committed to in exchange for more favourable patent terms in Canada,” said the briefing to Morneau.

Like a predatory beast smelling blood, Big Pharma senses it has a Canadian government captured between its paws.

Time for us to show that we are not such easy pickings after all.

Well, Well, Well

For someone who is 'for the people," Doug Ford has a strange way of showing his fealty to them. Buried in last week's budget bill is a nugget that will further disenfranchise a large number of people.

Premier Doug Ford's Progressive Conservatives are moving to make it harder to sue the Ontario government.

The PCs plan to repeal and replace the long-standing Ontario Proceedings Against the Crown Act — legislation that, among other things, outlines government liability in cases of misfeasance and negligence.

The new law would increase the legal threshold necessary to proceed with civil litigation, including class action lawsuits, against the government. Further, it would considerably limit the instances in which the government could be on the hook for financial compensation to plaintiffs.

A spokesperson for Attorney General and chief Ford cheerleader Caroline Mulroney says there is nothing to worry about, asserting

the legislation will update "outdated procedures and codifies the common law to clarify and simplify the process for lawsuits brought by or against the government."

Others are not so sanguine about the legislation's implications:

"What the government is trying to do is place itself beyond the reach of the courts and make it difficult, and in many cases impossible, to sue the government — even when it acts in bad faith or breaches the duties of office," said Amir Attaran, a law professor at the University of Ottawa.

Perhaps the most significant element of the new legislation, according to Toronto human rights and refugee lawyer Kevin Wiener, is that it eliminates any potential financial liability in most cases where someone is harmed by government policy or regulatory decisions made in "good faith."

"What it means is that the people who exercise power over you can exercise that power negligently and cause you damage and no one will have to pay," said Wiener.

Similarly, the province will not be liable for instances in which a person says there were harmed by the government exercising its authority.

Making this legislation even more dastardly is the fact that it will be applied retroactively, meaning that existing cases, such as the $200-million class-action lawsuit against the government launched by Lindsay Ontario residents over the early cancellation of the basic income project (one that Ford vowed to protect before gaining office) could very well be derailed.

"This a way to wipe the decks clean. And even if the government did something wrong, even if people have sued it already, they're going to shut those lawsuits down," Attaran said.

It is said that we get the government we deserve. Try as I may, I cannot discern the karma that has yielded the worst provincial government I have seen in my lifetime.

Henhouse Alert

Welcome to Ontario, A Place To Grow and Open For Business. Depending upon whether you are a private driver or a commercial operator, you will soon be sporting one of the two new mottoes on your licence plates. A small thing, you might conclude, if you are willing to overlook that the new plates will be sporting a Tory-blue colour, all part of the Ford government's branding and messaging.

However, peering beyond the obvious, these changes convey something that is not altogether benign: Come to Ontario, almighty business, and (cue the wink and the nudge) we will take good care of you.

How? Perhaps a clue is to be found in a detail released in yesterday's provincial budget:

Ontario’s Ministry of Labour will “modernize and streamline” its enforcement efforts by helping employers to “educate themselves” on their workplace obligations, according to Thursday’s provincial budget.

The move to encourage employers to be more “self-reliant” coincides with an $11 million cut to the ministry’s budget from $317 million in 2017/18 to $306.1 million this year.

Apparently, such a move is a good thing:

The ministry will develop “automated digital tools” to help employers educate themselves on employment standards so the ministry can “focus on high-risk, high-impact investigations,” the budget says.

However, Finance Minister Vic Fedelli is so proud of this change that he couldn't help but crow about what this really means:

“Ontario is once again open for business and open for jobs,” Finance Minister Vic Fedeli said Thursday.

In March, the Ministry of Labour announced a new online self-audit tool for employers to replace “cumbersome paper audits” and give “job creators a simple, easy and convenient way to demonstrate they follow the rules.”

Others are not so cheery about the change:

Labour advocates have consistently argued that self-regulation does not work and that proactive workplace inspections are the best way to ensure compliance with the law.

Deena Ladd of the Toronto-based Workers’ Action Centre said that without robust enforcement, workers’ rights are “just words on paper.”

“This is basically saying to employers, we’re not going to monitor you. Employers who routinely violate the law will see this as open season.”

Anyone who thinks industry self-regulation is a good thing is clearly forgetting disasters such as happened at Lac-Mégantic, which occurred under a regulatory approach that leaves responsibility for ensuring safe operations to railroads themselves.

The U.S. has led the way in self-regulation, with catastrophic results. One need look no further than the recent crashes of two Boeing 737 Max aircraft for proof:

The tragic crashes of Boeing 737 MAX airplanes have, once again, reminded the public of the dangers of regulatory capture and industry “self-regulation.” While many were shocked to learn that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), our government’s primary airline safety regulator, essentially handed over its responsibility to certify that airplanes are safe to the manufacturers of those planes, the reality is that this model of industry self-regulation is the norm, not the exception.

The Boeing crashes are a symptom of a much broader problem plaguing our country’s regulatory agencies, which have been entrusted to protect our health and safety. These agencies have been under systemic assault by conservatives and industries that have opposed almost any new regulations for decades. They have pushed an ideology of deregulation and self-regulation that undermines our government’s ability to protect the public – all to boost private profits.

In Canada, we would be foolish indeed to think of this as a problem confined to other countries. Ineed, the new Ford budget shows that the era of the fox in the henhouse has clearly arrived in Ontario.

An All-Out Attack

On the surface, the ructions in education occurring in Ontario may hold little interest to those living in other jurisdictions. However, those residing elsewhere would be well-advised to keep an eye on this province, watching us carefully to see whether the Ford government succeeds in dealing a lethal blow to public education here. If he does, you can be sure such methodology will find its way into other provinces looking for 'new efficiencies.'

Two items in today's Star are worth noting as warnings to all who realize that a healthy, well-supported public education is essential to the present and future of functional, growing societies

Kristin Rushowy reports of distress in the Halton Board:

The Halton public school board is warning that classes could balloon to 46 students as the Ford government cuts the number of high school teachers over the next four years.

A letter sent to Education Minister Lisa Thompson says

... to go from the current average of 22 up to the planned 28, “specialized courses with lower enrolment or smaller classes with students who have high needs that have a 10-to-20-student class size will mean that other courses have very high class sizes of 36 to 46 students.”

... actual class sizes will end up much higher — and 36 to 46, while extreme, is “not out of the realm of possibility,” said Cathy Abraham, president of the Ontario Public School Boards Association.

Halton District School Board chair Andréa Grebenc said the bigger classes will likely be core credits such as math, English, history and geography — “all those required courses that don’t need machinery or anything like that.

Those kinds of numbers would be extraordinarily difficult to work with, both in the allocation of individual time with students and the sheer volume of assignments that would have to marked. In my former life as an English teacher, I had to spend a fair amount of time on each essay I was evaluating. To see numbers go as high as 46 would require substantial cutbacks in the number of assignments given.

Halton is not the only very worried jurisdiction:

Other boards have already written to the province with their concerns over the changes, including recent correspondence from the Durham District School Board that says course option will “diminish drastically — especially in the area of the arts, trades and specialty subjects.”

I will close this post with a very thoughtful letter from a concerned parent who attended the rally for education that I wrote about the other day.

Thousands join rally at Queen’s Park over schools, April 7

My family and I were at Saturday’s rally at Queen’s Park — not because we are puppets of union organizers as suggested by the Minister of Education, Lisa Thompson, and the premier. We were there because we care deeply about education.

Our children are growing up in extremely complex times, facing technological, economic, political and environmental challenges that are unprecedented — challenges that our generation has failed to manage competently — and the Ontario government is cutting education. Our children will be forced to either help solve complex global problems or suffer the consequences of failing to meet the challenges. The government is pulling the rug out from underneath their feet.

What is at stake? Investing in education is about building strong communities and a successful nation, one that can manage change with competence and integrity.

Look at what happens in countries that lack strong social supports like public education — look at Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Sudan, to name just a few. Poverty and violence goes hand in hand with a population that is uneducated.

Couldn’t happen here? Try talking to a family of residential school survivors or Indigenous students today who face violence when they have to leave home to go to high school in Thunder Bay. Come talk to the families in my downtown Toronto community who are refugees, whose children are absent from school for half the year. Talk to the families of children with special needs, children who are frustrated to the point of acting out because they lack adequate support in school.

Too often the choice is to quit school because support for a positive education experience is lacking. The cycle of poverty continues.

When the government cuts education resources, real people in Ontario suffer real poverty and violence. Meanwhile, we make very little progress in tackling other important and challenging issues.

I am there in my kids' school regularly, and it is plain to see that teachers and students need more, not less. That is why I was at Saturday’s rally and I will continue to support teachers as they fight for our children and our future.

Erika Westman, Toronto

I am long-retired from the classroom; however, that does not mean I am retired from the issues that can make or break a society. It is time we understand that this battle to resist the virtual dismantling of public education is everyone's fight. Whether or not we realize it, we all have skin in this game.

More About Bread And Circuses

I expressed concerns in yesterday's post about the cheap, diversionary tactics being employed by Doug Ford to distract the masses as he goes about systematically gutting the programs that make life livable and functional in Ontario.

I see I am not the only one with such concerns. In today's Star, letter-writers offer their views:

Ontario set to allow sports tailgate parties, April 9

Just as Trump encourages racism and white supremacism, Ford is encouraging alcohol consumption. Rather than listen to his (cabinet), he should base his legislation on the years of scientific, evidence-based studies that show lowering the price of alcohol (buck-a-beer), increasing availability (wine in corner stores and longer hours at liquor stores) and public consumption (tailgate parties), that the social and physical harms of alcohol consumption will undoubtedly increase across the province.

James Wigmore, Toronto

Premier Ford makes it known he abstains from any alcoholic beverages, but notice he pushes for others to use alcohol sales anywhere and everywhere and now tailgating booze parties. Isn’t Ford like drug dealers who would never shoot up illicit drugs, but as pushers make their living by selling and exploiting users?

Dorothy Low, Richmond Hill

Tories back ‘high-priced’ beer, wine consultant, April 5

Really with cuts in education, health and minimum wage, the Premier is focused on spending taxpayer money to make booze more available?

I already have two LCBOs and a supermarket that sells alcohol in easy walking distance and now accessible until 11:00 pm.

Granted, I live in Toronto, but I have driven through many small towns that have an LCBO outlet but no supermarket or pharmacy! Does the PC government have a strange policy priority on getting people too drunk to care about everything else they are doing?

GW Byron, Toronto

Clearly, the vox populi is one heard by the Ford government only when it matches their dissolute, diversionary agenda.