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Toronto Star Wed Aug 19 2015

In a two-party election race, a challenger can let the incumbent defeat himself. It has happened many times in Canadian history, especially when a long-tenured prime minister is seeking re-election; the economy is weak; and the nation wants change.

But a three-party contest is different. Dislodging the incumbent is only half the task. To win, a challenger has to convince the electorate he has the best plan, the best team and the best grasp of what Canadians want. That is what makes Justin Trudeau's strategy so puzzling. The Liberal leader still hasn't released key planks of his platform. He hasn't shown Canadians he is a better choice than New Democratic Party Leader Thomas Mulcair. And mid-way through Week 3 of the campaign, he doesn't appear to be in any rush to fill the gaps.

The Globe and Mail Fri May 22 2015

Done poorly, this initiative could become a slush fund for unproductive, politically driven subsidies. Even worse, it could become a competitor to private financiers, equity investors and insurers. Despite this initiative's great potential, success is not assured, which is why private investors need to work with the federal government to ensure this initiative realizes its full promise. Every other Group of Seven country and most Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development industrialized countries have operated similar "blended" public-private initiatives for decades. All of the G7's development finance institutions (DFIs) are profitable. Some roll these profits back into their national treasuries; others use their returns to finance expanded public-private collaborations and growth in their public grant aid.

Now it's time to turn these good intentions into action. Development organizations have weighed in, cautioning that this initiative shouldn't be a substitute for Canada's grant aid. They're right to be concerned: Canadian official development assistance fell to a recent low of 0.24 per cent of gross domestic product in 2014 as a result of an ongoing freeze on new budget allocations. Aid and private, profit-driven investment need to work together to build integrated development solutions to extreme poverty. To function well, private business needs public investments in health, education and infrastructure - good things that don't produce a return that's easy for a company to capture. And the public sector needs the private sector to provide a dynamic engine of growth: As the World Bank points out, about 90 per cent of jobs in developing countries are already created by private capital. Canada should increase its public and private international development financing in tandem.

May. 28 2015,

Mental illness and poverty

December 22, 2014

by Robert Devet

K'JIPUKTUK (HALIFAX) –   People struggling to make ends meet have been known to cut back on prescriptions so as to be able to buy food or pay the rent.

Mon Jan 05 2015

By: Art Eggleton

1. Education is a great enabler and leveller in any society.

National Post Wed Mar 11 2015

In his article "Death by one-percenter" (March 3), Peter Shawn Taylor makes a very strange argument. He suggests that physicians and public health experts, charged with caring for the health of Canadians, should not concern themselves with the root causes of illness and stick to a narrow range of health interventions. Fortunately, Canadian health experts have a broader and more complete understanding of how and why people get sick. They aren't satisfied with simply pulling drowning kids out of the river; though this is obviously important, they also look upstream to ask why kids are falling in the river in the first place. Decades of studies have shown conclusively that income and its distribution, education, employment, housing, food security and the wider environment have far greater impact on health outcomes than health care. I see this borne out daily in the lives of patients whose life circumstances have limited their ability to enjoy full health.

Taylor belittles this well-established and supported concept of the social determinants of health as "impossibly broad." It's true that these upstream factors touch on all aspects of public policy. Our health is determined by political choices. If we want the best for Canadians, shouldn't our political choices be determined by health? There is a growing international movement, supported by the World Health Organization, toward "Health in all Policies," an approach that has been adopted by governments around the world. Here in Canada, Quebec has such a policy, and Newfoundland and Labrador is currently exploring this model. Taylor takes particular umbrage with an idea that has been expressed most clearly in the British Medical Journal: "The more equally wealth is distributed, the better the health of that society." There are three key ways in which wealth inequality can lead to worse health outcomes. The first, and most obvious, is poverty. In a less equal society, more people live in relative disadvantage, and are less able to afford safe housing and nutritious food or to access educational and economic opportunities. Their health suffers as a result, with people living in poverty often having life expectancies 20 or more years shorter than wealthier citizens. In my inner-city neighbourhood of Saskatoon, that manifests in rates of diabetes, heart disease, STIs, infant and overall mortality many times greater than the rest of the city.

Simpson writes with a clear ideological bias. He favours increased privatization. With frequent criticisms of those he calls "unreconstructed defenders of medicare" and the Supreme Court justices who ruled on the landmark Chaoulli case and whom he calls "gifted health policy amateurs," he spares no rhetorical disdain. Unfortunately, Simpson practises much of the same behaviours he criticizes in others.

His superficial analyses of multiple complex systems that function within different geographical and demographic realities do not help us understand the Canadian system.

privatization of health care is his solution to medicare's problems

CUPE is raising serious concerns about the future of social programs in Canada as the Harper Conservative government pushes for more private sector involvement. The union is calling for an open public discussion on the use of for-profit business models to finance and deliver public social services.

In November 2012, Diane Finley, Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC), announced that the Conservative government was looking for ideas which use for-profit private financing to address social and environmental initiatives. This approach - known as the social financing model or a social impact bond - allows corporations to profit from financing privatized social programs at public expense.

CUPE points out several major issues with the social financing model that have been experienced throughout the world, including concerns about the economic sustainability, fairness and risks associated with this model.

Montreal Gazette Wed Oct 14 2015

With a federal campaign in full force grabbing the majority of the headlines, a significant threat to Canada's most treasured national program is going largely unnoticed. For many years, certain physicians and clinics have quietly been charging extra fees for health services. In some provinces, the frequency of such charges has been increasing. These include hidden charges for medications that are many times their actual cost or access fees of hundreds of dollars for examinations such as colonoscopies. Because these fees are for services that are covered by the health system, this is, in effect extra-billing, a practice that is against federal and provincial law.

In Quebec, Health Minister Gaétan Barrette has identified these fees as a problem, as have many others for many years. You might expect Barrette to clearly inform patients and practitioners that this practice is illegal and put an end to it. Instead, he is trying to regulate and "normalize" these fees, in direct contravention of the Canada Health Act.

Last week, Oxfam America published a report in which it was revealed that, across the United States, workers at giant poultry factories are being denied basic human dignity in the name of productivity and corporate gain.

This sense of helplessness is felt across many industries and is largely the result of a ruthless, decades-long effort by highly class-conscious elites to dismantle unions and undercut potential threats to the accumulation of profit.

National Bureau of Economic Research s

Date: August 18, 2016 Author: Wendy Glauser, Jeremy Petch & Sachin Pendharkar

It’s something that a patient who is worried about a surgery or recovering from a trauma is unlikely to think about. But behind the scenes, plastic syringes, single-use gowns, sterile packaging, surgical instruments and much more are piling into dumpsters. While the amount of waste is difficult to quantify, a report from the Ontario Hospital Association estimates hospitals are responsible for at least 1% of non-residential landfill waste.

Hospital waste comes from areas like food, electronic and paper waste, but the biggest source is clinical care. It’s estimated that North American operating rooms alone are responsible for 20%-33% of total hospital waste. And a US study found that a single hysterectomy produced 20 pounds of waste in plastic, packaging, drapes, and so on (bio-waste was not included). The problem may be getting worse – due to patient safety, cost and convenience, more and more clinical instruments and supplies are being marked as “single use” and thrown out.

Friday, May 20, 2016 Today unions of the Canadian Labour Congress launched a new website and ad campaign to raise awareness about the need for a universal expansion of the Canada Pension Plan (CPP). “With 600,000 Canadian seniors living in poverty, and 11 million workers lacking a workplace pension plan, retirement is something all Canadians need to start thinking about today. Even for employees with workplace pension plans, affording a modest retirement can be a struggle,” said CLC President Hassan Yussuff.

Summer 2016

By James Hutt

For the first time in over a decade, Canada has a government that is not ideologically opposed to even talking about climate change. Instead of criminalizing environmentalists, muzzling scientists and actively lobbying on behalf of the oil industry, Trudeau has promised a new age of cooperation.

For parents of people with an intellectual disability, the quest to find a home and services starts early and can last decades

Even community housing – with queues of a dozen years in some cases – doesn’t rival the waits of people with an intellectual disability.

The housing crisis follows the closure over the years of institutions

This paper provides a more rounded portrait of the job description, working conditions, and compensation of cleaners in Toronto, on the basis of census data, existing academic literature, and other sources. It finds that the pay of cleaners is low; in private-sector settings, pay is inadequate to lift cleaners with dependents above the poverty line, and fall well below the levels estimated by researchers to constitute a “living wage”.

impacts of outsourcing on the quality and safety of cleaning services, on the well-being of communities, and ultimately on the fiscal performance of all levels of government.

The nearly 2 million home care workers—about 92 percent of whom are women—who take care of the elderly and people with disabilities often work 12-hour days and 60 to 70 hours a week. But they are seldom paid overtime and their net income is often less than the minimum wage. Unlike workers covered by federal labor laws, they are not paid for all the hours they are on the clock

Because of a 45-year-old rule, home care workers are exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act’s minimum wage, overtime and other provisions. In December the Obama administration proposed a rule to bring home care workers under the law’s protection.

The poverty wages that typify the home care industry contribute to high employee turnover rates which are costly, threaten quality of care and can increase workloads and lower morale.…Long hours can also result in worse care for patients, as care-givers working 60- or 70-hour weeks face fatigue and stress performing what is a demanding job under any circumstances.Click here for her full testimony.

The number of Canadians dying early from potentially avoidable causes has plummeted over the past 30 years, but the gains made greatly depend on a person’s income and neighbourhood.

A significant portion of the decline is thanks to prevention and better treatment of heart disease.

Avoidable mortality from preventable causes dropped by 46 per cent, from 225 per 100,000 in 1979 to 119 per 100,000 in 2008. The shift reflects a societal move toward adopting healthier lifestyles, with fewer people smoking and more people paying attention to nutrition than 30 years ago, for instance. Other preventative measures could include vaccinations or seatbelt laws. Avoidable mortality from treatable causes declined by 56 per cent, explained by advances in screening, early detection and improved treatment of diseases.

The number of Canadians who die before age 75 from avoidable causes has dropped dramatically in the last 30 years, according to a sweeping new report.

due to advances in disease prevention and treatment and to social policy changes, such as traffic safety laws, that have cut down on avertable injuries.

The report, released Thursday by the Canadian Institute for Health Information, found rates of premature deaths have declined in almost every jurisdiction in the country