How to repair long-term care in Canada. The preventable tragedy that unfolded in long-term care during the pandemic added urgency to longstanding calls for improvements and higher care standards, as well as new demands for transparency about how public money is spent.
In the early months of the pandemic, Canadians were shocked by a cascade of deaths in long-term care homes. By mid-2020, 80% of COVID-19 deaths in Canada were in these facilities. Udhr booklet en web. Doug Ford’s War on Ontario’s Poor - The Bullet. Ontario’s recently elected Tory government, headed by right wing populist, Doug Ford, did not wait very long to incorporate into its reactionary agenda, an attack on the province’s social assistance system and those living in poverty.
Though their election platform had been astoundingly sparse when it came to details and no warning was given of an intended war on the poor, in July, Ford’s Social Services Minister, Lisa MacLeod, announced that a hundred day review of the province’s social assistance system would be undertaken. To set the stamp on the Tory brand of ‘welfare reform’ MacLeod informed us that a scheduled increase of 3% in social assistance rates would be cut in half, that a series of modest improvements in the delivery system would be jettisoned and that 4,000 people who had been accepted onto the basic income pilot would now be cut adrift as the experiment was cancelled.
On November 22, MacLeod announced the results of the review process. Doug Ford Poor Laws. Changing disability definition a dangerous mistake that will harm thousands. Claire came into my office last week, for the fourth time in two months.
She was sad, very sad, actually clinically depressed. She’s 32, works as a waitress, and couldn’t face another shift. She wanted a note off work for two weeks to focus on battling her dark mood. The Canadian Facts. Ontario's New Plan for Poverty Reduction - Bing video. Building a Strong Foundation for Success: Reducing Poverty in Ontario (2020-2025)
Minister’s message Helping people achieve greater independence, stability and, wherever possible, long-term job success to support themselves and their families is a priority for our government.
This is a goal that is even more important in the context of the health, social, and economic challenges resulting from COVID-19. When we started our consultations on a new poverty reduction strategy, I never imagined we would soon face the world’s worst health and socioeconomic crises in a generation. Though COVID-19 has presented many new social and economic challenges, our resolve remains strong. My cabinet colleagues and I have been hard at work addressing the immediate needs of Ontarians, while keeping an eye towards the recovery. Ontario cuts reflect idea that people deserve to be poor. As a community mental health social worker in downtown Toronto, I encounter the most extreme conditions of poverty and social inequality in the city.
The people I work with are often forced to find shelter in profoundly undignified environments. Some pay upwards of $1,000 a month to share a shoebox-sized room with strangers in boarding homes where sickness is rampant and pest infestations are chronic. The Ford government says it’s committed to poverty reduction. That’s hard to believe. Hospitals are sounding alarm bells over their ability to cope with rapidly rising COVID cases, schools are being told to prepare for the possibility that doors won’t reopen in January, and we’re facing tighter restrictions to stave off a pandemic Christmas disaster.
Right in the middle of all this, the Ford government, with absolutely no fanfare or advance warning, decided last week to announce its plan to reduce poverty. It wasn’t quite the late Friday news dump that governments routinely employ for announcements they hope will fly under the radar, but it wasn’t that far off either. Poverty reduction is “a priority for our government,” says Todd Smith, minister of children, community and social services. But, really, it’s hard to see that. But this is the government that killed the planned rise to $15 in the minimum wage as soon as it was elected. Archived - Realizing Our Potential: Ontario’s Poverty Reduction Strategy (2014-2019)
Minister’s message Deb Matthews Deputy Premier Minister Responsible for the Poverty Reduction Strategy President of the Treasury Board We know there is potential in everyone.
We see it every day in the people working and striving to get a good start in life, to raise a family and to contribute to their communities. Canadian Best Practices Portal – CBPP. Defining Health - Academic Journal Articles. What does improving population health really mean? Our health is shaped by a range of factors, as set out in Figure 1.
It is hard to be precise about how much each of these factors contributes to our health, but the evidence is convincing that the wider determinants of health in the outer ring have the most impact, followed by our lifestyles and health behaviours, and then the health and care system. There is also now greater recognition of the importance of the communities we live and work in, and the social networks we belong to. Health status - Life expectancy at birth.