Colleagues:
On page 18 of "Improving health: It doesn't take a revolution" (National Policy
Association, 2000) [www.npa1.org] our American friends attempt to use
Ontario as an example of a government that drew upon Canadian Institute for
Advanced Research concepts of population health to help expand investment
in children. This is the worse possible example that could have been used!
It is generally agreed here that Fraser Mustard was conned by the Ontario
government to produce a report, the contents of which the ruling Conservative
government agreed to during an election campaign. Once the election was
over and the government re-elected, the government withdrew its support for
most of its content. It should be noted that the Premier of the province
provided as justification for removing a dietary supplementary payment for
pregnant women, the comment "We don't want them spending the money on
drinking beer." A series of other actions has also produced the makings of a
public health and population health disaster. Please see below:
From: Raphael, D., Health Inequalities in Canada: Current Discourses and
Implications for Public Health Action, Critical Public Health, 2000, 10,
193-216.
"Ontario, the wealthiest Canadian province according to gross personal
product, experienced an increase in child poverty from 11% in 1989 to 20.3%
in 1996..."
"As is often the case however, as government documents have become more
sophisticated in their presentation of economic inequality as an health issue,
government actions frequently work at cross-purposes to these aims. The
best single example is that of Ontario, Canada's wealthiest province
according to gross personal product. In a report entitled Wealth and Health,
Health and Wealth,61 reanalysis of data from two studies obtained strong
relationships between income adequacy -- from the very poor to the wealthy --
with self-rated health, health problems, and health service utilization. The
report (produced prior to the election of the present government in
1995) stated:
'We conclude that efforts to create health in Ontario will not come from a
narrow focus; both social and behavioural determinants must be addressed.
Two sets of responses are required: policies that reduce poverty and policies
that reduce the effects of poverty.'(61, p. 1)
That said, the current provincial government, first elected in 1995, brought in
policies that seem designed to increase economic inequality and poverty. It
froze social housing construction and ended rent controls.(62) More
significantly it managed a 22% cut in welfare payments combined with
income tax cuts. Concerning these tax reductions, an analysis found those in
the richest top half of 1% of families benefitted by $15,586, while the poorest
10% of Ontario families received a benefit of $150.(1) As a result of these
policies, spending on social infrastructure has been reduced or frozen and
homelessness and child poverty in Ontario have reached unprecedented
levels.'(63)
By the way, the government was elected on a platform entitled "The Common
Sense Revolution" and models itself after welfare policies initated in New
Jersey and elsewhere in the USA.
Dennis
Our Web Sites have information and reports from all of our Quality of Life
Projects!
http://www.utoronto.ca/qol http://www.utoronto.ca/seniors
*************************************************************
In the early hours I read in the paper of epoch-making projects
On the part of pope and sovereigns, bankers and oil barons.
With my other eye I watch
The pot with the water for my tea
The way it clouds and starts to bubble and clears again
And overflowing the pot quenches the fire.
-- Bertolt Brecht
**************************************************************
Dennis Raphael, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Public Health Sciences
Graduate Department of Community Health
University of Toronto
McMurrich Building, Room 308
Toronto, Ontario, CANADA M5S 1A8
voice: (416) 978-7567
fax: (416) 978-2087
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
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