The Ontario Health Coalition's open letter to the Premier 
August 11, 2010
 Attn: Premier Dalton McGuinty, 
   
We are writing in support of the findings of the Ontario Ombudsman in his report released yesterday, “LHIN Spin”.  We are very disappointed to see the comments of the Health Minister today in response. Yet again the Ministry of Health is refusing to listen to legitimate concerns raised about your government’s hospital cuts and LHINs.  
The findings of the ombudsman are just a fraction of the major decision-making problems we have witnessed in the hospital restructuring of the last few years. In fact, the Ontario Health Coalition held a set of cross-province hearings last spring. Our non-partisan panel included representatives active in every major political party. It was comprised of doctors, health professionals, and nurses, and representatives of every geographic region of the province. More than 1,150 people attended our hearings and we received almost 500 written and oral submissions. Based on these, our panel was unanimous in our findings about the LHINs and hospital restructuring as follows: 
“In particular, we determined that the LHINs are so lacking in public confidence, so flawed in their size and confused in their mandate, that we have recommended that the province change direction and create new accountable regional planning bodies closer to home with a principled and clear mandate. We also determined that hospital planning is so erratic, so short-term and short-sighted, that the risk of closure of needed services in small and rural hospitals is now very high. As a result, we have heeded the many calls from communities to recommend that the province set standards for hospital services and distance to care.” To see the full report and recommendations, go to www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca 
  
In our hearings we heard of shockingly undemocratic behaviour by LHINs as they made decisions to cut and close local hospital services. Almost without exception the mayors, reeves and municipal government officials that appeared before our hearings testified that they were not consulted about major changes to their local hospitals. Local health professionals have also been cut out. The communities affected have been ignored. We included in the report many examples of unwarranted secrecy and poor decision-making. In every case of major restructuring that we have seen, LHINs failed to get a full costing of the renovations and restructuring costs that would be entailed in the cuts and closures they have approved. In every case, the LHINs have made decisions without full information and have failed to obtain a full assessment of the services lost and the impacts on access to care for the local communities. 
   
Premier McGuinty, we cannot overstate to you the depth of public animosity at the LHINs and the deep hospital service cuts that are happening in every region of Ontario. The public sees LHINs hiring expensive consultants to write reports with forgone conclusions. They see exorbitant salaries both within the hospitals and in the ever-growing LHIN staff forces. They see tiers upon tiers of administration. At the same time, they are watching their local nurses and front-line hospital support staff being laid off. They are seeing hospital services needed by thousands of local residents cut and their small local hospitals gutted. The public sees lots of PR and spin, but they see that it is wasting our public money to cover up irrational and poor decision-making. The current health restructuring in Ontario is entirely out of keeping with the public’s values and priorities. 
   
We are requesting a full and proper response to the ombudsman’s findings and the concerns we have raised as follows: 
The fact that the Ministry of Health has belatedly removed the illegal by-laws adopted by their appointees in the LHINs does not go far enough. Your government should cease to delay a full review of the LHINs as is required in your government’s own LHINs legislation. This review cannot merely consist of a consultant’s report – it must include full public consultation including municipalities and local health advocates that have experience trying to work with the LHINs. 
The Ministry of Health must conduct a full review of recent LHIN decisions that have resulted in deep cuts to needed hospital care including the following:
                                 I.      Your government must heed the call of the municipalities, MPPs, physicians, nurses, and all public interest health care groups in Niagara to send an Investigator under the Public Hospitals Act into the Niagara Health System to evaluate and re-assess the restructuring plan that has resulted in the closure of emergency and acute care hospital services in Port Colborne and Fort Erie and ongoing cuts in Welland and Niagara Falls. In our cross-province consultations we found among the worst areas in the province for access to hospital care in Niagara. Patients and families reported that they have waited in some cases four days in emergency departments on stretchers. Nurses, paramedics and physicians described conditions as unsafe and in crisis. 
                               II.      Similarly, the decision to push through major cuts and restructuring that has been opposed by physicians, nurses, support workers, community groups and patients alike in Hamilton must also be reviewed and re-evaluated with full public consultation. 
                             III.      Your government must evaluate and consult with the public on recent decisions by LHINs in Peterborough and Cobourg to force through deep hospital cuts that affect access to vital hospital care. In Cobourg the cuts have deprived thousands of residents access to Canada Health Act covered rehabilitation services and diabetes care. In Peterborough, the LHIN has just approved a draconian set of hospital cuts without ever requiring the hospital to outline the impact of cutting 182 nurses and front-line support staff on hospital services, including how many hospital beds would be rendered unusable as a result, nor how many diagnostic tests would be cut. 
   
Our local hospitals and access to vital public health care services are priority public issues in every community across Ontario. We sincerely hope that you take the opportunity to re-evaluate the priorities and poor decisions we are seeing in our health system. 
   
Sincerely,  Natalie Mehra 
Director 
Ontario Health Coalition
15 Gervais Drive, Suite 305
Toronto, ON M3C 1Y8
www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca
416-441-2502

Statement by the Canadian Labour Congress on G20 Summit Police Actions
OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - June 30, 2010) - The Canadian Labour Congress supports the call of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and other organizations for an independent inquiry into the actions of the police during the G8 and G20 summits.
The G20 summit in Toronto on June 27 and 28 was an opportunity for us to tell our politicians that the needs of workers, of citizens, and the environment must take precedence over the greed of global finance and global corporations.
Our People First Rally on June 27 brought over 30,000 people to Toronto, to the official demonstration area at Queen's Park, and along a parade route negotiated with security officials. By all accounts – including the police – labour's rally was a peaceful demonstration with hundreds of volunteer marshals from the labour movement ensuring we had a successful event.
Unfortunately our successful and peaceful demonstration was overshadowed by the actions of small numbers of individuals unrelated to our event, who committed serious acts of vandalism.
The Canadian Labour Congress quickly and publicly deplored those actions, which undermined the efforts of labour and civil society to ensure our voices were heard.
Reports of peaceful demonstrators, exercising their democratic rights of expression and free assembly, being rounded up and detained in mass arrests are cause for concern. We are further disturbed by the revelations that the Ontario government passed in secret an amendment of the Public Works Protection Act that did not meet Canadian constitutional standards and resulted in inappropriate use of police powers to arrest and detain individuals for recognized legal activities.
It is the responsibility of our governments to ensure Canadians know exactly what transpired during this security operation, and that police will be held accountable if mistakes were made. We call on the federal and provincial governments to conduct an independent inquiry into security during the 2010 G8 and G20 summits.
The Canadian Labour Congress, the national voice of the labour movement, represents 3.2 million Canadian workers. The CLC brings together Canada's national and international unions along with the provincial and territorial federations of labour and 130 district labour councils. Web site: www.canadianlabour.ca
For more information, please contact
Dennis Gruending
613-526-7431
613-878-6040

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Statement-by-the-Canadian-Labour-Congress-on-G20-Summit-Police-Actions-1284594.htm

Migrant Morkers March to Canada's Embassy in Mexico City

Workers call for stop to exploitation of migrant workers on Canadian farms under federal government s Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program
Under the flags of the Agriculture Workers Alliance, more than 300 Mexican migrant farm workers descended on the Canadian embassy in Mexico City on June 15, to denounce their working and living conditions as migrant agriculture workers in Canada under the federal government s Seasonal Agriculture Workers Program (SAWP).
The protest parade started at the Tamayo Museum, marched down Reforma Avenue and arrived at the front steps of the Canadian embassy, where the workers demanded a complete reform of SAWP which currently leaves workers vulnerable to abuse, exploitation and unsafe living and working conditions.
The peaceful protest brought together both current and veteran members of SAWP fields who sang on the steps of the embassy together –  No more fear, no more discrimination: equality and justice for migrant workers.
In Canada the government doesn t listen. Neither does the consulate. They pretend the problems with SAWP don t exist, said a worker at the Mexico City protest. But the abuse is real and we know it .
Under SAWP, migrant agriculture workers are typically paid minimum wage and are often subject to working and housing conditions that Canadian residents would find intolerable. SAWP workers have historically been hesitant to report dangerous working conditions or hostile employers for fear of being sent home or blacklisted from returning the next season.
Canada says SAWP is a model program but the model is broken, says Andrea Galvez, the co-ordinator of the Agriculture Workers Alliance (AWA) in Quebec, who joined the workers in Mexico City for the protest.  These workers have come from all over Mexico today to tell the real story about SAWP and the changes needed to make it a fair system for everyone.
While protest songs and traditional music filled the air, the protesters distributed pamphlets describing those changes: the right to have a voice in negotiating their working and living conditions; stepped up enforcement of health and safety regulations; respecting all the human and labour rights that every worker in Canada is guaranteed under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, including the right to unionize.
Every year more than 15,000 Mexican workers come to Canada under SAWP. For three decades UFCW Canada has led the campaign for justice for migrant and domestic agriculture workers in Canada. In partnership with the Agriculture Workers Alliance (AWA), UFCW Canada operates ten AWA worker support centres across Canada.