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Community & Health Studies
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Stepping
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COMMENTS
Canada’s
banks are sound. So what!
Canada’s
banks are sound, we are told. So what! Meanwhile, they
have made it clear that they ready to pour billions into these institutions,
just in case the need should arise.
Those of us who have savings and pensions invested
with these corporations can rest assured for the while. The executives of these
financial institutions are also happy because their enormous payouts are
protected. And those somnolent people on the corporate boards can continue to
collect their directors’ fees while they pretend that they are running these
companies.
In the Great Depression of the
1930’s the government also told Canadians that the banks and economy were
sound. In fact, not one Canadian bank was forced to close, while U.S. banks were
folding in massive numbers. Nevertheless, the Canadian people suffered rates of
poverty and unemployment that matched any place in the world. Families lost
their homes and farms and small businesses closed. Students dropped out of
school and sneaked onto freight cars in search of work in other locales. Public
assistance was administered in a mean and humiliating fashion, treating people
in need as suspects of wrong. Meanwhile the banks were sound.
History may have no parallels but we
do see some disturbing signs. For instance: the latest employment statistics
show a rise in employed persons, but the increase is almost entirely for
part-time workers.
Canada has a social safety net that
is supposed to help us get through hard times. Or will our federal and
provincial governments fall back on the regressive practice of cutting social
eligibility and support payments. Will
we see cuts to public programs that will increase jobless numbers? Holes have
already appeared in the social safety net and more might be on the way.
We want to have the federal
government assure us that our society is sound, and that the assurances for the
financial institution are not at the expense of jobs, health, and the well-being
of all Canadians
L.K
Respond
to this comment (up to 100 words)
Community organizing, a
real job
Barack Obama, Democratic Party
candidate for President stands accused of being a “community organizer” by
Republican Party leaders in the United States. What
a terrible accusation! They say that he never had a “real job” because he
was organizing in South End Chicago for three years before he ran for his first
political office.
According the Republicans, Community organizers, people who bring
together diverse elements of the community to establish and achieve social and
economic goals outside of the political party system, are not to be taken
seriously; or if taken seriously, should be treated with suspicion. The
Americans have a rich history of community organization who contributed much to
society.
The outstanding example of a community organizer was Harry Hopkins.
Almost 96 years ago he began his career as a worker in the Christodora House, a social settlement in New York Citiy Lower East Side.
Later, he
became president of the American Association of Social Workers.
In the depths of the depression President Roosevelt
put him charge of the first massive federal relief and works program. He
developed creative and approaches to relief and job creation and was in charge
of spending hundreds of millions of federal funds (They did not talk about
billions in those days.)
In World War II, he became the president’s personal envoy to Winston
Churchill and Joseph Stalin, taking charge of huge military and
economic aid programs to Britain and the
USSR.
In 1940 he was considered a serious contender for a presidential
nomination, which ended when FDR decided to run for a fourth term. He served
briefly as aide to President Truman. He died in 1946, in part a victim of his
own grinding work schedule. Hopkins was a major community organizer who never
held a “real job”.
In
Canada we have the example of Tommy Douglas who started out as Baptist Minister.
He was guided by the Social Gospel movement and preached that both the body and
the soul had to be served and protected. In
Weyburn, Saskatchewan he attracted attention by organizing a community of
farmers and miners that was hit by the Depression of the 1930’s. Finally, he
entered politics and became Premier of the province. Like Obama he never held a
“real job.”
L.K.
The Cuban
paradox
If good economic conditions equal good health, why
do international comparisons show that the Cuban population is ranked among the
healthiest in the world? UBC health economist Robert Evans calls this the
“Cuban Paradox”. In an article in Health Policy / Politiques de
Santé
Evans says, ”Cuba has achieved ‘first
world’ population health status despite a minimal economic base.”
Cubans
have a health status slightly below the United States, and higher than several
more prosperous European countries. Recently, a report in the Canadian
Association Medical Journal showed that in the 1990’s the health of the Cuban
population actually improved despite the desperate conditions that followed the
end of the Soviet Union support of the Cuban economy.
Today,
almost all health indicators – including longevity, and infant mortality
rates, places Cuban up there highest income countries of the world. The
health of Cuba's population matches or exceeds, on average, that of the United
States in many respects.
What
is the explanation? Evans points out that there is very little scholarship
evaluating the Cuban experience. He cites one important factor: “Cuba's
doctor-to-population ratio - 5.91 per thousand - is by a substantial margin the
highest in the world.” However,
the doctor to population ration does not explain it all. Evans points out the
there a number of other countries wealthier than Cuba have very high physician
ratios but do not achieve anything near the same results.
Evans
suggests that the Cuban health care system has unique features. He reports that
“The difference appears to be that in Cuba, primary care physician (and
nurse) teams have responsibility for the health of geographically defined
populations, not merely of those patients who come in the door. These teams are
then linked to community- and higher-level political organizations that both
hold them accountable for the health of their populations and provide them with
channels through which to influence the relevant non-medical determinants. To
take on these roles, the medico familiar integrale (MFI) is trained in
both the medical and the non-medical aspects of health.”
This
approach is similar to Community-Oriented Primary Care that has been discussed
for many years in Canada, U.S. and the United Kingdom but little has come of it.
Health care in Canada is locked into a number of professional, economic and
political compartments that would have to speak to one another to achieve the
same results at much lower costs that we now have.
“Our
societies are achieving average levels of population health that match or exceed
Cuba's, albeit at more than 10 times the cost for healthcare.” Evans adds,
”It could be worse.”
Waiting
for trouble
A self-employed person is said to have a terrible boss, one
who demands more work for less pay and allows no unions. This is important to
recognize as self-employment has grown while jobs in manufacturing have
declined.
Canada has more people employed than ever. However, many of the new jobs
are low-paying, insecure jobs in the service sector and self-employment is often
another name for job insecurity.
The increase in
self-employment could be taken to mean that Canadians are a nation of hardy
entrepreneurs, who are willing to work. However, if past experience is any
guide, self-employment usually increases when good jobs with regular hours,
better pay and benefits vanish, and there are fewer choices available. When
opportunities present themselves, most of the self-employed head back to regular
jobs.
The
romantic notion of self-employment as a way to building a solid economy with
go-getting entrepreneurs has little value. Many of the self-employed are doing
odd jobs or really working for former employers under less certain conditions.
On average, they do not earn as much as people working in manufacturing.
Employers find these irregular workers economically useful because no payments
have to be made for Employment Insurance, Canada Pension Plan, or other social
and health benefits. Labour safety and job standards can be avoided because the
employer is no longer deemed responsible.
Campaign
2000, which advocates the end of child poverty, has issued a report with the
Toronto and York Regional Labour Council that decries the loss of manufacturing
jobs in Ontario, and states that a worker who loses a full-time manufacturing
job and succeeds in finding new work will experience, on average, a 25% drop in
income. The data in the report shows that replacing a lost job in auto
manufacturing with one in retail, as auto manufacturing declines and retail
expands, would cause income to drop by two-thirds.
The
report, Work Isn’t Working for Ontario Families: The Role of Good Jobs in
Ontario’s Poverty Reduction Strategy, suggests that improving labour market
regulations, increasing unionization, maximizing the benefit of public dollars
and stimulating manufacturing for the developing global green economy are
strategies to re-build secure livelihood for Ontario citizens.
Ontario’s
expanding service sector has a very low rate of unionization, and includes much
temp agency and sub-contracted work that operates outside the reach of existing
labour standards legislation.
According
to the report, workers are toiling more and longer hours, but the increase in
non-standard or precarious work – that is part-time and contract jobs with low
pay, little or no benefit coverage or security – leaves many Ontario families
struggling with poverty.
Canada has
many jobs that need to done and can be done under better working conditions.
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty is trying to encourage an Italian auto
manufacturer to move some of its operations to Ontario to replace jobs lost in
the province’s huge auto industry. To succeed, the provincial government will
have to offer considerable inducements at the public’s expense. We wish him
success in his efforts but we see it as maintaining Ontario’s huge
concentration (perhaps over concentration) in one highly vulnerable industry. It
does not face the new requirements of a changing world.
Ontario certainly needs more manufacturing. One proposal in the Campaign
2000 report is for more “green industries” which can be achieved by beefing
up environmental protection laws so as to provide a local market that will serve
as the base for a major new area of manufacturing.
However,
there are other areas of society that require our attention. We have tremendous
social development deficits, both in physical facilities and programs. Our
deficits in education, health and social services have built up over many years.
They could and should be among our biggest employers, much larger than they are
now. They should be seen as major investments in society that can only bring
long-term economic benefits. We have been stingy with our efforts in these areas
and the need to act now is self-evident.
Recently,
we viewed a series on American public television about U.S. presidents. In one
program, we saw a spiritless President Herbert Hoover in 1932 claiming that the
American economic system was sound, taxes were low, and the budget balanced. He
blamed the economic problems of the time on the “world depression.” He saw
no need for government activity because a bright future was ahead as the economy
turned itself around. Within months of this statement, 500 banks closed and the
unemployment rate reached 33%. Hoover went down as a failed president.
Hoover’s statement sounds eerily familiar. echoing those made by
Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and other conservative public finance
experts. He boasts that he has cut taxes, balanced the budget and blames
Canada’s problems on conditions in the United States. He says the economy is
sound and it will turn itself around. No additional government action is needed.
We disagree; inaction is not and option. History tells that
waiting for things to happen is waiting for
trouble.
— L.K.
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