Alliance of Seniors to Protect Canada's Social Programs
Notice of Meetings
Location: Circle of Care
530 Wilson Ave., 3rd floor, North York
Time:9:30 a.m. Sharp
General Meetings
March 17, 2006
April 28, 2006
May 26, 2006
June 23, 2006
Other Upcoming Events
Senior's Town Hall Consultation
Federal Election post mortem
Brought to you courtesy of the Alliance of Seniors
Thursday Afternoon March 23, 2006
Toronto City Hall
Alliance Forum
DATE: Wednesday Afternoon May 10, 2006
Topic: Medicare at the Crossroads
Toronto City Hall
OCSCO
Future Activities to be Announced
Future activities to be Announced
Association of Jewish Seniors
Future Activities to be Announced e.g. Passover
VIEW POINTS
Through Rose-Coloured Glasses
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Public Private Partnerships (P3's) now known as ALTERNATIVE FINANCING AND PROCUREMENT (AFP) are now being tendered for hospitals e.g. Brampton, Ontario. They will be designed, built, owned and operated by for profit corporations and leased back to the public under a hefty multi-decade lease. This will include building new roads, bridges, schools and transit systems.
The end result would be that our tax dollars paid for the public
infastructure more than twice over, yet we the public would not own it.
Lets ensure that our infastructures are publicly financed and operated
on a non profit basis.
We urge you to write, telephone or visit your M.P. and/or M.P.P. and in addition send letters to your newspapers.
The Alliance's Speakers Bureau will be pleased to address your group on various health issues
e.g. Primary Health Care, Long Term Care etc
For additional information or to book a speaking engagement please contact
Al Gorlick at 416-635-8819
Having Problems with Provincial Government Services
Contact Ombudsman Ontario
Telephone 1-800-263-1830
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Your comments, questions, ideas and opinions are important!
Some Interesting Links
Go to: Alliance of Seniors to Protect Canada's Social Programs
Go to: OCSCO
Go to: Elder Connections
Go to: Ontario Health Coalition
Go to: Older Womens Network
Go to :Ontario Electricity Coalition
Go to: The Counsel of Canadians
National Reports and News Links
Ottawa to hire 300 new auditors
Flu pandemic could raise "World Survival Issues"
Regular winter forecast good news for Ontario
I don't approve of building windfarms, they ruin the landscape.
Letters to the Editor: Really Want to Repeat the Bruce Deal?
John Manley say's that leasing the Bruce Nuclear plant to private firms is a model that has worked. What nonsense! What happened at the Bruce is this. The Government privatized the profits but kept public the debt, the risks and the pollution. It was a fabulous deal for private companies but a rip off for the people of Ontario. The profits at the Bruce are almost equal to the debt caused by the electricity market and the rate cap.
The Bruce was given away for almost nothing. The Debt was hived off to the public and appears on your bill as a Hydro debt payment. The risk is assumed two ways by the public. First if there is an accident at the Bruce, the company is only on the hook for $75 million. The standing joke is that wouldnÕt even pay for the lawyers fees.
When the lease expires in 16 years, the Bruce consortium and their mega profits simply walk away and the people of Ontario are left with the massive cost of cleaning up or decommissioning the nuclear plant. It cost billions to build it and it will cost billions to take it apart and store the radioactive waste, which by the way has to be stored for thousands of years safely. Is this a deal you want to repeat?
Paul
Kahnert
Spokesperson
Ontario Electricity Coalition
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." -- Margaret Mead
Through Rose-Coloured Glasses Articles by Jerry Rose
Subject:
"According to Hoy" in July,2005 issue, Forever Young
In your July, 2005, issue, Claire Hoy calls for Canadians to "get their collective heads out of the sand." This is surprising coming from a journalist whose head has been buried in the sands of antiquity during all his writing years. Credit him for being consistent. He has consistently opposed every progressive (dare I use that word?) trend that Canadians have enthusiastically endorsed. He now advocates 2-tier medicine, which has been firmly rejected by Canadians in their overwhelming support of the Romanow Report. Canadians are so enthusiastic in their support of publicly funded health care that in a recent poll they chose Tommy Douglas, former NDP Premier of Saskatchewan and recognized as the father of socialized medicine in Canada, as the "Greatest Canadian."
By Mr. Hoy's own admission, health policy analysts in an article in the respected "Canadian Medical Association Journal" confirm that allowing for-profit hospitals to take delivery of health care would substantially increase health care costs. No, Mr. Hoy, Jack Layton, whom the Globe and Mail -- a conservative newspaper -- acclaimed as the most effective party leader in the last session of Parliament, is not alone in his determination to oppose the concept that the rich should be able to jump the queue and get better health care than the average Canadian.
Again, no, Mr. Hoy, 2-tier, for-profit health care will not give us more doctors, or more hospital beds, or more chemotherapy, catscan or MRI technicians. On the contrary, private clinics would only syphon off present health care personnel to service the upper echelon of society at the expense of the majority -- and at a much greater cost to over-all health services. Every survey I've seen indicates that public health, delivered without profit, is considerably less costly. I challenge Mr. Hoy to prove his claim to the contrary.
True, there are problems with our present medicare system. But Mr. Hoy's cure is worse than the disease. Part of the answer would be special subsidies for students entering medicine and willing to spend a three-year period in under-serviced communities, a more efficient integration of foreign-trained doctors into our medical service plus the financing the building of new hospitals and the expansion of existing ones, not through private for-profit involvement but through government public bonds that would finance such projects at a much lower cost. While I usually disagree with Mr. Hoy's professed opinions, I quote Voltaire: I disapprove of what you say, but will fight to the death your right to say it."
May I suggest that an excellent publication such as "Forever Young" should, in all fairness to seniors, also feature an additional column with a more liberal view to counteract the extreme right-wing opinions in "According to Hoy.
J. Gerald Rose
80 Front St. East, Suite 518,
Toronto, ON M5E 1T4
(416) 363-0634
Subject: Forever Young Feb ColumnTHROUGH ROSE-COLOURED GLASSES
by Jerry Rose
"Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink" first appeared in the writings of the 19th century poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. A saying much used since, it is more relevant today, in this the 21st century.
Water through the ages has been both a major source of sustenance as well as a force of ruin and destruction. Floods have been recorded as early as biblical times in the story of Noah's ark. Noah was pre-warned and took action. Not so in more recent water catastrophes.
For starters, let's examine some of the most noteworthy water tragedies within this century: Katrina, Walkerton and Kashechewan. Although we cannot possibly compare the tragedy of Katrina with Walkerton or Kashechewan, all three are water-related.
First, Katrina. On-the-spot coverage by the media of this horrific catastrophe brought us vivid details much better than I possibly can. I reacted immediately with empathy and a donation. But then a terrible thought occurred to me. Could this disaster have been prevented? Was this an act of nature? Of God? Or of man's callousness towards other human beings?
The tragedy of the New Orleans catastrophe was predicted in uncanny detail in an article by Joel K. Bourne Jr. in the October, 2004, issue of the National Geographic. The article foretold with incredible detail the destruction of the city and the death of thousands, including those who drowned and those who perished from dehydration and disease as they waited to be rescued.
We have since learned that the reason for the inexcusable lack of immediate response was due to the fact that the Bush-appointed head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) did not have the background nor the experience for such an appointment. Bush, himself, was inexcusably tardy in his response and is further responsible for ignoring numerous requests for federal funding for the building of stronger levees, as recommended by the Army Corps Engineers, in favour of tax reductions for the wealthy.
Now let's go back to May, 2000, to Walkerton. Seven people died and 2300 became seriously ill (many still in poor health) due to E. coli bacteria in their drinking water. The Ontario Government's privatization of provincial water-testing laboratories and the consequent changes in reporting procedures in order to save funds for tax-cutting, the incompetence of the poorly educated and trained manager of the Public Utilities Commission, and Premier Mike Harris' turning his back on the warnings of the Chief Medical Officer of Ontario at the time, all contributed to this terrible tragedy.
Kashechewan, the most recent water-related scandal is also worth examining. Although E. coli bacteria was not the direct cause of reported skin diseases, contaminated water did contribute to illnesses, according to Dr. Chris Mazza, who oversaw the Emergency Medical Assessment Team that treated the residents of Kashechewan.
This highlights the fact that Ontario's aboriginal communities are plagued with poor drinking water and that according to a Status Report on the province's native communities, 30% of the Reserves operate under boil-water advisories, warning the residents that their water is not fit for drinking or cooking. This is another example of government -- both federal and provincial -- neglect and/or indifference.
Let us now consider new warnings about water that require government involvement before it is too late. The world is facing a terrible shortage of water. According to a United Nations report, by the year 2025, two-thirds of the world's population will be living in conditions of serious water shortages. As of now, 31 countries are facing water stress and scarcity. "We'd like to believe there's an infinite supply of water on the planet, but this assumption is tragically false. Available fresh water amounts to less than one-half of 1% of all water on earth. The rest is sea water or is frozen in the polar ice," says the report.
Even the water of our own Great Lakes, which harbour about 20% of the world's fresh water, is not infinite. Only 1% of the Lakes' water is renewed each year. Taking out more than 1% threatens the water levels and ecosystems. Our population growth indicates that we will be using more than 1% per year.
In the face of this almost certain water shortage, the pressure to privatize water and consider it a commodity like oil is being waged with tenacity by transnational corporations, who see billions in potential profits in the packaging and selling of water, as well as in diverting Canadian waters to U.S. states threatened with water shortages. "At some stage," warns Peter Lougheed, former premier of Alberta, "Washington is going to read the small print in the Free Trade Agreement and think they have claims to our fresh water."
We have reason to be concerned about protecting our fresh water supply. Numerous proposals have already been presented to divert water from Lake-of-the-Woods in Northern Ontario, to the Dakotas. One of the largest proposed diversions would reroute water from the Nelson River in Northern Manitoba to the U.S. border.
Canada must declare water to be a human right and not a commodity to be bought and sold in order to flow profits to transcontinental corporations. Though numerous conferences have been held by water and environmental experts and many articles have appeared in both Canadian and U.S. publications, the water issue has not seeped down to the public at large. For the sake of our grandchildren, we must become better informed and speak up now. Twenty-five years from now may be too late.