Category: Main Blog Page 2 of 6

8,430 Canadians have died from COVID19 in Canada. They are family and friends, not just a number. The News Media has helped us keep up with the information and presented how Seniors, Minorities and people in low-income neighbourhoods are more likely to be harmed by COVID19.

Cases continue to rise in Ontario and Quebec, the two provinces that have accounted for a majority of Canada’s death toll and caseload ever since the pandemic began. Living in Ontario prior to COVID we were fighting back against the Ford’s government cuts to education, social services. People are out on the streets for Black Lives in Ontario, a good issue to promote a better society. What about being out protesting for “Seniors in LTC Lives Matter.”

Authorities have revealed that postal code data shows people in minority and low-income areas of Ontario are three times more likely to test positive than predominantly white and wealthy neighbourhoods. https://www.thestar.com/politics/provincial/2020/06/15/six-new-outbreaks-of-covid-19-in-ontario-nursing-homes.html.

Ontario has the highest number of for-profit care homes in Canada, with 57% of the more than 600 facilities owned or managed by for-profits with 17% fewer workers. Residents of for-profit nursing homes in Ontario are far more likely to be infected with COVID-19 and die than those who live in non-profit and municipally-run homes. Long-term care is the front line of Canada’s battle with COVID-19, accounting for as many as four out of every five deaths – https://www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca/index.php/for-profit-nursing-homes-have-four-times-as-many-covid-19-deaths-as-city-run-homes-star-analysis-finds/ Ontario’s home care system provides care to more than 730,000 Ontarians.

Doug Ford and his PC government are moving ahead with their new home and community care legislation. The new regime set out for home and community care dismantles most if not all public governance of home care. All remaining publicly owned & controlled home care would be transferred to an array of provider organizations including for-profit and non-profit organizations. The legislation is permissive, repealing the previous Home Care and Community Services Act and enabling the provider organizations to structure, contract, subcontract & run home care in an array of different ways that they would develop themselves. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aQpch2pYj3Utx7qdQ2CY5RO1lP2mcVSz/view In May, the Toronto Star reported that “three of the largest for-profit nursing home operators in Ontario, which have had disproportionately high numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths, have together paid out more than $1.5 billion in dividends to shareholders over the last decade.” Mike Harris( former PC Premier) has profited a lot from his part-time boardroom-based job with Chartwell. According to the Toronto Star, he was paid $229,500 last year. https://canadians.org/analysis/mike-harris-raking-profits-long-term-care-system-he-helped-create

As I was reading the news about COVID19 and LTC – it seemed distant. People’s lives are in danger and it has become a back page issue. Why are we becoming numb to the deaths in Canada and around the world? This is ageism. Are we upset about racism, LGBTQ injustices but not about ageism?

As Canadians, we need to ask this question – why are people who are unable to care for themselves, those who live in minority and low-income areas have a higher number of deaths in Ontario? Are we advocating for them? Write to your MPP in Ontario https://www.ola.org/en/get-involved/contact-mpp – send them an email !!!! as an MPP should help their constituents with petitions or raise this issue with the government. Doug Ford- Help us understand why you are not acting in the best interest of Ontario, but in the best interest of Mike Harris?

Canada is like a cappuccino – white on top, brown and blacks on the bottom – requires stirring up

by Merle Jacobs

On 14 June 2020

In Main Blog

Apart from the treatment of First Nations in Canada, Canadian Black racism goes back to 1793 when Britain gave legal protection to slavery by an Imperial Act that permitted the entry into Canada of “Negroes”. Canadians often romanticize their role in aiding runaway slaves but they were subjected to racist policies.

Chinese labourers in Canada were subject to horrific working conditions, they were paid one-quarter of the wages of “white” workers and there was the head tax. The uprooting of Japanese Canadians in 1942 and incarcerated in jails and internment camps, were forced to work and had their property confiscated, while South Asian Canadians were denied the franchise, unable to enter professional occupations, had restricted property rights and were subjected to discrimination in housing. https://www.crrf-fcrr.ca/images/stories/pdf/ePubFaShLegRac.pdf

In recent years we saw a shift away from interest in true race relations, especially Anti Black Racism in favour of addressing the patterns of systemic or endemic racial disparities, as well as Diversity within a Multiculturalism framework within Canada. In 2000& 2007, I published and stated the following;
“Diversity training for hospital staff and the nursing profession was viewed as a method to cultivate a climate of tolerance. Occupational culture guides and interprets the tasks and social relations of work. Anti-racist knowledge instead of diversity training may have changed the culture that exists within the profession and in the work environment. The system is Euro-centric in training in spite of the diversity of the population.” “Perhaps since guns and violence have brought racism back to the surface in Toronto in 2006, we may see these researchers jump on the bandwagon and engage in studying racism in nursing. We know, however, that since the 1980s, racialised scholars such as Wilson Head (1985) and even the Ontario Hospital Association (1994) have discussed racism in the hospital system.” Jacobs (2007) The Cappuccino Principle: Health, Culture and Social Justice in the Workplace. Ontario: de Sitter Publication. All these discussions and studies inform us that change did not occur even within the Health Care system.

In general, as early as 1985 adverse or systemic effects of racism have been acknowledged in Canada, for example in a Supreme Court decision (OHRC v. Simpson-Sears 1985 (2 S.C.R. 536); see Black, 2004). Beck, Reitz and Weiner (2002) have, however, lamented that the 1996 amendments to the Canadian Human Rights Act and federal Equal Employment Act have actually weakened accountability for systemic discrimination.

In the same year, 1985, Ontario’s Equal Opportunity Plan rescinded the first provincial employment equity act in Canada, putting the onus on individuals, employers, unions, professional and other tribunals to address discrimination, with the result that enormous sums of health care dollars are being used to settle racial disputes out of view of the public eye with few accountability mechanisms in place to either prevent or de-escalate conflict (Hagey et al, 2005).

The social reproductions of institutionalized injustice, notably the ethos of white superiority exist today. The silent voices of the “racialised” others speak loudly to the dominant culture of compliance that is protected in self-serving professions and groups.

These past few weeks we have been talking about Millennials and Gen Zs who are out on the streets of the USA and Canada with a reawakening of civil rights and social justice within the framing of Black Lives Matter. If this is a moment in North America, accountability must be a key factor, as well as true policy actions around Anti Black Racism. Unlike researchers who at times discuss social phenomena as only that which is observed, we know social phenomena is also experienced. Observation enables critical reflection to become clear to the observer. This is one of the reasons that so many different racial groups are on the streets for 18 days demanding that “Black Lives Matter” is critically reflecting on structures that influence our day-to-day lives such as policing and statues.

In order to understand the groups today in North America streets when watching TV, remember that they are named according to their birth years. As of 2020, the breakdown by birth years looks like this:
Baby Boomers: Baby boomers were born between 1944 and 1964. They’re current between 56-76 years old Gen X: Gen X was born between 1965 – 1979 and are currently between 41-55 years old –Gen Y: Gen Y, or Millennials, were born between 1980 and 1994. They are currently between 26-40 years old –Gen Z: Gen Z is the newest generation to be named and were born between 1995 and 2015. They are currently between 5-25 years old. Baby Boomers were on the streets in 1968 – it is their grandchildren who are protesting today.

The general public only understands what they view and read via the media/social media. Thus the politics underlying how decisions are made concerning civil rights is in their focus since ” I cannot breath” came to their attention. In addition, given that people in the streets are getting their voices heard via media and we are discussing this for the past 18 days within our own circles is significant. We live in a culture that has allowed brutality, be it racial or otherwise to exist since the founding of Canada. Advocacy can be advanced for those of us who are watching those in the streets. We can write to our MPs to make structural and policy changes that would make Canada an equitable society.
https://www.ourcommons.ca/members/en/search

As Martin Luther King Jr. admonished, “…our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

Black Lives Matter – Canada: Do we need to Educate New Canadians?

by Merle Jacobs

On 5 June 2020

In Main Blog

Did you know in Canada?
The first recorded black person to set foot on land now known as Canada was a free man named Mathieu da Costa. Travelling with navigator Samuel de Champlain, de Costa arrived in Nova Scotia sometime between 1603 and 1608.

Black slaves arrived in Canada only towards the end of the seventeenth century. In the early 17th century, French colonizers in New France began the practice of chattel slavery. People were treated as personal property that could be bought, sold, traded and inherited. The first slaves in New France were Indigenous peoples a large percentage of whom came from the Pawnee Nation located in present-day Nebraska, Oklahoma and Kansas. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/black-enslavement Slavery continued after the British conquest of New France in 1763. The territory was eventually renamed British North America, and Black enslaved people came to replace Indigenous enslaved people. Compared to the United States, enslaved people made up a much smaller population in British North America. https://humanrights.ca/story/the-story-of-slavery-in-canadian-history

The Ontario Human Rights Commission in 2020:
“The Code prohibits discrimination on several grounds related to race. These include mainly the grounds of colour, ethnic origin, ancestry, place of origin, citizenship and creed (religion). Depending on the circumstances, discrimination based on race may cite race alone or may include one or more related grounds. Each of these grounds is also discussed separately below. The ground of race can encompass the meaning of all of the related grounds, and any other characteristic that is racialized and used to discriminate. In practice, all grounds that may have been factors in a person’s experience should be cited if a human rights claim is made.”

Although it may be helpful to many, this long definition does not address the discrimination that occurs to Black Lives, even from those who can claim discrimination under the same act.

I remember in 2014, the case of a young black man who spoke up about his treatment at a Chinese Restaurant.
You can read this racist act that occurred in Toronto if you Google Emile Wickham.

“In the early hours of May 3, 2014, Emile Wickham and three of his friends went out to eat in downtown Toronto for Wickham’s birthday. The group chose to celebrate at Hong Shing Chinese Restaurant, a mainstay in the area for nearly two decades, in part because they saw other people eating there at that hour.

The group was seated and ordered food, but a waiter told them they would need to pay upfront for their meals before they could be served. It was the restaurant’s policy, he said.” https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/business/article/A-black-man-was-forced-to-pay-upfront-at-a-12875510.php

Wickham and his friends discovered they were the only ones that had been asked to provide money upfront. Also the only black diners at the restaurant. A Toronto Star profile of the restaurant published in 2017 named Mr. Li as the son of Ron and Ann, an immigrant couple from Guangzhou, China who opened the restaurant in 1997. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-toronto-restaurant-ordered-to-pay-10000-after-asking-black-customers/

This went to the Human Rights Commission of Ontario in November 2015, and Mr. Wickham in 2018 received $10,000. Roger Love, a lawyer with the Human Rights Legal Support Centre who represented Mr. Wickham, said, “it’s a common misconception that anti-black racism occurs only at the hands of white individuals and that many cases his office handles to deal with racialized perpetrators.”

“Unfortunately, there’s the notion that some races are more valued than others and often the idea is that blacks are the least worthy,” he said. “So whoever else feels like they’re above a black person on that hierarchy can subject black people to anti-black racism.”

“Toronto lawyer Selwyn Pieters said he doesn’t know how prevalent experiences like Mr. Wickham’s are because though it is widely reported that black people experience profiling, they face many barriers in seeking justice: the human-rights complaints process can be difficult to navigate, lawyers are expensive and cases that deal with race are often very difficult to establish and prove, he said.”

How do we teach Anti-Black Racism to New Canadians? Racism has a long history in Canada, starting with our Indigenous First Nations. New Canadians can learn the stigmas that exist, and it is this concern that I raise the question: how do we educate New Canadians before they get these learned behaviours which they can learn from their interactions within the system and with other Canadians.

You can read Ontario’s https://files.ontario.ca/ar-2002_anti-black_racism_strategy_en.pdf, but there is nothing in this strategy that educates New Canadians. Perhaps Mr. Floyd’s murder in the USA, which has brought the message to Canada, can help all of us. This is a moment for all of us. If we do not make the needed changes, who will?

Maybe we do not need education for New Canadians but recognizing the United NationsInternational Decade for People of African Descent (2015–2024) to formally acknowledge that people of African descent represent a distinct group whose rights must be promoted and protected in Canada.
Promoting these rights and educating all Canadians that Anit Black Racism is long-standing and different from the wider understandings of Racism which is also painful. Listen to this tweet from

Cameron Welch who took to TikTok to share the rules his mom makes him follow as a young black man in America. https://abcn.ws/36YkUHM

I have heard the same rules given by Black Canadian parents to their children in Toronto.

After listening to Cameron Welch, and reading Canda’s history, I rest my case that Anti Black Racism is different from the Racism that I have experienced both Systemic and in my everyday life.

In Canada, we say that it is from the Bible that helped structure our laws due to the early settlers. The following states:
God cares how we treat each other because we’re all created in His image (Genesis 1:27). He makes no distinction between the inherent value of one race or ethnicity over another.

God cares about people regardless of their ethnicity, nationality, and social status (Deuteronomy 10:17-19).

Apart from policing, let’s address Black Racism via the Social Determinants of health.https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/health-promotion/population-health/what-determines-health.html

Canada and COVID19

by Merle Jacobs

On 29 May 2020

In Main Blog

COVID19 has been with us since March 2020 and many of us have been physically distancing, working from home and feel isolated. The TV, Zoom, Netflix has become our best friends.

Having read articles, and listened to our PM on what our government is doing for us, I decided to place some links for you to follow if you need Mental Health advice or if you know a student or are a student who needs financial help. I hope this helps.

Mental Health

https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/topics/mental-health-wellness.html

https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/2019-novel-coronavirus-infection/mental-health.html

Student aid

https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/education/student-aid.html

https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/benefits/emergency-student-benefit.html

https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/news/2020/04/support-for-students-and-recent-graduates-impacted-by-covid-19.html

Mike Sloan (@mikelondoncan) · Twitter – My tribute

by Merle Jacobs

On 10 January 2020

In Main Blog

A tribute is something that you say, or write that shows your admiration, gratitude, and also to show respect.

I have been following Mike on Twitter who has taught me to laugh in spite of death knocking at his door. He is wise and I want to pay him a small tribute for his life while he is still living in London Ontario. Every day I go to his twitter account to find out how he is doing and then find that he has posted the progress of his illness and then a witty post. His cat is important and I understand the role of our four-legged family who are there with us in time of need. Thank you, Mike, for allowing so many of us into your world and sharing so many meaningful insights into what is going on in this stage of your life.

Please read this that appeared on CTV and remember to live each day.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/lifestyle/he-was-a-grouch-on-twitter-until-he-learned-he-s-got-months-to-live-1.4750340

Ontario Premier Doug Ford – watch his actions

by Merle Jacobs

On 29 January 2019

In Main Blog

Jordan B Peterson

✔ @jordanbpeterson

The faster the Ontario Human Rights Commission is abolished, the better @fordnation. There isn’t a more dangerous organization in Canada, with the possible exception of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education: http://j.mp/2C7nuhf pic.twitter.com/4zsh8tfdb9

600

1:55 PM – Oct 10, 2018

Seems like Doug Ford listens to the people- like Jordan B Peterson who was calling for the Human Rights Commission to be abolished.

“The Ford government ordered Ontario’s universities and colleges last summer to put in place policies by the end of 2018 guaranteeing free speech, or they would face funding cuts.”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/doug-ford-jordan-peterson-meeting-appointment-1.4992909

Political nastiness in Canada – Ontario as an example: Ford’s cutting government & open for Business

by Merle Jacobs

On 31 October 2018

In Main Blog

Open for Business – or cutting $ for those who are not making ends meet? The nastiness toward the population who these MPs and MPPs have been elected to serve and whose taxes pay their salaries must be checked. We the citizens cannot let the political nastiness they inflict have us voicing the words they use – when discussing the ‘other’ political parties and on Social Media making everyone who has another view the ‘other’ with put down quotes.

Changing the direction of society OR as our talking heads like to state – “the country” is really about changing everyday living and our lives. The power in the hands of a few – in Ontario the 75 members of the PC Party to shape our lives without a care says more about us citizens then the 75, names we cannot remember most of the time. These 75 think they own Ontario and do not act like care takers of a province that they will leave in 4 years.

We in Ontario must hold them accountable daily by making our voices heard in their offices, by email or letters. Advocacy works.

When liked minded people get together with people who have different views – it is the ability to give and take that will bring the group to an understandings of an issue and outcomes rather than leaving it up to 75 politicians who in their dreams think the majority voted for them. You may not get everything that you want on most issues but like most families who usually has to compromise when major issues are discussed, we have to do the same negotiations. Until we see each other as part the Canadian family – we will see those who do not see eye to eye with us as the other.

The issue now can have at least 3 key messages to discuss with each MPP/MP usually on a Friday when you can request a meeting as you are part of the Riding they serve. At the meeting have a letter signed by the group, take 2 other members of your group with you. MPPs and MPs need to know that they cannot hold us, citizens, hostage because we do not have a high priced Lobbyist to lobby the government for us. Imagine if these small groups multiplied and communicated with each other not as PCs, Liberals, or NDPs but as Canadians who wanted the best for Canada and Canadians. Large groups with their size lobby the government who will pander to them. But then they are only looking out for their group and do not speak for the all of us who wish to have input into government. Working together to make change is important or we are allowing 75 mostly power-hungry politicians who owe their power to large contributors to make policies that affect our lives. Social Media is a place to let off steam and amounts to nothing. Change occurs only when agency is taken back by the citizens. Politicians come and go – we the citizen pay the horrific price when society fails.

How do we stop this current horrible Nastiness? This is one idea of how healing the political debate and taking back control of policies can occur – I am sure there are more ideas out there.

Trust and its determinants -OECD Statistics Working Papers

by Merle Jacobs

On 31 October 2018

In Main Blog

This is a good read.

https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/economics/trust-and-its-determinants_869ef2ec-en

This paper describes the results of an international initiative on trust (Trustlab) run in six OECD countries between November 2016 and November 2017 (France, Germany, Italy, Korea, Slovenia and the United States). Trustlab combines cutting-edge techniques drawn from behavioural science and experimental economics with an extensive survey on the policy and contextual determinants of trust in others and trust in institutions, administered to representative samples of participants. The main results are as follows: 1) Self-reported measures of trust in institutions are validated experimentally, 2) Self-reported measures of trust in others capture a belief about trustworthiness (as well as altruistic preferences), whereas experimental measures rather capture willingness to cooperate and one’s own trustworthiness. Therefore, both measures are loosely related, and should be considered complementary rather than substitutes; 3) Perceptions of institutional performance strongly correlate with both trust in government and trust in others; 4) Perceived government integrity is the strongest determinant of trust in government; 5) In addition to indicators associated with social capital, such as neighbourhood connectedness and attitudes towards immigration, perceived satisfaction with public services, social preferences and expectations matter for trust in others; 6) There is a large scope for policy action, as an increase in all significant determinants of trust in government by one standard deviation may be conducive to an increase in trust by 30 to 60%.

Murtin, F., et al. (2018), “Trust and its determinants: Evidence from the Trustlab experiment”, OECD Statistics Working Papers, No. 2018/02, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/869ef2ec-en.

EU monitoring mission arrives in Myanmar to investigate whether GSP should be withdrawn

by Merle Jacobs

On 30 October 2018

In Main Blog

Today the EU monitoring mission arrives in Myanmar to investigate whether GSP should be withdrawn. WRITER by: LARRY JAGAN

This would be catastrophic: Causing unemployment of anything upwards of 500,000; mass exodus of young women across the border looking for work and all the dangers trafficking entails. A loss of 2 billion in dollars in exports worsening trade deficit and putting further pressure on the Myanmar currency.

In today’s Bangkok Post for good measure, with more detailed analysis.

https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/news/1566338/hanging-by-a-thread

“The EU only restored Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) status for this sector in Myanmar in 2013, 16 years after suspending it to punish the previous military regime. The textile and footwear industry has grown by leaps and bounds in the past five years as a result.

“If the EU removes GSP, more than half the workforce employed in the garment sector are at risk of losing their jobs,” Khine Khine Nwe, secretary-general of the Myanmar Garment Manufacturers Association, told Asia Focus. More than 90% of them are young, unskilled women, with no alternative employment prospects.

“Chinese factories employ around 300,000 people,” she said. These Chinese investors were attracted to Myanmar because of the country’s easy access to the European market under GSP. If that is withdrawn, they will certainly pull out and relocate elsewhere, probably to Thailand or Vietnam, she predicted.

This would be tragic, she said, because these women sustain their families — on average five people: a spouse and at least three children. More than a million people would suffer directly as a result, she estimated.

“A slowdown in Myanmar’s emerging garment industry would also dramatically affect the textile supply chain — such as thread and buttons — and the supporting industries — embroidery, printing, production of polyester bags and cartons — that are important for the textile and garment industry,” Myint Soe, chairman of the garment manufacturers’ association, told Asia Focus.

Kristian Schmidt, the EU ambassador to Myanmar, elaborated on the plans for the visit of the monitoring mission this week.

“The mission will assess the country’s progress in respecting the core conditions on which the trade privileges are granted, including respect for human rights, and be informed by the reality on the ground,” he told Asia Focus.”

A sad day – Remembering Pittsburgh USA

by Merle Jacobs

On 28 October 2018

In Main Blog

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