business

Friday November 13, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday November 13, 2020

Don’t give free rein to Ontario’s developers

Doug Ford is moving quickly but quietly to give Ontario’s developers the upper hand over Ontario’s environment.

November 22, 2019

For proof of this ominous change, check out how Premier Ford’s provincial government is stripping away the powers of Ontario’s 36 conservation authorities when it comes to approving new development in many of the province’s most vital natural areas.

Since mid-20th century, conservation authorities have been responsible not only for controlling floods but for protecting and restoring the land, water and natural habitats in this province. They’ve done a superb job, too, even if many developers consider them nothing more than red tape that slows or stops a money-making venture.

But in defiance of this long-held mandate, the Progressive Conservatives last week unveiled legislation that would curtail the conservation authorities’ ability to act as environmental guardians. And as if it was hoping the public wouldn’t notice what it was doing, the government slipped its proposals into its fat, omnibus budget bill.

The public, however, should take notice. What we’re witnessing is a direct threat to responsible environmental and land-use planning.

The new legislation would end the conservation authorities’ role in offering an informed response to development applications and how those applications might impact sensitive natural environments. More power to decide the fate of a proposed development, however controversial, would be handed to the provincial Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry.

If, where it still had jurisdiction, a conservation authority refused to issue a permit or imposed conditions for a development, a disgruntled developer could appeal directly to the natural resources minister or the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal. Until now, someone appealing a permit denial would have to go directly to the local conservation authority’s executive.

December 11, 2018

What the Ford government is doing is politicizing environmental and land-use planning. At the very least, its proposed changes to the Conservation Authorities Act raise the possibility a developer with a friend in government could one day win approval for a project over well-founded, local opposition.

This shouldn’t happen but the government intends to go even further. The province doesn’t want watershed management and conservation to remain core conservation authority programs, for which municipalities would have to pay. Instead, they would become voluntary programs a municipality could choose to support — or not. 

The Ford government seems to have a grudge against conservation authorities. Last year, it slashed its funding for the authorities by 50 per cent while telling them flood control must become their core mandate. Those shrunken budgets have made it harder for conservation authorities to plant trees, restore forests, and prevent soil erosion and water pollution, all jobs that make for a healthier environment.

May 3, 2018

If the new legislation passes, Ontario’s river valleys, flood plains, wetlands, Great Lakes shorelines — indeed, its water supplies — would be vulnerable to degradation in even more ways. It is also worth noting that the same government is increasingly resorting to ministerial zoning orders which allow it to permit development while bypassing the municipal planning process, environmental assessments and meaningful public consultation.

If Ford truly believes the current process for approving development is too cumbersome, he could streamline the rules, perhaps even imposing tighter deadlines for municipal governments and conservation authorities to respond to a project proposal.

But the interests of the economy, development and money have to be balanced with the interests of our environment. And where they can’t, the interests of the environment should prevail. Ontario should, as the song says, be “a place to grow.” But it should be place to grow for healthy environments, not just developers’ bank accounts. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

Thursday November 12, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday November 12, 2020

Doug Ford downloads hardest pandemic decision-making

Being a medical officer of health in an Ontario town or city has always been a big, challenging job. Being the MOH during a pandemic like this one is exponentially harder. Add in being the default decision-maker about what businesses can stay open and which must close, and you’ve got a job not for the faint of heart.

October 28, 2020

That is where Ontario’s medical officers find themselves today, with the provincial government apparently opting for a minimalist approach on pandemic policy at the very time when COVID-19 is spreading dramatically. At this rate, it will soon be out of control. It may already be.

On Wednesday, for the fourth time in five days, Ontario set a record reporting 1,426 new cases. The seven-day average stands at 1,217, the highest it has been since the pandemic began. Another unfortunate record: There are 10,361 active cases of COVID-19 in Ontario. And 92 long-term-care facilities are dealing with outbreaks, with that number expected to grow. Hospitalization rates remain relatively low, but if the current growth rate continues that is likely to change.

All this, even as Ontario labs processed 36,700 test samples, reporting a test positivity rate of 5.1 per cent. Health experts say a positivity rate of 3.0 indicates spread is at the tipping point toward exponential growth.

September 18, 2020

Why the provincial government chose this time to toss out the old pandemic control regime and adopt one that raises the bar on when provincially mandated control measures will be implemented is anyone’s guess. But from all appearances, the Ford government is putting keeping businesses open at the top of its priority list, even when doing so is not in the best interest of pandemic control.

When questioned about all this, Premier Doug Ford was quick point out that local public health authorities always have the option of imposing measures over and above the provincial guidelines. 

August 27, 2020

That stance puts municipal governments and their public health officers between a rock and a hard place. If you don’t believe that, ask local political and health officials in Peel Region and in Toronto. Both have implemented local lockdown measures because provincial measures were deemed insufficient under current circumstances.

Indoor dining and gyms, for example, are locked down for 28 days in both those jurisdictions. But now, instead of suffering businesspeople being angry with the province, they’re angry with local health officials and their municipal partners. 

May 16, 2020

In a way, this could be referred to as a new kind of provincial downloading. And like other forms of downloading, they serve the provincial government with little regard for the impact on municipalities and local health officials.

There is something to be said for the targeted approach to pandemic control. It is better overall than a one-size-fits all provincial solution, though it’s not perfect. But it does allow the provincial government to deflect responsibility for harsher lockdown measures.

Ontario is not in a good place in terms of controlling the spread of COVID-19. And that’s the cruelest paradox of all. Too many of us are sick and tired of pandemic restrictions on personal freedoms and commerce, so we slack off here and there, and the virus is ready and waiting for the opportunity. Now we are in the thick of the second wave, which is in many ways worse than the first. If we remain on the current trajectory, the most likely outcome is another hard lockdown like we experienced early in the pandemic. The Ford government won’t be able to dodge that bullet, and neither will the rest of us. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

 

Thursday November 5, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday November 5, 2020

Doug Ford sold on new rating system, health experts not so much

Ontario’s new five-stage rating system for moving regions into and out of various pandemic restrictions is good news, according to many businesses. But it’s bad news according to some health authorities.

May 29, 2020

Perhaps both these things are true and the new system is good for businesses hanging on by their fingernails, and bad for others who think health outcomes are the only things that matters. 

The government is wrestling furiously with finding the right balance between efforts to flatten the curve and ways to help struggling businesses stay alive. It’s possible there is no perfect balance, and no satisfying everyone. 

According to some voices from the business sector, the colour-coded stage (green/good, yellow/less good, orange/worrisome, red/partial lockdown) approach, which also comes with specific measures that accompany each stage, will make stability and predictability possible, something that has not been the case so far. So if things are getting bad and the metrics look like they are moving in the wrong direction, businesses and individuals can step up their response before their region moves to the next stage. Or failing that they can foresee what might be coming rather than being in the dark. 

But on the public health side, there are issues. For one thing, the ceiling has been raised. For example, to take steps like closing restaurants, gyms and bars, the region would need to have a positivity of 10 per cent (100 cases per 100,000 people per week). And other factors, such as the health system and local public health authorities at risk of being overwhelmed, would have to be at play as well.

October 28, 2020

But that rate of infection has only happened a couple of times since the pandemic began. Since testing was ramped up in late spring no region has come close to 10 per cent. Doesn’t this suggest that those sorts of closures wouldn’t happen even under the worst case scenario? Has the government taken lockdowns off the table entirely in favour of protecting the battered economy?

Some health experts seem to think so. Dr. Michael Warner, head of critical care at Michael Garron Hospital in Toronto, put it this way in an interview with Torstar’s Bruce Arthur: “It’s like public health is treading water, and the premier is pushing their heads down. It’s government that makes the decisions on public health, and not public health.”

Epidemiologist Dr. Nitin Mohan told Arthur: “They’re relying on people to understand their own risk threshold, and that’s not working well, and what you’re saying now, we’re going to open up, and the perception is things are safe. Essentially, you’re inviting a disaster.”

Dr. Andrew Morris, professor of infectious diseases at University of Toronto was more pointed. “This is going to be very ugly. We’re following the European approach here. The very first question that should be asked is in the presence of ongoing growth, how can you in any way justify loosening measures? That makes absolutely zero sense. The one thing you shouldn’t do when you’ve got a losing strategy is take on a worse strategy. Which is what they’re going to do.”

These are troubling statements. You don’t expect every health expert to be on exactly the same page, but when credible experts are this far removed from government policy, it sounds like there is a central disconnect. 

Yet we are assured the government is making policy decisions based on public health input from its own advisers. How can the experts advising the government and those quoted in the media and elsewhere be so far apart? Or is the government’s approach being driven by business instead of public health? (Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

 

Saturday April 25, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday April 25, 2020

Georgia Hairdessers Weigh the Order to Reopen During a Pandemic

On Monday, within hours of Governor Brian Kemp’s announcement that many Georgia businesses could reopen on Friday, Maureen, a sixty-nine-year-old retired schoolteacher, texted her hairdresser, who owns a salon in Atlanta, about an hour from Maureen’s home, in Athens. “The Gov says you can open! 🙂 My appointment is on Friday of this week. What’s your plan?” Maureen, who voted for Kemp, made the appointment eight weeks earlier, before the coronavirus pandemichad shut down much of the country, and she was hoping to keep it. Her hairdresser, a man in his early sixties who asked that I not use his name, did not vote for Kemp. He told her that he would not be reopening until the following Monday—and only in a limited way. Maureen could try one of his other hairdressers, he said, but he wouldn’t be seeing clients himself until May 12th at the earliest. And, the hairdresser told me a few days later, if “Kemp’s science project goes as expected”—by which he meant badly—“then I have no idea when.”

July 23, 2009

Nearly a thousand people in Georgia have died, so far, of complications from the coronavirus, according to the numbers that have been reported. (The actual number may be higher.) Like the Central Georgia health board and many others in the state and around the country, the hairdresser did not think it was time to shift pandemic protocols in order to reopen businesses, even with precautions like masks, gloves, and disinfectant. “I thought it was the most asinine decision any governor could have ever made,” he said, “given the science we’re presented with, what Fauci and the other guys are saying.” The hairdresser checks the daily case counts regularly, he said. “Atlanta has been spiking up and down,” he noted. “I think yesterday we had maybe twelve hundred new cases. Today, maybe seven hundred or so—but it’s not midnight yet, I don’t know.” There are more than twenty thousand confirmed cases in the state. He went on, “It’s pretty damn silly, insisting on a haircut right now. But, you have to understand, my clientele is very privileged. To them, this is a very big sacrifice, to go without a haircut. I’ve had people offer me money to come to their houses—what’s the difference that’s gonna make? I don’t know. It’s a very entitled world.”

September 11, 2007

The hairdresser’s employees are contractors, who rent booths from him at the salon. Shortly after the announcement, he sent them the Georgia State Board of Cosmetologists and Barbers’ guidelines on reopening, which he called “the craziest thing—social distancing while giving a haircut is hard.” The board recommends that barbers wear a face shield and gloves, as a start. “You need to be in a smock, too,” the salon owner went on, “and change your smock after every haircut, into another clean, sanitized smock. The client is in sanitized cape and smock and neck wrap. Then you have to sanitize your whole station and chair.” Taking each client’s temperature and having them answer a health questionnaire is also recommended. “If I were getting paid the salary of a surgeon,” the hairdresser said, “it might be worth all the scrubbing.”

Some of the contractors are willing to take risks to pay their bills. “We could wait,” the owner said, referring to reopening. “But I feel like these hairdressers chomping at the bit—if they’re willing to do it and really take it seriously, and I’m there to monitor it—I can’t say no to them. But,” he added, “I’m kind of a wimp.”

Life in a Pandemic

One of these contractors, Brittany, who’s thirty-five, has been at the salon for four years. “If Home Depot can be open and people can shop because they’re bored and want to buy houseplants, and Target can be open for people to buy yoga pants,” she told me, “I don’t see the harm in me—carefully and safely—doing a client.” Brittany said that she is a Republican but did not vote for Kemp. She charges around two hundred dollars per session. “Twelve hundred doesn’t even pay half my booth rent,” she said, referring to the stimulus check she received from the federal government. (The salon owner did not charge booth rent while the store was closed.) “So you don’t want to be unsafe, but you also don’t want to lose clients or income. It’s a rock and a hard place, you know?” (The New Yorker) 



 

Thursday April 9, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday April 9, 2020

Why we should all be wearing masks — and how our public health authorities got it wrong

Coronavirus cartoons

For months, as the COVID-19 crisis escalated and Canadians and Americans watched people across Asia increasingly wearing masks in public spaces, our health authorities stuck to their long-held policies, strongly advising against this. 

That is, until Friday. That’s when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control reversed course, advising the public to use “cloth face coverings” to help slow the spread of COVID-19. They may have preferred to make this a quiet change on their website, but a characteristically bombastic press conference (and victory lap) by Donald Trump ensured that there was no saving face (no pun intended). 

The Public Health Agency of Canada made the same policy change Monday, and I suspect that the World Health Organization will not be far behind. And with these reversals come an eroding in public trust in the very organizations we need people to trust the most, at the very moment when our collective survival most depends on that trust.

So what went wrong? (continued: Toronto Star)