THE IMPORTANCE OF UPLOADING ON COMMUNITY WELL-BEING

At a recent Halton Health and Social Services Committee meeting (September 27, 2011), Mayor Rob Burton of Oakville brought attention to the issue of uploading of provincial costs for social services and other services that may be affected by the upcoming Ontario provincial election. Community Development Halton shares these concerns, as we feel that provincial programs should be paid for by a progressive income tax system instead being borne by the regressive property tax base. We share with you an open letter prepared by Mayor Burton that clarifies this issue. We urge all Halton residents to reflect on these concerns.

Joey Edwardh,

Executive Director 

Ontario voters are faced with a very important issue in the Provincial election being held on October 6th. Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak has refused to commit to the 2008 agreement between the provincial government and Ontario municipalities to upload (transfer back to the Province of Ontario) social services and other costs, resulting in significant relief to property taxes. Mr. Hudak told Mayors who complained that he would make changes to wage arbitration rules for essential service providers that would be worth more. 

When Halton Region financial staff did the math, they concluded that there will be an almost $12 million hole in the Region of Halton’s 2012 Budget after the provincial election, if the Progressive Conservatives win and continue to refuse to commit to the 2008 agreement. Every program and service stands to suffer.

Halton taxpayers benefit from uploading ten times as much as they could from any altering of arbitration rules. If uploading stops, we will have higher property taxes or serious program cuts. It’s that simple.

By far the biggest component of the amounts that the current provincial government will upload from Halton taxpayers, $11.7 million a year, is the so-called “pooling” contribution from local taxpayers to the City of Toronto for its social housing and welfare costs. Another $6.1 million a year is for the costs of provincial welfare and court security costs, for a total of $17.8 million a year to be lifted from the burden on Halton property taxpayers. The Oakville share is $7.5 million a year.

In Halton, payrolls that are subject to arbitration are: police, fire, emergency and long term care. Oakville’s share of these payrolls totals $72 million. Bargaining has been coming in lately in a range under 3%. If arbitration changes led to a 1% lower wage increase in all essential services payrolls, Oakville’s share of that change would be worth only $720,000 to our property taxpayers. The uploading of $7.5 million a year from Oakville taxpayers is worth more than ten times this PC arbitration promise.

The Progressive Conservative Leader, Tim Hudak, should match the commitment given by the Liberal, NDP and Green parties to continue the shift of Toronto welfare and social housing costs and provincial welfare and court costs from local property taxpayers to the Province. 

Duncan Foot, president of the Halton Region Police Association, said his members would hate to see local taxpayers caught between a decision to cut essential service workers or raise taxes unacceptably high. “Attacking the pay of essential employees such as police, fire, emergency and long term care workers who have no right to strike is unfair and short-sighted.”

Carmen Santoro, president of the Oakville Professional Fire Fighters Association, said that the arbitration rules already require arbitrators to consider the ability of the municipality to pay salary increases: “The current system, ironically brought in under the Harris government, contains criteria for the arbitrators whereby they must consider the local municipalities ability to pay,” Santoro pointed out.

The PCs, who say they need to find ways of paying for their platform promises, have already proposed a new downloading of costs to municipal property taxes, this time for the cost of hazardous waste disposal, which means a property tax increase of almost $300 million for Ontarians.

Provincial uploading puts those costs more on provincial income taxes, which are shared among many people and businesses and not paid by many seniors and others on low or fixed incomes.

These PC proposals will hurt people who can least afford it. The timetable that the Province of Ontario and Association of Municipalities of Ontario agreed to for uploading has given us a stable, long-term basis out to 2018 for municipal finances as we deal with controlling the costs of growth. The uploading agreement put us on a sound, business-like foundation.

It’s amazing that PC leader Tim Hudak thinks that it’s okay to rip up an agreement with municipalities. Governing is about reliable partnership agreements and fairness for property taxpayers.

Sincerely,

Mayor Rob Burton, BA, MS

Head of Council & CEO

Women's Health Strategy

I attended Ontario’s first ever Women’s Health Strategy Conference. It was Wow, so empowering and so enlightening. It was hosted by Community Development Halton and ECHO:
Improving Women’s Health in Ontario. Tuesday, June 22, 2010.

Women of Ontario – some facts
Ontario’s women are:

• Growing (in population, not size)
• Older
• Diverse
• Urban
• More likely to live in lower income groups than men, with the largest group being those 65 and older

More women than men work in the healthcare sector, which sees many job losses.

Women of Halton:

• Make up 51% of the population (or 225,000 persons).
• In upper management, earn 71% of what men earn even with comparable education, degrees, etc.
• On average, earn 51cents compared to the dollar earned by men.

Halton population facts:

• 25% are immigrants
• 13% are women of colour
• 13.7% are 65 or older
• 82% of lone parent families are female headed
• And 22% of lone parent, female-headed families live in poverty
• 9.1% of all women (or 20,600) in Halton are low income

Women’s health issues are different from men’s…
• For instance, women’s lung cancer is more commonly found in the later stages. Men’s tend to grow in the bronchial tubes; he coughs, brings up blood… an obvious warning sign.
Women’s lung cancer grows in deeper tissue with little warning sign. Knowing this can shift screening methods.
• Chronic care beds have been reduced, impacting on women as most of those moved out of chronic care beds are women, and therefore most of those waiting for, or denied access to, long-term care are women. And for the most part, they are women who cannot afford to privately pay for supplementary care.

Although the Government lists long-term care as one of its programs targeted at women, no evidence can be found that shows women’s particular concerns, or differences among women, are taken into account. This is the case despite research demonstrating dramatic differences in, for example, heart disease, lung cancer and breast cancer not only between women and men but also among women from different ethnic backgrounds.

• More women than men are caregivers. Caregivers are stressed due to a shortage of support systems. For instance, there is no stroke rehab in Milton, caregivers must take the patient to Oakville, adding to stress of the caregiver.

Immigrant women face their own challenges.

• South Asians are less likely to access cancer screening;
• They are uncomfortable talking about problems;
• They prefer women doctors especially for gynaecological exams
• They believe in a holistic approach to health, that social support, personal health practices and socio-economic factors are the most important factors affecting their health.

• Social circumstances can be a barrier to good health for women: poor housing, low income, lack of childcare, etc. The minimum wage keeps people poor.
• Life circumstances can also impact on health: poverty, housing, education, violence, race, ethnicity, gender, etc. Health is affected by many factors and certain groups of women are at high risk.

All these factors impinge on women’s health. We need increasing access to improve women`s health. We need social and community-level change and support. We need to invest in prevention and social determinants of health.

These women are our sisters, mothers, daughters, nieces, cousins– they could be us. The Region of Halton and Milton in particular, statistically speaking, is considered a wealthy community but statistics often hide harsh realities.

The hospital situation is under stress. The province is in the unusual guardianship role; the system is under pressure from growth, funding, etc.

LHINs
LHINs are an added cost to service delivery –an extra layer of expensive bureaucracy.

Halton Healthcare CEO John Oliver told me at council Monday, June 28, that they argued for keeping all Halton together in one LHIN but the province put Burlington in with Hamilton, then lumped Milton, Halton Hills and Oakville in with Mississauga. The entire population of the 3 municipalities amounts to a mere 30% of Mississauga’s population. This break -up of the region weakens our case at the regional council table and healthcare IS a responsibility of the Region. That's why we have the Halton Chief Medical Officer.

The Milton Hospital has not increased in size since 1987 when the community was a fraction of the 90,000 now calling Milton home.

Even if Milton taxpayers cough up the money, approval to build must come from the Minister of Health & Long Term care. But, approvals are not going forward despite Milton being the fastest growing municipality with all the associated pressures of growth. I won’t get into the double taxation issue - that’s the topic of another blog: http://janmowbrayblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/milton-hospital-expansion.html