Does anyone recall Stephen Harper’s pledge in the first line of the Conservative election platform Stand up for Canada back in 2006? “The time for accountability has arrived.” That became the Tory mantra in the dying days of the discredited Liberal government.

Harper used the words “accountable” and “accountability” no fewer than 10 times on the first page of the manifesto.

But 6 ½ years into Conservative rule even Harper fans have reason to feel queasy, looking back. The gap between promise and delivery grows by the day, along with secrecy and manipulation.

The Tories are still taking a beating for keeping Parliament in the dark on the F-35 fighter’s cost, which is closer to $25 billion than the $16 billion advertised. Meanwhile on Friday, Defence Minister Peter MacKay was again under fire for lowballing costs. He told CBC News last year that the nearly completed Libya mission had cost “under $50 million” by Oct. 13, but didn’t say the final tab would be $100 million.

This slipperiness with numbers is bad enough. But the Tories are also under fire, justly, for abusing the parliamentary process to push forward their agenda.

As the Star’s Tim Harper reports, Parliament Hill is in a lather as opposition MPs decry Tory efforts to push through a vast bill to implement the budget. The “omnibus bill” runs to 425 pages and touches on everything from environmental regulations to border security, employment insurance, immigration law and fisheries. It is so complex that MPs haven’t had time to scrutinize the Tory agenda to make sure it makes sense and is a prudent use of tax dollars. Still, the Tories refuse to break it up into smaller, manageable bills.

At the same time the Star’s Tonda MacCharles points out that trouble is brewing over the government’s tactic of letting individual Tory MPs put forward bills — known as private member’s bills — on hot-button issues. One controversially targets masked protesters, threatening heavy jail terms and fines. Such bills get less scrutiny, analysis and debate than government-sponsored bills. It’s another manipulative trick to spare the government grief.

This is political sleight-of-hand and message control, and it appears to be an accelerating trend. These shabby tactics keep Parliament in the dark, swamp MPs with so much legislation that they can’t absorb it all, and hobble scrutiny. This is not good, accountable, transparent government. It is not what Harper promised to deliver.

< http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/article/1177328–stephen-harper-promised-accountable-government-but-hasn-t-delivered >

Canadians with cancer, heart disease, diabetes and just about every other physical illness don’t think twice about going to their doctor for help. But, when it comes to mental illness just one in three affected adults and as few as one in four children seek and receive treatment.

For some, stigma and fear keep them from getting the medical care they need. Others desperately want treatment but can’t find the appropriate services in their community or face long waitlists. This is why Prime Minister Stephen Harper has called mental illness “a major national public health problem” and, in 2007, created a national agency to tackle it.

This week, the Mental Health Commission of Canada released its blueprint for a national strategy to properly treat and support Canadians with mental illness. The comprehensive document covers every aspect of what needs to change – from how employers and schools handle mental illness to the need for more affordable housing and a reformed justice system that doesn’t criminalize illness.

The danger now, though, is that rather than embracing the challenge, Harper may throw up his hands at the enormity of it all – and the seemingly high price-tag that comes with it. That can’t be allowed to happen. The status quo is not an option when one Canadian in five suffers some form of mental illness every year and it costs our economy more than $50 billion, according to the commission.

If Ottawa needs a manageable place to begin improving the lives of Canadians, why not start with our kids? In many communities, children and youth face the greatest shortage of mental health services. Resources spent on children have enormous impact. Early identification and treatment can save young people from a lifetime of challenges that come with untreated mental illness.

Without proper health services and community support, childhood mental illness can stress families to the breaking point. Children drop out of school, wind up in homeless shelters or, worse still, the prison system. Crown wards and First Nations youth are particularly vulnerable to this downward spiral.

Focusing on children will also teach everyone involved about the extraordinary level of cooperation and coordination that is required. This is not just a health problem. The solutions cross federal-provincial boundaries and run across multiple ministries, including health, education, social services, housing and corrections.

Breaking down those silos will require strong federal leadership. That, unfortunately, is not something this Conservative government has shown much interest in, especially in the health care.

When Prime Minister Harper launched this commission he promised “their work will improve quality of life for Canadians and their families dealing with mental illness.”

Whether that happens depends on what his government does now. So far, it isn’t looking promising. Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq welcomed the report and committed the government – not to action, but to yet more research.

The 6.7 million Canadians suffering with a mental health problem or illness deserve better than that.

< http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/article/1175149–focus-on-children-first-in-tackling-mental-heealth >

The world has changed, and when it comes to its immigration system, Canada is not changing fast enough to compete in it. It is no longer possible to sit back languidly, as the best and the brightest queue on its doorstep. The global market for human capital is voracious. There may always be migrants wanting to come to Canada, but they may not be the ones that Canada needs. People with options are less and less likely to tolerate hidebound and cumbersome immigration process, waiting as long as eight years to have their applications processed. If you are ambitious, if you are skilled, if you are entrepreneurial, if you are educated, if you are impatient for success, you will look elsewhere. Increasingly, elsewhere is looking better.

Countries like Australia can now fast-track applications for permanent residency in less than a year. Nor is the competition coming only from developed countries. With growing prosperity at home, not every upwardly mobile citizen of China, India and Brazil sees re-locating overseas as the only path to success. In fact, the Chinese and Indian governments are using investment, tax and visa incentives to draw the highly educated children of Chinese and Indian immigrants to their ancestral homelands.

To ensure Canada remains attractive to the sharpest minds, the keenest entrepreneurs and greatest innovators, the country must move beyond an inefficient selection system and long waits. Why should people put their careers on hold, in order to come to Canada? “International competition is starting to heat up for the best immigrants, the Frank Stronachs, the people who will drive the economy,” notes Arthur Sweetman, an economist at McMaster University.

A new Gallup poll shows that Canada is the third most popular destination for people looking to relocate, with the U.S. first, and the U.K. second. Some might say that top three isn’t bad. But Canada fell a spot from 2010, the global survey of 452,199 adults in 151 countries shows. Despite the recession, the U.S. remains by far the world’s most desired destination for prospective migrants. Why isn’t Canada in first place?

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has enacted long-overdue reforms to streamline the selection system for economic immigrants. More points will be given for younger people with language proficiency who have prearranged employment.

He also plans to tackle the backlog by closing 100,000 files involving 300,000 people. This is a necessary measure – but one with consequences. It puts a stain on Canada’s credibility, and more reforms are necessary to ensure the problem doesn’t recur.

There is a need for a different kind of immigration officer to be sent to Canada’s missions around the world: not someone with a shiny badge, armed with a long list of bureaucratic time-consuming checks that may end up impeding people with desirable educations, entrepreneurial instincts and in-demand skills from immigrating to Canada. Instead they should be people whose job it is to find and recruit talent. Canada needs headhunters.

Canada needs to open the doors for the right kind of migrant. Faster processing times would enable Canada to take advantage of global cyclical downturns. The current unemployment rate for Spaniards under age 25 is 50 per cent, the overall rate in the country is 25 per cent. Spain has an army of highly literate, technologically savvy people sitting idle, people who could, in some cases, literally walk in and fill vacant jobs here in the hi-tech, telecommunications, mining and petroleum sectors.

Instead of having a system flexible enough to seize on such opportunities, we have immigration lawyers with stories of clients – such as a couple from South Africa with MBAs – who become so frustrated, they simply give up on Canada.

Mr. Kenney is trying. Ottawa has expanded the provincial-nominee category, which favours immigrants with prearranged employment. However, the model has some weaknesses: Newcomers entering through the nominee stream are also less educated, and have lower salaries over the long term, than those who enter through the federal points system. This category of workers remains crucial to Canada’s overall program, but it will not suffice.

Ottawa must do more to ensure newcomers can convert their foreign credentials and job experience. It must address discrimination in the labour market, and gate-keeping by professional associations. But first and foremost, Canada needs to change its mentality around immigration. It should be designed as much around whom Canada wants, as who wants Canada.

It is becoming a seller’s market. As Sergio Karas, a Toronto immigration lawyer, says, “People from developing countries are no longer automatically migrating to Canada.” Canada must learn to compete. Educated professionals, entrepreneurs, leaders, will not waste their most productive years trying just to get through the door. They know where they are wanted, and if they’re not wanted here they will pack up their bags and go to where they are, taking with them all their potential and promise.

< http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/editorials/canada-must-actively-recruit-the-best-and-brightest-immigrants/article2423327/ >

Five-year-old Jeffrey Baldwin suffered such abuse and deprivation he weighed just 21 pounds when he died. Randal Dooley was beaten to death, literally. The seven-year-old boy had 13 broken ribs, a brain injury, a lacerated liver and a tooth in his stomach. Three-year-old Kasandra Shepherd died after a severe blow to her head.

After all the child welfare lessons that should have been learned from those horrific abuse cases, we would have thought that another inquest into the death of a child at the hands of troubled caregivers under the watch of a children’s aid society would never be needed.

Yet the murder of seven-year-old Katelynn Sampson and the apparent blindness on the part of so many adults in her life to the abuse she was suffering shows that is not the case. At the end, there were no fewer than 70 wounds on her little body.

“Alarm bells were ringing and no one was responding,” Superior Court Justice John McMahon said Wednesday when he sentenced Katelynn’s legal guardians to life imprisonment.

A coroner’s inquest is certainly needed and it must have the broadest scope possible to identify every person and procedure that failed this little girl. With all that we know about the vulnerability of children, how on earth can two children’s aid agencies let a little girl fall through the cracks of their paper-shuffling bureaucracy? How can school officials not do more to follow up when a little girl covered in bruises and burns stops coming to school altogether? Did the neighbours not see or hear anything?

But an inquest is not enough. There is no point in simply recommending more rules if they are either unworkable or will be ignored. Years of court cases, inquests, pediatric death review committee reports and internal children’s aid reviews have led to an increasing number of laws, rules and procedures to follow. Yet, somehow, children like Katelynn are still dying.

That’s why Children’s Minister Eric Hoskins cannot sit back and think that his ministry has done all it can. Yes, the government did fix the terrible law that allowed Katelynn’s mother to hand her off to a crack-addicted friend with a record of violent offences. That, as we now know, was just the first thing that went wrong.

Kenn Richard, executive director of Native Child and Family Services, says that after “extensive investigation and internal reflection” he is satisfied that his staff did “everything that’s required under our charter as a Children’s Aid Society.”

If that’s the case the system is even more broken that people imagine. Following the rules but still allowing the child to die is a system in desperate need of an overhaul. The minister must read every word of the internal reviews conducted by Toronto children’s aid and Native Child and Family Services.

This government saw fit to appoint a commission to make child welfare more cost effective. How about a commission with a mandate to make it better? The system that failed Katelynn, Jeffrey, Randal and Kasandra can fail the next little boy or girl, too.

< http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/article/1172014–we-re-failing-at-risk-kids >

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has always vehemently denied bringing cheap foreign labour into Canada. Employers had to pay foreign temporary workers “the prevailing wage,” he pointed out.

That indeed is what the rules said – until Wednesday, when Human Resources Minister Diane Finley quietly changed them. Employers will now be allowed to pay foreign temp workers 15 per cent less than the average wage.

“We are taking action to ensure that the temporary foreign worker program support our economic recovery and effectively responds to local labour market demands,” she said at a manufacturing plant in Nisku, Alta.

Kenney chimed in from Ottawa. “Going forward our government will consider additional measures to strengthen and improve the program,” he promised.

Business leaders, eager to recruit low-cost workers abroad, were delighted. Immigrant support groups, already fighting to protect temporary foreign workers from exploitation, were heartsick. And labour leaders warned that the wage cut would bring down the pay scale for all workers and make it harder for Canadians to compete for jobs in their own country.

Under the new rules, foreign temporary workers will still covered by provincial employment standards, meaning they must be paid the minimum wage. But in booming Alberta, the minimum wage ($9.40) is a far cry from the average wage ($26.03).

Despite her 15-per-cent wage cut, Finley expects the influx of foreign temporary to swell. She’s undoubtedly right. Employers will always be ready to find workers overseas who are eager to come to Canada and willing to work long hours for low pay. And under the Conservatives, boosting economic growth will always eclipse protecting workers’ rights.

Since Prime Minister Stephen Harper assumed power in 2006, the number of foreign temporary workers admitted into Canada has grown by 40 per cent. The temporary worker stream is now larger than the stream of permanent workers intending to set down roots and become citizens.

Foreign temp workers man oil rigs, serve coffee at Tim Hortons, harvest crops and work in fish processing plants.

When Canada introduced its temporary foreign worker program in 2002, the governing Liberals vowed never to adopt the European model route in which “guest workers” are paid less than nationals and treated as second-class residents.

But under Harper, the country is now moving in that direction.

The surest sign that the scramble was on to avoid a pointless provincial election came last week when the New Democrats dropped their misguided proposal to cut home-heating bills. The deal-clincher came on Monday when Premier Dalton McGuinty bowed to NDP Leader Andrea Horwath’s demand for a 2 per cent surtax on incomes above $500,000.

This move, plus McGuinty’s decision to shift $317 million into child care, hospital funding, welfare and disability payments at the NDP’s behest, was calculated to save the Liberal minority government. Still, it makes what was already a credible budget — given Ontario’s bleak fiscal realities — a better one.

The last thing Ontarians wanted or needed was a snap election. Horwath skilfully traded her support for budget fixes that will help some of Ontario’s most vulnerable.

The wealth surtax is projected to affect a mere 0.2 per cent of taxpayers and will raise $470 million next year. But the money won’t go to new programs as the NDP wanted. McGuinty plans to use it, conservatively, to pay down the deficit.

“We all gave a little bit,” said McGuinty, calling the surtax a “sensible compromise” to make minority government work.

It’s more than that; it’s good policy. But the only reason he’s agreeing to it now is that recent polling has shown it to be a popular idea. Support for higher taxes for the very wealthy runs in the 80 per cent range. There are few things that any government, anywhere can do to generate public support numbers like that.

Indeed, if the Liberals had been bold enough to ask the wealthiest to shoulder more of the burden last fall perhaps they could have picked up a couple more seats and secured a majority government.

Asking the very affluent to contribute more makes sense at a time when everyone else, including the poorest, are being forced to make sacrifices.

But if it’s the right thing to do now, it would have been the right thing to do during last October’s election. And yet no one dared to risk their political skin on it. Both the Liberals and the NDP campaigned on a promise not to raise personal income taxes, only to revisit the issue when the election dust settled. Now they’re busy cutting deals to protect their own interests, acceptable though the outcome is.

The downside for McGuinty is that he is now exposed to attack by Tim Hudak’s Conservatives for raising taxes, yet again, after vowing not to do so. That’s a price the premier is prepared to pay. He’s probably also banking on Hudak coming across as a one-trick tax-cutting pony, while others are trying to make the legislature work.

< http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/article/1166693–dalton-mcguinty-and-andrea-horwath-have-cut-a-sensible-deal-to-avert-an-election >

Think of it as a shield against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, adopted 30 years ago this week, protects us all. Time and again, Canadians have invoked it to challenge overbearing government power, to expand freedoms including that of free speech and of the press, to right wrongs and to remedy inequality. It is one of our great treasures.

Indeed Canadians put it on a par with such icons as Confederation itself, and universal health care. And for good reason. We look to the Charter for guidance on the political, legal, social and ethical issues that define our lives.

It’s a shame, then, that Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservatives have no great regard for the Charter, seeing it as a Liberal political legacy that “limits democracy” by empowering unelected judges to review the decisions of Parliament, legislatures and bureaucrats. There will be no official celebratory bash in Ottawa on Tuesday, despite the Tories’ attention to other, less relevant aspects of our history.

The Charter was adopted on former prime minister Pierre Trudeau’s watch when the Constitution was repatriated from the United Kingdom on April 17, 1982. Queen Elizabeth II attended a ceremony on Parliament Hill to sign the documents that transformed us from being a parliamentary democracy to a constitutional one.

Since then the Charter has reshaped Canadian society in big ways and small, bringing sweeping and at times controversial change. “On balance,” says Peter Hogg, one of the nation’s most respected constitutional scholars, “we have improved our country’s governance” by having it. At root, the Charter empowers the people, he told Lawyers Weekly in a recent interview. That is its great, enduring value.

Every schoolchild by now knows that it guarantees the right to free expression and association, to freedom of the press, to vote, to life, liberty and security, to freedom from discrimination, and more. But fewer are aware of what that means in practice.

In recent years the Star and other media have successfully invoked the Charter to shield responsible journalism from defamation lawsuits, providing for a stronger, more informative press.

Just this past Friday the Supreme Court cited it in holding police who conduct wiretaps more accountable for notifying people who are under surveillance.

Since the 9/11 attacks the Charter has been used to temper needlessly draconian anti-terror laws. And to affirm the worth of human life by preventing the extradition of suspected criminals who might be executed. The Charter has been invoked in regard to Quebec secession, to raise the bar to breaking the country. It has forced police and prosecutors to meet higher procedural standards in criminal cases, reinforcing the presumption of innocence. It has been used to stop discrimination against gays, to permit the wearing of religious symbols, and to effectively legalize women’s freedom of choice in abortion.

The Charter has been invoked, as well, in causes that range from minority language rights to aboriginal rights, Sunday shop closings, refugee cases, assisted suicide, extradition to torture, prostitution, censorship, collective bargaining, tobacco advertising, and more.

Under a series of vigilant judges who did not hesitate to strike down bad laws, or to “read in” rights when justice required, the Charter has come to affect most aspects of our lives.

As Justice Claire L’Heureux-Dubé once put it, memorably, the Charter “stretched the cords of liberty” and enfranchised us all.

< http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/article/1161574–at-30-the-charter-of-rights-has-reshaped-our-society-for-the-better >

Used needles littering a park or alley are — sadly — a fact of life in parts of Toronto, especially downtown. Addiction is a grim reality. But giving addicts a safer place to use drugs can help curb the health risks, public nuisance and other problems associated with addiction.

That’s the upshot of a comprehensive four-year study into the merits of setting up publicly funded “consumption facilities” — a.k.a. supervised injection sites — for illegal drugs in Toronto and Ottawa. It’s an idea whose time has come.

Toronto could use three such centres, according to the study’s authors. Ottawa could benefit from two. The feasibility study doesn’t recommend specific locations but does note that sites should be put in areas where addicts congregate, and within an existing organization serving them. A downtown hospital setting, for example, might work well. A residential neighbourhood, not so much.

Given that caveat, safe injection sites warrant city council approval and provincial funding, at least on a trial basis.

The issue is controversial, with police generally opposed and many Canadians uneasy about using tax dollars to accommodate illegal drug use. Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews reacted to the report on Wednesday by saying experts are divided, therefore: “We have no plans to pursue supervised sites at this time.” Not an encouraging response.

The meticulous study by researchers at the University of Toronto and St. Michael’s Hospital highlights the potential benefits of providing clean, safe centres for users of heroin or other injection drugs. Such sites reduce the risk of transmitting blood-borne diseases like hepatitis and HIV. They help prevent drug overdoses. And they put addicts in touch with professionals who can steer them toward treatment programs or social services.

“It’s a good investment,” said study co-author Dr. Ahmed Bayoumi. “We’ll have people living longer.”

Humanitarian concerns aside, there are practical benefits for city residents as fewer addicts “shoot up” in public places such as washrooms, alleys, parks, streets and stairwells, as many do now.

The report recommends three smaller, spread out sites for Toronto instead of a single, centrally located one.

Despite the solid case for helping people in the grip of addiction, Toronto seems to be headed the wrong way. A George St. men’s shelter called School House, for example, is on the verge of closing. It provides harm reduction by letting residents drink beer in a supervised setting. That’s better than drinking in the street.

Predictably, opponents of safe injection sites are calling for more study. But at some point that just serves to obstruct. This latest report is comprehensive and convincing. This is about harm mitigation, not social approval.

At Queen’s Park, Matthews notes that the province is “always prepared to listen to good advice” and makes its decisions “based on evidence.” If so, it should back the setting up of safe injection sites. The same goes for Toronto City Council. Much as we might wish otherwise, the need is there. Let’s deal with it.

< http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/article/1159950–toronto-and-ottawa-would-benefit-from-supervised-drug-injection-sites >

Ontario’s New Democrats are tapping into the zeitgeist by asking for a two per cent surtax on people who earn more than $500,000 a year, in return for their support of the minority Liberals’ budget. The rich will always be with us, goes the thinking, but they answer to us, and we’re not in the mood for excess right now.

Separately, the Broadbent Institute, a think-tank set up by former federal New Democratic Party leader Ed Broadbent, claims that Canadians want to pay higher taxes. “Would you personally be very, somewhat, not very or not at all willing to pay slightly higher taxes if that’s what it would take to protect our social programs like health care, pensions and access to post-secondary education?” Sixty-four per cent were either very willing (23 per cent) or somewhat willing (41 per cent) to payslightly higher taxes.

One might flip around those results to say: Faced with health care, pensions and universities crashing and burning, only 23 per cent are very willing to pay even slightly more tax.

Still, the day may come when it’s necessary to pay more tax – for everyone, not just $500,000-plus earners, who already pay at the highest marginal rate, making for high individual contributions. An extra two per cent is a form of punishment for success. If you can’t cut off the head of the tall poppy, tax it.

It’s as if to say it’s a bad thing when someone earns lots of money. Better, says the NDP, to discourage initiative and entrepreneurship by taxing its successful manifestations. Our society won’t be any more equitable if we bleed the rich a little.

The NDP would also cap public-sector salaries at $418,000 annually, an arbitrary figure. Public hospital or university boards do need to show restraint and due diligence at the top – the top needs to be a model for the entire organization.

The logic of restraint, applied fairly to all, is the most sensible policy, before any talk of raising taxes.

< http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/editorials/punishing-the-rich-with-extra-taxes-not-an-answer-to-inequity/article2398986/ >

By almost every indicator, Canada’s aboriginals are facing a public health crisis. They have abnormally high rates of diabetes, infant mortality, teen pregnancy and tuberculosis at a time when they are also the fastest-growing segment of the population. The suicide rate in Nunavut is 12 times higher the national one. And research in the area of aboriginal health is still in its infancy.

That is why closing down the National Aboriginal Health Organization (NAHO) is a serious misstep. Its paltry $5-million-a-year budget is a small saving for Health Canada. If the government has a better idea about how to more effectively, and economically, address the critical health disparities that First Nations, Inuit and Métis people face, it should certainly make these ideas public.

In the meantime, however, NAHO has played a crucial role in advancing research on aboriginal health, collecting and analyzing data, and leading community initiatives, such as programs to help people quit smoking, prevent suicide and avoid teen pregnancy. It has produced 12 issues of the Journal of Aboriginal Health, and had already put out requests for research papers for this fall’s edition, to be devoted to “Inuit health and wellness in its broadest sense.”

Aboriginals face unique challenges that seriously impact their health, including a traumatic history of family separation and residential schooling; inadequate housing; difficulty accessing clean water and food; high rates of alcoholism and unemployment; poverty; and exposure to environmental contaminants.

One would imagine that the federal Health Minister, Leona Aglukkaq, herself an Inuk and Nunavut’s MP, would be perfectly positioned to recognize the severity of these problems. Instead, in a cruel irony, she has been unwilling to protect the only research organization of its kind dedicated to improving health outcomes for Aboriginals. The closure of NAHO will reverse a decade of progress, and leave a gaping hole for those who are most in need.

< http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/editorials/health-canada-should-not-have-closed-national-aboriginal-health-organization/article2396383/ >