When a crow went down with West Nile virus somewhere in Ontario, my phone would ring. Practising as an infectious disease specialist at the time, I was alerted to early warnings about threats to the public’s health from infectious agents. Immediate response was expected – and provided – by our strong public health infrastructure.

But here at the children’s hospital where I now work, a group of us meet regularly, if informally, about another pressing public health threat – hunger.

We live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. But hunger is something that we at the hospital increasingly see among the families that bring their children to us for medical attention.

For 10 days beginning May 6, which marked the start of Hunger Awareness Week in Canada, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food is making a formal country mission visit to Canada. It’s the first-ever visit to a developed nation by Olivier de Schutter, a Belgian law professor who became special rapporteur in 2008.

As a signatory to both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1976), Canada has a legal obligation to “respect, protect and fulfill the right to food.”

It’s my hope that this visit – and the recommendations in the report that Prof. de Schutter will subsequently produce – will throw a spotlight on the disturbing truth that far too many Canadian children are hungry because their families lack access to adequate and nutritious food.

Food Secure Canada estimates that almost 2.5 million Canadians live without secure access to food.

An infectious agent like West Nile poses an immediate threat as well as long-term health consequences (if almost exclusively in adults). Unquestionably, the consequences of hunger and food insecurity in childhood are similar.

Why are we concerned here? Many pediatricians with community practices tell us that finding the money to feed their children is the top problem faced by many parents they meet.

We see children whose parents struggle with poverty. We admit proportionately more children from high poverty neighbourhoods to hospital than from other neighbourhoods, and the children from poorer neighbourhoods stay longer at the hospital.

We know that childhood hunger – which of course is linked to poverty – has long-term impacts on physical and mental health.

For healthy growth and development, children need sufficient nutrients. Deficiencies of even small amounts during this important period can have long-term health consequences.

One thing we’re seeing in recent years is an upswing in cases of rickets, a condition still prevalent in developing countries but one that I thought would be corrected in Canada through the 1970s, when I trained in Montreal.

Rickets is preventable. It is primarily caused by a lack of sunlight and vitamin D, (including vitamin D supplementation with breast feeding), although a lack of calcium can also contribute to the condition, which causes bones to soften and become prone to deformity. Foods that contain vitamin D include fortified milk, as well as eggs, fish oils, margarine and some other foods.

The children we see who have developed rickets are quite simply not getting adequate amounts of sunlight and nutritious food, including vitamin D supplementation with breast feeding.

As a recent report from Toronto’s medical officer of health states: “Children who live in food-insecure households are more likely to have growth and developmental problems, be susceptible to illness and perform poorly in school, compared to children who are food-secure.”

Adequate nutrition is also a key issue when it comes to mental health among youth. Psychiatrists speaking at the request of community youth in one of our priority neighbourhoods advised that the first two mental-health questions that should be asked of young people are: “How did you sleep last night?” and “Have you eaten today?”

We know that in the Greater Toronto Area, the use of food banks is increasing rapidly. A key reason is that housing costs are eating up a growing proportion of family income. Initiatives are under way to help physicians and other health care providers better link families to resources such as food banks and government services.

But while there is a perception that food banks – as well as programs like school and community meal programs, community gardens and kitchens – are providing the needed response to food needs, Canadian research challenges this notion.

The UN Special Rapporteur will present his preliminary findings on food security in Canada on May 16 in Ottawa. It’s my hope that this will put child hunger squarely on the political agenda in Canada – and galvanize action to eliminate it.

Specializing in social pediatrics, Dr. Elizabeth Lee Ford-Jones is an expert adviser with EvidenceNetwork.ca, project investigator at the Hospital for Sick Children and a professor in the department of pediatrics at the University of Toronto.

< http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/childhood-hunger-is-a-canadian-public-health-crisis/article2430182/ >

The Conservatives have taken some Canadian environmental charities to task for accepting money from wealthy foreign donors to finance their campaigns against oil and gas projects.

But tax returns filed to the Canada Revenue Agency show most of the foreign money that fills the coffers of domestic charities does not go to the environmental groups now in Tory crosshairs.

An analysis by The Canadian Press of charities’ annual tax returns found only one of the top 10 foreign-funded charities could be considered a conservation group.

That group is Ducks Unlimited Canada. Tax returns show it has reported receiving more than $33-million over the years from foreign sources, making it the fifth-largest recipient of money from outside the country.

Ducks Unlimited Canada says it receives foreign funding from its sister organization in the United States, U.S. federal and state governments, corporations, private foundations and individual contributors.

CARE Canada reported the largest amount of foreign funding. It has accepted nearly $99-million over the years from foreign donors. Most of it came from United Nations agencies, foreign governments and the charity’s international members.

Second was World Vision Canada, which has reported $89-million in foreign income. It says the vast majority of that money comes from gift-in-kind donations from UN organizations and international corporations with branches in Canada.

“For example, these would be things like pharmaceuticals, clothing, school supplies and books and medical supplies,” spokeswoman Tiffany Baggetta said in an email.

“Then we have a very small portion that is from individual citizens who just happen to live outside of Canada. For example, sometimes we have people who sponsor a child through World Vision Canada, then they move to another country but want to continue sponsoring that child through World Vision Canada.”

Third was Hamilton’s McMaster University, which, like many post-secondary institutions, has charitable status. McMaster has reported $43-million in foreign income.

University spokesman Gord Arbeau says last year foreign students paid McMaster $25-million in tuition fees, while the school also received $13-million for research funding and $4-million from sales of medical isotopes from its nuclear reactor.

All that money counts as foreign funding for CRA’s purposes.

The charity that reported the fourth-most foreign funding was the Canadian UNICEF Committee, with $37-million. But a UNICEF Canada spokeswoman says the organization doesn’t actually receive much foreign funding.

“While it appears we received a significant amount of cash from foreign donors – we don’t,” Melanie Sharpe said in an email.

“That figure is almost entirely the value of donated health supplies that we send to our child survival programs in developing countries. Less than 0.5 per cent represents cash donations Canadians have made to one of UNICEF’s global fundraising campaigns.

“… According to accounting regulations all cash or in-kind donations have to be registered as revenue whether from a foreign or domestic source.”

The CRA database shows only 1,998 of the 85,000 or so registered charities now active in Canada have reported any foreign income. Most are aid organizations, religious groups or schools. All of their foreign funding over the years amounts to a combined total of $811,467,808.

“It’s certainly not as if this was something new,” said Marcel Lauziere of Imagine Canada, an advocacy group for Canadian charities. “And even if it were new, and it certainly is not, hard to understand why that would be a bad thing. I mean, unless Canada wants to isolate itself from the rest of the world, it would make no sense.

“You know, if 80 per cent of funding of charities came from foreign sources, you’d say, ‘Okay, that’s a bit bizarre. What does that mean?’ That’s not the case at all. The lion’s share, by far, of the funding that charities get are provided by Canadians.”

Canadian charities do not have to disclose on their tax returns which foreign groups gave them money. But the recent federal budget promised to impose new penalties on charities that fail to provide full disclosure of funding and activities.

“There have also been calls for greater public transparency related to the political activities of charities, including the extent to which they may be funded by foreign sources,” the budget document says.

Sanctions for charities that don’t play by the rules could include fines or a suspension of a charity’s ability to issue tax receipts.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have been critical of charities that receive foreign funding, particularly environmental groups.

Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver has accused “environmental and other radical groups” of trying to use money from “foreign special-interest groups” to hijack hearings on a pipeline that would bring Alberta oil-sands bitumen to a port on the British Columbia coast.

Environment Minister Peter Kent even raised the spectre of criminal activity in a recent interview broadcast on CBC Radio’s The House. Asked by host Evan Solomon if the government is trying to silence environmental groups by taking away their charitable status, Mr. Kent raised concerns about money laundering.

“Some groups with charitable status have been going well beyond the CRA guidelines for what is acceptable practice as a charitable agency,” he said. “And there has also been concern that some Canadian charitable agencies have been used to launder offshore foreign funds.”

The Environment Minister was not available to speak to The Canadian Press.

One group that has been singled out for receiving American grants is Tides Canada, which runs both a grant-making foundation and a charity that backs environmental and social-justice projects. It has reported $7.8-million in foreign income over the years, according to CRA tax returns. That makes Tides the 16th-largest recipient of foreign money.

However, U.S. tax records show a different amount.

Annual filings to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service from tax-exempt and non-profit organizations show the Tides Canada Foundation has received more than $63-million from wealthy American foundations. That would put it third on the list of Canadian charities that received funding from outside the country.

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation gave the Tides Canada Foundation almost $33-million, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation gave it nearly $14-million, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation gave it $11 million, and other groups gave it smaller amounts.

Ross McMillan of Tides Canada said wording on the CRA tax form changed in 2009 to include a line for revenue received from all sources outside Canada. Prior to this charities only reported foreign funding under “other gifts.”

Since pre-2009 CRA tax forms did not distinguish foreign funding from other income, a search of the agency’s database does not turn up a higher number for the Tides Canada Foundation.

< http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/which-charities-get-the-most-foreign-cash-not-those-on-tory-hit-list/article2428592/singlepage/#articlecontent >

This winter, Jason Kenney introduced Bill C-31, the Protecting Canada’s Immigration System Act, in Parliament. We have been watching the debate around this bill with some concern. It seems that Kenney believes the system needs protection from migrants. We, on the other hand, believe migrants, particularly refugees, need protection from his bill.

We are a group of primary care physicians who support our patients, many of whom are refugees, to live proactively healthy lives. This approach is good medical practice, and yes, it even reduces health-care costs. We also recognize that people’s health status is dependent on their social and political realities. We therefore advocate for policies that support healthy living and condemn those that cause harm.

And thus, our contention with the bill.

Take, for example, the case of Ms. J. who could be a patient in any one of our practices. She arrived in Canada on an overcrowded boat with her children, having escaped a war-torn nation where she witnessed the traumatic death of her politically active husband.

She is a poorly controlled diabetic, has flashbacks of her experiences, has difficulty sleeping, and has recently developed suicidal thoughts. Instead of allowing Ms. J. to go through a fair refugee claims process that might allow her protection, Kenney would rather put her in prison for up to a year, separate her from her children, keep her from reuniting with the rest of her family for five years and, even if accepted as a refugee, keep her immigration status in Canada uncertain.

At best, these policies are misguided and driven by ideology. At worst, they are intentionally cruel and inhumane. Bill C-31 proposes automatic detention of refugee claimants for up to one year without review if deemed unilaterally to be an “irregular arrival” by the Minister of Public Safety, currently Vic Toews. In addition to detention, C-31 also fast-tracks refugee claims from certain countries deemed “safe” by the minister, with little regard for the case-by-case nature of refugee claims.

The health consequences of the policies proposed by C-31 cannot be underestimated. In Australia, where the policies that Kenney proposes have been tried and discarded, studies show that detention increases risk of suicidal thoughts, post-traumatic stress disorder and self-harm in refugee claimants. Such findings are not surprising given previous trauma, isolation from social support and an inherent sense of powerlessness when imprisoned in a foreign country. Furthermore, the very nature of incarceration is known to exacerbate conditions such as hypertension, asthma and diabetes while providing an environment ripe for the spread of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and hepatitis.

Even after release from detention, Bill C-31 would continue to influence the health of refugees. The legislation precludes applications for family reunification for five years after the refugee claim is adjudicated. We do not know what Kenney has against families, but we know from our clinical experience that sick people who have the support of their families fare better than people who are alone.

The bill also includes the possibility that a patient’s refugee status be ceased and permanent residency revoked. Research has demonstrated that refugees denied permanent status are more socially withdrawn, show less improvement of language skills, and have worse mental health compared with those with secure permanent status.

Kenney often points out that the government is only proposing to do what has already been done elsewhere. What he fails to mention in his quest for mediocrity for Canada is that American civil society groups have denounced detention conditions in the U.S. while more than 100 detainees have died in custody there since 2003. He also forgets that several medical organizations in Australia criticized refugee detention after it was initiated in 1992, and in 2008 the Australian government acknowledged the damage detention inflicts on refugees. The criticisms in Britain are no different.

We are not opposed to change. We believe much can be done to improve our collective responsibility to help those in need, efficiently and fairly. But we have grave concerns about the direction Kenney is taking us. Evidence and experience oblige us to speak out against what seems to be ideology and fear-mongering. We speak not only out of professional duty as physicians, but also as Canadians who demand better for our society.

Ritika Goel MD is a Masters candidate at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and a family physician in Toronto.

Baijayanta Mukhopadhyay MD is a resident in family medicine at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine in Timmins.

Joshua Wales MD is a resident in family medicine at the University of Toronto.

Mei-ling Wiedmeyer MD is a family physician in Toronto.

< http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1169015–migrants-need-protection-from-bill-c-31 >

The fight to stop Stephen Harper’s slow and systematic unravelling of our democracy is lonely and frustrating.

Across Canada, individuals outraged by recent moves by Harper to stifle democracy have been writing letters, signing petitions and tweeting their friends and elected politicians demanding more accountability and respect for our parliamentary institutions.

They are outraged by the F-35 scandal in which the Conservatives lied to voters during the election about the true costs of the fighter jets, by the robocall affair, ethics breaches, slush funds, suppression of public reports, falsified documents, shutting twice of Parliament, dirty campaign tricks, attack ads. The list goes on.

It is toxic politics at its worst.

To date, though, all of their efforts have been fruitless.

Their letters are ignored or receive innocuous replies, backbench MPs dismiss them as cranks, media commentators pay no attention to their petitions, and apathetic friends and neighbours tell them they’re crazy to think they can change the political culture in Ottawa.

Clearly, the need for democratic renewal has never been greater. And yet individuals fighting to restore democracy seemingly can’t make a difference.

That’s just the way Harper wants it. Although he initially vowed to increase government accountability, he has shown zero interest in improving our democratic institutions since coming to power six years ago.

He seems convinced he can get away with it because only about 30 per cent of Canadians regularly follow politics and public policy issues. The rest of us are either turned off, fed up or have given up. Harper is counting on that indifference to continue through the next election.

Upset by what’s been happening in Ottawa, dozens of small groups in this field have sprung up in recent years. But their track records are generally dismal. Organizations come and go, their websites shut down or become inactive. Volunteers burn out, lose interest and move on. Donations dry up.

“It’s definitely fits and starts and not a very robust community,” says Alison Loat, co-founder and executive director of Samara, a non-profit group devoted to promoting citizen engagement.

Samara, co-founded by broadcasting veteran Michael MacMillan three years ago, is one of the few active organizations in this area.

Another is Voices-Voix, a Montreal-based coalition claiming 200 organizations as members. It will hold a daylong event in Montreal on Friday and another in Ottawa on May 11 evaluating the Harper government’s record in terms of democracy.

Leadnow.ca, which was launched in March 2011 and claimed more than 100,000 members at one time, has virtually disappeared except for the occasional Twitter posting. Canadians for Democratic Renewal is basically inactive, with just one blog posting in the last six months. Meanwhile, the badly-named Manning Centre for Building Democracy has little to do with democracy and everything to do with promoting conservative policies and training Conservative politicians.

“Yes, it’s very discouraging,” says Loat.

Samara is undertaking two major initiatives. The first is an annual “democracy index” that will be trying to measure such questions as whether Parliament is dysfunctional and democracy broken. The first report will be issued in 2013.

The second project, “Democracy Talks,” will be launched this summer and will focus on ways to engage citizens who tend to have lower voter turnout rates.

Loat says democratic renewal and citizen engagement “clearly hit a chord” with many Canadians.

But she says individuals who want their voices heard won’t see much success if they work in isolation.

Loat has several ideas for individuals who feel strongly about becoming involved in this field.

First, she suggests citizens focus on the political parties themselves, which she describes as “completely nontransparent” organizations that shut out individuals — and often their own MPs — in every area from policy development to candidate recruitment.

“People blame Parliament for being dysfunctional, but I think it’s really our political parties that are the issue,” she says.

Second, Loat says individuals should take full advantage of today’s social media, which has made it easier to engage like-minded citizens. Loat says it is critical to understand that politicians are now starting to pay far greater attention to Twitter and Facebook than just about any other media outlet.

By themselves, these suggestions won’t change the status quo. Neither will individuals working in isolation.

But together, citizens can slowly — very slowly — start to make a difference.

Yes, trying to save democracy is lonely and frustrating. But it isn’t hopeless.

Bob Hepburn’s column appears Thursday.bhepburn@thestar.ca

< http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1163958–the-uphill-battle-to-save-democracy-in-canada >

The 2012 federal budget has put Canada’s social justice groups on notice: the era of government-supported good deeds is over.

Over the short term, many state-funded groups will shrink or disappear, while those that survive will lose their autonomy. If you care about critical thinking and social justice, this is bad news.

Over the long term, however, the Conservatives may have done Canada a favour. Deprived of federal funding, independently-minded activists will have to learn new ways of ethically raising money from individuals, communities, and businesses.

By multiplying their revenue sources, social justice groups will reduce their vulnerability to single-source arm-twisting. By going private, they will no longer have to worry about offending government ministers.

This new, American-style approach to promoting social justice could be a good thing. Canadian activists have long relied on federal money, and this has rendered them acutely vulnerable to official pressure.

Early on, the federal government’s intentions were pure. In the 1970s, Canada was suffering economically, and politicians hoped to dampen unrest by funding progressive civic groups. Keen to make the world a better place, they also supported organizations engaged in cutting-edge international thinking.

On the home front, these groups included indigenous rights bodies such as the Native Council of Canada (now theCongress of Aboriginal Peoples), or women’s groups such as the National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC). To advance justice abroad, they included the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), an innovative, independently-minded Canadian Crown corporation with a multinational governing board.

Until recently, federal support for these and other groups distinguished Canada from its southern neighbour, where critically oriented social justice is privately funded. Under the old rules, Canadian groups were able to maintain their autonomy while taking federal money.

The generous notion underlying this remarkable approach was that a vociferous Canadian social justice sector was a public good worth supporting, irrespective of policy disagreements.

The problem, of course, was that this system created structural dependency. Canadian social justice groups attracted staff who knew how to secure government aid, but who had little ability to raise money from private individuals, communities and businesses.

This weakness became glaringly apparent when Harper’s Conservatives signalled their distaste for the old rules. If his government was going to pay, criticism would not be tolerated.

Harper began by cutting funding to domestic social justice programs such as Status of Women, a federal agency charged with issues of gender equity, and the Court Challenges Program, which had helped aggrieved groups seek legal redress.

Then, the Conservatives began slashing support to internationally oriented groups, such as the Canadian Council for International Cooperation, an independent policy group, and to KAIROS, a faith-based development organization.

More insidiously, officials let it be known that any organization still getting federal money must fall in line. With few safeguards to protect their independence, no state-supported entity was safe.

Understandably, many organizations scrambled to curry favour. At the Ottawa-based IDRC, for example, a jittery board of governors installed a government official as their new director, hoping he would keep the Conservatives happy. That official did his best, slashing programs and projects that might attract Conservative ire, and browbeating his staff into quiescence.

Things worked out similarly at Rights & Democracy, the Montreal-based Crown corporation that supported progressive groups abroad. There, Conservative-installed board members forced the organization’s directors to change course.

The same held true at the North-South Institute, an Ottawa-based think tank, where another new director has proved reluctant to publish findings critical of Canadian businesses and government.

Some groups are limping along in the new environment, while others have expired. The government has just eliminated Rights & Democracy, for example, while at the IDRC and North-South, staff have resigned, been removed, or are searching for new jobs.

And you have only to try and access the NAC’s former website to see how this once proud Canadian women’s group has fared; visitors are redirected to another website offering the domain name for sale.

Other restrictive moves are in the offing. The 2012 budget, for example, introduced new penalties for charities devoting more than 10 per cent of their money to “political advocacy,” meaning that charities supporting Greenpeace could face legal sanction.

Environmental groups seem to have attracted particular government ire. Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver, for example, recently attacked Tides Canada, a Vancouver based charity, for its opposition to the Northern Gateway pipeline.

In other cases, officials have labelled civic groups unpatriotic. Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, for example, attacked activists defending migrant workers as “anti-Canadian extremists.”

Harper’s crackdown has attracted substantial media attention, but few Canadian voters care. After all, many cutbacks were publicized long before the Conservatives’ 2011 electoral victory, and 80 per cent of polled Canadians have just voiced support for new restrictions on charities’ political activities.

The writing is on the wall for Canadians still interested in independently-minded social justice: develop new, non-federal sources of funding, or face defeat.

Over the past decade, Conservatives have learned much from their colleagues down south. If left-leaning Canadians want their own causes to survive, they must do the same.

The era of public funding for independently conceived good deeds is over. To keep their dreams alive, activists must develop new sources of support, while sympathetic citizens must dig deep into their own pockets.

Howard Ramos is associate professor of sociology at Dalhousie University.

James Ron is Stassen Chair of International Affairs at the University of Minnesota, and this year is a visiting professor at CIDE, a Mexico City research institute.

< http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1161505–funding-cuts-could-unshackle-canadian-civil-society >

The gap between the rich and the rest of us has reached 1920 levels. Since the 1990s, the top 1 per cent have obtained about a third of all growth in national income while the 99 per cent fight for a shrinking share.

The good news is that, unlike their governments, Canadians, whatever their political stripe, want action. New national public opinion research conducted for the Broadbent Institute by Environics Research and released today makes this clear.

We asked Canadians for their views on whether the growing gap between the rich and everyone else is a problem and the response is conclusive. More than three-quarters consider the growing gap to be a serious problem with long-term negative consequences for our society.

The biggest worry among Canadians is that it will lead to declining living standards, followed by concern about increased crime, and the erosion of public health care and other public services.

The majority of Canadians are also worried that income inequality leads to fewer opportunities for young Canadians to do as well or better than their parents — a trend that should not be ignored, as Canada’s percentage of unemployed youth is double the official unemployment rate.

Perhaps most alarming in the long run is that a majority believe that the growing gap can erode the quality of our democracy.

No matter where you live or how much you make, our public opinion research shows that the growing gap is viewed as decidedly un-Canadian. The majority of Canadians (71 per cent) say this trend undermines Canadian values.

The majority also think it is time for government to make reducing income inequality a priority.

Perhaps the most encouraging finding from this poll is the willingness among Canadians to pay higher taxes to protect social programs that they value and help reduce income inequality.

Almost two-thirds (64 per cent) of Canadians are willing to pay slightly higher taxes if that’s what it would take to protect our social programs. A majority of Conservative voters (58 per cent) are willing to pay more taxes to protect social programs, while Liberal and NDP voters are even more supportive: 72 per cent of them would pay more.

Interestingly, even high-income earners are as willing as the rest of Canadians to pay slightly more in taxes. It’s only our governments that are offside.

An overwhelming majority of Canadians favour increasing income taxes on the wealthiest — those who make $250,000 to $500,000 or more. Our research shows most Canadians support the introduction of a new 35 per cent inheritance tax on any estate valued above $5 million.

And, finally, the majority of Canadians want corporate Canada to play its part too, supporting the idea of returning corporate tax rates to 2008 levels.

The option of raising taxes to protect the social programs we cherish and to address income inequality has been absent from public debate for too long. Our research shows Canadians are prepared to do their part and they expect the wealthy, corporate Canada and their own governments to be a part of the solution, not a part of the problem.

These opinions are widely shared, cutting across traditional ideological barriers. This is a reflection of Canadians’ concern that growing income inequality threatens to undo what so many before us struggled to achieve.

The evidence from countries all over the world shows that widening gaps in income threaten all of the things that make for a good community. In contrast, societies with greater income equality are generally less violent, healthier, have higher levels of voting, greater social mobility and more prosperity.

That’s the kind of Canada we want. And one that Canadians are willing to pay for. Let’s do it.

Ed Broadbent, former leader of the federal NDP, is founder and chair of the Broadbent Institute. For more about the Equality Project and the national poll on income inequality, go to www.broadbentinstitute.ca

< http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/article/1158784–broadbent-poll-uncovers-public-desire-to-close-inequality-gap >

Canadians are concerned about what they see as a growing gap between the rich and the poor and are willing to consider tax increases to create a more equal society, according to a new poll conducted for a think-tank founded by former NDP leader Ed Broadbent.

The Environics Research survey looked at attitudes toward income disparities in the months after the Occupy movement took over public spaces around the world and as some politicians, including U.S. President Barack Obama, propose taxes on the wealthiest members of society to fight burgeoning deficits.

Here in Canada, talk of raising taxes has been considered political suicide for more than a decade. But the survey commissioned by the Broadbent Institute suggests that most Canadians would not be opposed to paying a little more to preserve social programs and prevent the poor from falling even further behind.

“Individuals from all walks of life indicate they are willing to do their part through fair and equitable taxation to protect our public programs, but they want corporations to do their part too,” said the report of the Institute released Tuesday to accompany the poll.

It concludes that “any government or political party that prioritizes the tackling of income inequality will not only reflect current public opinion, they will garner Canadians’ support because they will finally be addressing an issue that represents a fundamental Canadian value: equality.”

The telephone survey of 2,000 Canadians is considered to accurately reflect the broad opinions of the Canadian public within plus or minus 2.2 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

More than three-quarters of the respondents (77 per cent) said they viewed the gap between the very rich and the rest of Canadians to be a serious problem with long-term negative consequences for society. While NDP respondents almost unanimously agreed that the widening disparity was an issue of concern, a clear majority of Conservative voters (59 per cent) also felt that way.

Only 20 per cent of those polled said they agreed with the statement: “There’s nothing wrong with a widening income gap, it just means people have to work harder at being rich themselves.”

When respondents were asked if they thought growing income inequality would cause problems for Canada, 79 per cent said it will eventually lead to declining living standards, 75 per cent said it will create increased crime, 72 per cent said it will lead to the erosion of public health care, 71 per cent said it will mean fewer opportunities for young Canadians to do as well or better than their parents, and 67 per cent said it could reduce the quality of democracy.

A majority of those surveyed said the growing disparity undermines Canadian values – something expressed even by most of those living in households making more than $100,000 a year. And 42 per cent said the problem should be a “top priority” for governments. The older the respondents, the more likely they were to say the issue needs to be addressed.

Nearly two-thirds of the people polled responded yes when asked: “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?”

Even a majority of the respondents who voted Conservative (58 per cent) said they were at least somewhat willing to pay higher taxes to protect social programs.

And 83 per cent of all poll participants said they were in favour of increasing income taxes on the wealthiest Canadians. (Some respondents were asked if people making more than $250,000 should pay more taxes and some were asked if those making more than $500,000 should pay more.) The survey suggested that 69 per cent of Canadians would support the introduction of a new 35 per cent inheritance tax on any estate valued above $5-million. An inheritance tax proposal hurt the New Democrats in the 2004 election but that would have meant a 17 per cent tax on estates over $1-million.

Meanwhile, 73 per cent would agree to gradually increasing corporate tax rates back to what they were in 2008 when the federal rate stood at 21 per cent. It has since been reduced to 15 per cent.

< http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/canadians-open-to-tax-hikes-to-create-more-equal-society-poll-finds/article2396953/ >

Ontarians can scrap Dalton McGuinty’s job description — Premier Dad — right now.

No father would withhold funds from a disabled child, while giving a stronger child a tuition rebate for university or college, as McGuinty did in Tuesday’s provincial budget.

No father would deprive any child of the necessities of life, without making a significant sacrifice himself.

Ontario has fallen on hard times to be sure. But the government is still in a position to make choices about the $112 billion in revenues it expects to collect in the year ahead.

The numbers in Tuesday’s budget leave little doubt that deep spending cuts are required in light of Ontario’s status as a have-not province with a deteriorating manufacturing sector and a rapidly swelling debt.

Here are the key figures: Interest payments on Ontario’s $258 billion debt eat up $10.6 billion — 8.4 cents out of every dollar of revenue. That is more than the province spends on post-secondary education, children and youth services or public safety.

Each year the province runs a deficit, the debt goes up and there is less available for everything else. Even if McGuinty meets his target of balancing the budget by 2017-18, Ontario’s debt-to GDP ratio, which now stands at an uncomfortably high 37.2 per cent — the highest in the country — will rise to 41.6 per cent before going down. That is unsustainable.

Most Ontarians accept the need for belt-tightening. What they don’t accept — at least not yet — is that this province can no longer afford to support the vulnerable.

That is the premise on which Tuesday’s budget — delivered by Finance Minister Dwight Duncan but devised by McGuinty on the advice of economist Don Drummond — is built.

• It freezes welfare payments, currently $599 per month for a destitute individual, for a year, despite the fact that food prices in Ontario are going up by 4.6 per cent a year and electricity costs are rising by a staggering 8.9 per cent. These people have nothing to spare. They are already living far below the poverty line. Yet McGuinty is asking them to “share the burden” of restraint.

• Disability support payments, currently $1,064 per month — barely enough to sustain a poverty-level existence — are also being frozen.

• The Ontario Child Benefit, scheduled to increase to $109 per month in July, will rise instead to $100, forcing the poorest parents to wait a year for the financial relief they were promised.

• Children’s Aid Societies, which take care of kids no one wants, are expected to pare $16 million from their budgets.

On the other side of the ledger, here is what the government chose not to do:

• Cancel or revamp its 3-month-old tuition rebate that goes to post-secondary students with family incomes as high $160,000. Parents earning more than $100,000 like the 30 per cent rebate. But losing it would not be a financial hardship.

• Raise personal or corporate taxes (although it is deferring a couple of planned business tax reductions and boosting a handful of user fees.)

• Reduce the six-figure salaries paid to senior executives — hospital and university CEOs, and heads of provincial boards and agencies (their pay is being frozen for two years).

• Lift the 20-student cap on elementary classes, although there is no evidence that putting three or four more students in the classroom would compromise the quality of education.

The big-ticket savings in Tuesday’s budget are, for the most part, sensible and balanced, although they will hurt most Ontarians in some way.

It is the small items — the cutbacks imposed on those eking out a precarious existence — that raise questions about McGuinty’s values.

Although the premier enacted a poverty reduction plan in 2009, he has now effectively renounced it.

Although he insisted this week, “We are not prepared to balance this budget on the backs of families who may find themselves in difficult circumstances,” he did exactly that.

After nine years in power, McGuinty may have found his backbone. He is staking his government’s fate on a risky, bad-news budget.

But he has lost his compassion.

< http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1152784–ontario-budget-is-a-requiem-for-a-caring-province >

I wrote in these pages recently about the need – given our declining voter turnout figures – to consider compulsory voting in Canada. Of course, voting is a critical component of any functioning democracy, but it is certainly not the only one.

Equally important is the presence of political discourse, public debate and consultation, and accommodating citizen demands. The problem with this, though, is that so few opportunities exist for ordinary citizens to participate directly in the political process – especially when it comes to actually influencing or shaping public policy and political decisions.

Part of the reason for this is the tremendous concentration of executive power in the hands of Canada’s prime minister and the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). And this is doubly so when the party in power in Ottawa has a sizable majority, as Stephen Harper does today.

Add to this a weak Senate chamber and nearly impotent parliamentary committees and you end up with a system that seriously challenges “government by the people, for the people.” Much has been made lately about the Harper government’s ability to simply ram through contentious legislation on a bevy of matters – from law and order issues to Internet surveillance – without having to worry about any public push-back.

In the midst of a growing electoral or ‘robo-call’ scandal, is it not time for Canadians to consider the option of more government- or citizen-initiated referendums? By permitting more direct citizen input in policy decisions, would this not strengthen our democracy and political life in general?

We’ve had countrywide, and government-initiated, referendums in the past (on conscription and constitutional amendments) and several provinces have held referendums on issues such as video lottery terminals (VLTs), on joining Confederation, and electoral reform

In August of last year, though, British Columbians voted in a citizen-generated referendum on whether the province should retain a harmonized sales tax (HST). Almost 55 per cent of BC voters chose to scrap the tax – leaving both the business community and the provincial government with little choice but to admit defeat and repeal the measure.

Should we now hold binding referendums on cuts to social spending (changes to OAS), budgetary deficits, environmental matters, tax increases and capital punishment? Or should we have a more restrictive list that includes only critical questions like constitutional change, fundamental alteration of our health care system and international trade agreements?

It is worth noting that such referendums are more commonly used in Europe, the United States and Australia. At one point or another, they have instituted different mechanisms for consulting more widely with their respective publics: through government-initiated referendums, obligatory referendums and direct and indirect citizen-initiated referendums.

Obviously, there are weaknesses or deficiencies with each of these referendum types. For example, some scholars worry about how these participatory democracy initiatives will impact minority groups and their rights and whether citizens can actually make pivotal decisions involving public policy matters.

There are, in addition, legitimate concerns around the impact of referendums for government accountability and even the sustainability of political parties. One should also be cognizant of the ever-important issue of referendum fairness: in terms of who crafts the question, on whether the government remains politically neutral and if there are appropriate limits and controls on spending (such as disclosing funding sources) and initiation/petition drives.

Many of these challenges, however, can be minimized by proper regulation and the introduction of effective safeguard measures. Countries like Switzerland and New Zealand, which have extensive experience with referenda, would be instructive in terms of bullet-proofing this process from many of its potential flaws.

The important point is to ensure that as many voices are heard in the public square as possible, and through a variety of consultative mechanisms (people’s commissions, forums and the like). We need to have faith in our citizenry.

It will also be necessary for governments in Canada to instruct their respective electoral bodies to provide each household with sufficient information and argumentation to make an informed choice in any scheduled referendum.

No one is suggesting that these referendums would necessarily be the final say – especially those of a citizen-initiated variety. It may be more appropriate for governments to assign the referendum question to a parliamentary/legislative committee for thoughtful deliberation and to initiate a series of public hearings before actually sitting down to craft the referendum legislation (including regional and linguistic protections). This, in turn, would ensure that the finer points of our parliamentary democracy – namely, representative and responsible government and political accountability -are maintained.

Needless to say, this is not a clarion call for holding an endless stream of referendums on trivial and divisive matters.

Still, we should not be afraid of empowering citizens by giving them the tools to reject government decisions or allowing them to place important issues on the political agenda. Some provinces (though not all) already have referendum legislation on the books, but there is nothing really formalized at the federal level. Perhaps it’s time.

Peter McKenna is professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island.

< http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/Opinion/Letters-to-editor/2012-03-06/article-2916022/Do-Canadians-need-more-direct-democracy/1 >

Are Canadian federal scientists being muzzled?

This was the question posed earlier this month at the American Academy for the Advancement of Science meeting in Vancouver, where a group of scientists, scholars and journalists joined a panel entitled, “Un-Muzzling Canadian Scientists: How to Reopen the Discourse.”

They outlined a disturbing trend, suggesting federal environmental scientists are being systematically barred from communicating their findings to the public.

According to panelist Margaret Munro, science writer for Postmedia News, the Conservative government issued a media protocol that has served to suppress scientific input on issues of public interest.

The protocol states: “Just as we have one department, we should have one voice. Interviews sometimes present surprises to ministers and senior management. Media relations will work with staff on how best to deal with the call (an interview request from a journalist). This should include asking the program expert to respond with approved lines.”

According to Munro, “The more controversial the story, the less likely you are to talk to the scientists. They (government media relations staff) just stonewall. If they don’t like the question, you don’t get an answer.” This, she observed, was in marked contrast to her government dealings up until that time, in which she had unencumbered access to federal scientists who were often quite eager to share their findings.

Munro shared several examples of what she termed the “muzzling” of scientists by the government.

One celebrated case is of that of Dr. Kristi Miller of the Department for Fisheries and Oceans, who published an article in the flagship journal Science claiming that declining salmon stocks may be linked to a cancer-related virus. The research raised myriad questions, including whether the virus might have been imported by the local aquaculture industry.

Despite widespread media interest, the government reportedly declined all requests to interview Miller.

Thomas Pedersen, a senior scientist with the University of Victoria, suggests such developments have a political basis. As Pedersen told the BBC, “The Prime Minister is keen to keep control of the message, I think to ensure that the government won’t be embarrassed by scientific findings of its scientists that run counter to sound environmental stewardship,” he said.

“I suspect the federal government would prefer that its scientists don’t discuss research that points out just how serious the climate change challenge is.”

Is some science more problematic for the powers-that-be than others?

Galileo, as history reminds us, was another scientist whose discoveries were an inconvenience to the reigning power of his day. The notion that the Earth was not the centre of our corner of creation was upsetting for a politically empowered church that had invested a lot of time, money and theology in the idea that we on Earth were the pivot of the celestial spheres.

Given the Canadian government’s recent withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol, and its unshakable commitment to mining the tarsands, one can see why it might not rush to feature science detailing the baleful effects of climate change.

According to Miriam Diamond, professor of geography at the University of Toronto, the attempt to muzzle environmental scientists is rooted in a deep bias that often places environmental research on the lower rungs of the academic ladder.

Diamond, who won Canadian Geographic’s “Environmental Scientist of the Year” Award in 2007, sees the recent large-scale firing of contract researchers and “re-profiling” of scientists at Environment Canada as an extension of such silencing, and part of a larger “culture of fear” that has emerged among federal environmental researchers.

Among those whose federal contracts were recently severed is Marianne Karsh, who had worked with Environment Canada since 2006. Karsh, a forestry expert specializing in biodiversity and climate change, was with the Adaptation and Impacts Research Division (AIRD), which has now been “discontinued,” according to Karsh, despite its high rate of productivity, its fiscal responsibility and an auditor’s recommendation that it be given additional support. This division provided research and information on areas likely to experience hazardous floods, windstorms, tornadoes and similar climatic events in light of climate change.

While Canadian environmental scientists aren’t being placed under house arrest for their findings, they are it seems being silenced, “re-profiled” or downsized by a political power that is seemingly allergic to evidence that challenges its gospel of growth through the mining and burning of fossil fuels. Given our present environmental challenges, our environmental scientists, now more than ever, need to be supported — and heard.

Stephen Bede Scharper is associate professor with the Centre for Environment, University of Toronto

< http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1136917–is-the-conservative-government-muzzling-federal-scientists >