CCBI News – Reactions to Bill 7, More Beds, Better Care Act; Climate Change Court Challenge

September 19, 2022

Dear Friends of CCBI,

Reactions to Bill 7
Bridget Campion, PhD

Last week’s Bulletin presented an overview of Bill 7, the More Beds, Better Care Act. Since then, the Ontario government has released details about the Act’s implementation. According to the CBC, as of September 21, ALC patients may be moved temporarily to facilities not of their choosing while waiting for beds in their preferred homes to become available. In southern Ontario, it is possible that these facilities may be as far as 70 km away from the residents’ communities; in northern Ontario, residents may be 150 km away from home. As of November 20, those residents who refuse to be moved will be charged $400 each day they continue to stay in hospital.

While many commentators point to the outrage expressed by many individuals and groups about the Bill and its regulations, in fact, reaction has been mixed. According to a CTV report, both Trillium Health Partners and the Scarborough Health Network “’fully support’” the Bill because it will make acute care beds available to patients stuck in emergency departments and those waiting for surgeries and other in-hospital procedures. At the same time, it will be better for ALC patients themselves to be in long-term care facilities, receiving the care they need. Similarly, according to CTV Windsor, “Officials say Windsor Regional Hospital (WRH) is set to benefit from Ontario’s More Beds, Better Care act.” There, last Monday, thirty patients were waiting in the Emergency Department for admission while thirty-three patients were in hospital awaiting placement in long-term care homes.

However, there is a great deal of opposition to the Bill. In a Statement released by the Ontario Nurses’ Association, ONA President Cathryn Hoy, RN, says that “Bill 7 does nothing to address the root causes of our hospital crisis in Ontario, which is a crisis of nurse and health-care staffing; it simply forces patients from one understaffed environment to another.” As well, “Bill 7 will put many ONA members and placement coordinators in an impossible position, being asked by their employers to pressure families and vulnerable patients. This could violate the basic tenets of consent and bodily autonomy we are taught to uphold and defend as health-care providers, and standards required for nursing licensing.” In their “Message to the Premier and the Ontario Cabinet”, Seniors for Social Action Ontario state: “Older adults and people with disabilities in Ontario are horrified at your government’s introduction of Bill 7 which removes the rights of Alternate Level of Care (ALC) patients, many of whom are elderly, to consent to being ‘placed’ in a long-term care facility, and to have their personal health records sent there – also without their consent. This Bill is a violation of the fundamental human rights most citizens take for granted to be able to choose where they will live and with whom, and to protect their personal privacy.” And the CTV report quotes Laura Tamblyn Watts, the CEO of CanAge: “Bill 7 will cause social isolation, family breakdown and likely increased requests for Medical Assistance in Dying. This is a disaster.”

In the meantime, according to the CTV report, Long-Term Care Minister Paul Calandra explains that the distance allowed by the regulations for long-term care placements “gives us the maximum amount of flexibility so that we can put on the table for patients in hospital who want to transition into better quality care to long-term care more options available to them.” Health Minister Sylvia Jones, meanwhile, says that “We chose $400 because we believe it is enough of a concern for people to have those challenging conversations with the placement coordinators to make the effort, as a family, to have the conversations about where do we want our loved ones as they travelled through their next journey.”

Next time: Alternatives to Bill 7?

Sources:
CBC News, “$400 fees, long-range patient transfers: What you need to know about Ontario’s long-term care rules” https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-long-term-care-patients-transfer-1.6583036
Katherine DeClerq, “Ontario seniors to pay $400/day to stay in hospital instead of moving the LTC” CTV News https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-seniors-to-pay-400-day-to-stay-in-hospital-instead-of-moving-to-ltc-1.6068385
Travis Fortnum, “CEO says More Beds, Better Care Act good for Windsor Regional Hospital” CTV News Windsor https://windsor.ctvnews.ca/ceo-says-more-beds-better-care-act-good-for-windsor-regional-hospital-1.6069296
Statement by ONA Ontario Nurses Association https://www.ona.org/news-posts/20220826-statement-bill-7/
Seniors for Social Action Ontario, “A Message to Premier Ford and the Ontario Cabinet – Withdraw Bill 7 Now!” https://www.seniorsactionontario.com/_files/ugd/c73539_31779a1f0934411eac4994d90a133eac.pdf

Climate Change Court Challenge
Bridget Campion, PhD

This week, the Ontario Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a lawsuit brought against the Government of Ontario by a group of young environmental activists. According to a CBC report, in launching the constitutional challenge, the group is arguing that “Ontario has set greenhouse gas emissions reductions dangerously low and is therefore discriminating against young people, who will bear a disproportionate burden of climate change….” This follows the actions of the provincial government when, in 2018, it repealed the federal government’s cap-and-trade program and instead adopted a threshold that allowed “an additional 200 million tonnes” of emissions yearly, this according to the plaintiffs.

As the CBC notes, the government does not refute the existence of “human-caused climate change” or that climate change has detrimental effects on human health. However, it asserts that moving the emission target does not “cause or contribute to these harms.”

In her blog on the Ecojustice website, Zoe Keary-Matzner, one of the plaintiffs, brings the perspective of youth to the climate crisis. She is fifteen years old and is “determined to live in a world where people don’t have to worry every summer about prolonged and fatal heatwaves, or about breathing smoke from burning forests, or about whether their homes will be destroyed by flooding.” The government’s decision to roll back emission standards is one, she writes, that puts “my future and the future of my generation under serious threat.” In effect, she and the other plaintiffs are arguing that “the Government of Ontario infringed on our Charter right to life, liberty, and security of the person when they reversed the province’s climate targets.” Like Pope Francis in Laudato si’ she recognizes that it is people on the margins who most suffer from the effects of floods, heat waves and wild fires that are a part of the climate crisis. She writes that “Many people have already been displaced from their homes or are suffering now because of increased food insecurity. Black people, Indigenous people, people of colour both here and in Canada and around the world are too often most affected.”

The Government of Ontario is seeking a dismissal of the lawsuit. As for Keary-Matzner: “We shouldn’t have to go to court to fight for a safe and sustainable future where we can prosper and enjoy full and healthy lives. Yet here we are.”

Sources:
Allison Jones, The Canadian Press on CBC News Website “Youth climate activists to challenge Ontario government in court over greenhouse gas targets” https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ont-climate-lawsuit-1.6579422
Zoe Keary-Matzner “The Ford government is failing young people. So we took them to court” https://ecojustice.ca/the-ford-government-is-failing-young-people-so-we-took-them-to-court/

Pope Francis’ Intention for September
Abolition of the Death Penalty

We pray that the death penalty, which attacks the dignity of the human person, may be legally abolished in every country

Moira, Bridget, and Bambi