Ford's Privatization Scheme

How privatization of social services and healthcare is moving forward in Ontario from an anonymous ODSP employment provider: (from here with links to articles here and here)

Ford two years ago brought in American companies who have been figuring out what approach / messaging to take that would be ‘acceptable’ to Canadians with the intent of cutting our services. They became non profit agencies in Canada. So they can call themselves “Canadian” non profits. Our tax payer money is paying them to chip away at our healthcare and social service systems. We will wind up being paid huge tax dollars to then have our services be made minimal and virtually nonexistent. They are calling it privatization – but it is privatization with these companies as the decision makers. These companies are really good marketers/sales people and know how to make things “look and feel” good. 

The tip of the iceberg is that they are transferring ODSP employment assistance and supports to help people on ODSP find and maintain employment. They are moving this from from Social Service to the ministry of labour colleges and universities....going from region to region switching these services over to be ‘managed’ by these companies – making huge profits from this with ODSP and OW’s employment supports. They are paying our agencies assisting these clients less than ODSP paid has done and I assume taking the rest of our hard earned tax dollars. They are distracting the job developers and counsellors working with the clients looking for work with at least double the administrative work and have put in place algorithms so one agency cannot share a client with another agency – even though they may have different expertise and ways to support and help the client with obtaining employment. 

So why is Ford doing this??? There is no advantage to the tax payer – there are huge disadvantages – the only conclusion anyone can come to is, He is doing it for the kick backs and that appears to be how he operates. Ford has opened the door for these are American companies coming into Canada, acquiring non-profit status here and making huge amounts from taxpayer’s money and allotting a small stipend of it for us to have our social & health services and to the mentally ill and poverty stricken and ill." 

A bit more in the comments: 

They've gone much farther than most people realize. Ontario Health is a new Crown Corporation that will have total control over the health care budget. We will see more corporations like Telus acting as intermediary. They're already a big player. The majority of the Board are corporate CEOs, including some who spent time in the US corp. There is a physician on the board who used to work with the group that provides physician malpractice insurance. They run up bills so patients can't afford to sue. 

Some people may wonder why US companies? The answer lies with the Free Trade Agreement (FTA). Under the terms of the FTA, foreign companies can sue the Canadian government in a special trade tribunal for lost anticipated profits -- it's like a one-way street -- services can be privatized, and the terms of the FTA make it very difficult to impossible for any services, once privatized, to be made public once again. This is why the Rae government never introduced public auto insurance, due to the threat of being sued for damages for lost anticipated profits.

ETA: Jean Yoon's post:

"Maybe we should stop using the term privatization; and describe the redistribution of public dollars to commercial interests an restructuring services to lock the people into exploitative commercial contracts in perpetuity as theft - of our safety and the shared savings of the government."

ETA: Ontario Health Coalition's fact sheet on Two-Tier Healthcare and Private Clinics 

Vote like your life depends on it. One day, it will.  

So, Where are We Headed?

I knew what he was going to say as soon as we made eye contact. A bearded shit-eating grin in a pickup-truck stopped at a light while I cycled across the intersection to join a trail packed with university students. I just wanted to clear my head after events of the past couple of days with a nice long ride, but here we go: 

"Take off your mask, sweetheart!" 

It's the new, "Show us your tits!" but it's strikingly more effective if the goal is to provoke fear. I used to write off the horn-dogs on my trips around the city, and welcomed their depletion as I aged out of harassment, but this new group isn't easily deterred or reasoned with, and their actions are overt and condoned. Threatening to film or let their boss or family know about sexual comments was embarrassment enough to stop drive-by creeps. They knew it was wrong, so there was often something we could do. I even called the cops and they listened to me, taking down a license plate number when a gentleman stalker wasn't so easily rebuffed. But if their mum found out they harassed random people about masks, they'd might actually be proud of them. There's absolutely nothing in our social system or legal system that suggests they're doing something wrong when they yell at strangers or stop them in their path, even when they circle the block to do it again. 

I really do think we're in the worst timeline, and that we won't make it out alive. 

CW: policy-driven lunacy and the resultant rambling, rage-fueled, depressing rant

On Optional Grade 13 - aka Breaking the 34-Credit Threshold

When Conservatives Mike Harris and Ernie Eves decided to get rid of grade 13 and the OAC year - Ontario Academic Credit - in 2003, I was opposed to the move even though Ontario was last in Canada to offer it. At the time, everyone had to finish grade 12, but students who wanted to go to university also had to take six OAC credits. This year was typically made up the more academically rigorous courses in most disciplines. When they ditched this fifth year, they also added 10 days to the school year. Remember when exams started nearer the beginning of June and were only for students who got below a 60 in the term?? For many students, they'd end up with between 30 and 40 credits over the five years, with many taking 8/year for 4 years, then 6 in their final year. I remember the excitement of finally being allowed to take a spare, but my school was one of few, it seemed, that forced us to remain silently working in supervised conditions for that period. Going home early or arriving late wasn't an option, and I felt pretty ripped-off for that at the time! 

Then in September 2013, McGuinty's Liberals introduced the 34 credit threshold, which meant schools wouldn't get funding for students taking more than 34 credits as a cost-savings measure. Although there are some exceptions (e.g. kids with IEPs), kids have been typically strongly discouraged from taking more credits. 

Pandemic Amnesia

Someone told me that we need to adapt to Covid faster, and get used to masks and checking air quality much faster for our own survival. They think our problem is our inability to adapt to this new environment. I said that I think we have adapted quickly, but we've done it in the other direction: we've acclimatized to accept that we will know people who have died at a young age or who haven't been able to get out of bed in months. We've adapted to the turmoil instead of the preventative measures. 

Then I came across a thread by Professor Debra Caplan in the U.S. She commented on the lack of films and books on the Spanish flu relative to all that was written about World War I despite the flu taking about six times as many lives in the United States. There are a couple episodes in Downton Abbey. Then there's this 24 min. NFB film, The Last Days of Okak, but she's got a point: so many post-WWI movies that discuss the ravages of war don't mention a thing about the devastation caused by the flu. 

Are We Being Manipulated to Ignore Covid?

Recently @LauraMiers wrote:

"When people finally realize they're being manipulated--that repeated Covid infections cause permanent organ damage and autoimmunity, dramatically shorten life spans, exacerbate all re-existing issues, and lead to a markedly decreased quality of life--they're going to be furious. The "Urgency of Normal' people are running out of arguments so they're attacking those of us who have been disabled by the virus, and accusing us of being on par with anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers. Classy. At the same time, articles like this one by an 'Urgency of Normal' representative seeks to convince people their valid concerns about the brain shrinking,  organ destroying, bat virus are overblown. Back to work! This is really sick." 

In an article in The Irish Times, "'Living with Covid' is Empty Sloganeering in Need of a Plan," Anthony Staines and Daniel Carey take a similar stance when writing about the reality of living with few protective measures: many deaths, tandeming infections in families, repeated reinfections despite vaccinations, and a large number of people out of work at any given time, which will effect the economy both within families and in the country.

The Harrowing Road for Candidates - and the Rest of Us

I've recently read two articles on the problem and solution to the current nastiness in elections after hearing first hand about serious issues candidates have had at the door. You never know who you're going to get when you knock on someone's door, and most people don't want to buy what you're selling. I've been door-knocking as a volunteer in the past and was fortunate not to run into any conflicts, but people are becoming less civil in their expression of discontent recently. 

In "Why is Politics Getting Nastier," Stephen Maher writes about candidates giving up running because of the reactions at the door, on social media, and extending into their lives.

"[Former MP Scott Simms] remembers a big fellow coming out of one house while he was walking up the driveway. The man began shouting at him about prime minister Justin Trudeau. . . . The man was upset. No problem, Simms said, he would leave, but the man kept coming, furious, getting closer. 'I'm going to grab you,' he said, 'and I'm going to throw you in a ditch.' . . . 'So that's one of those times when you realize, I think my time in this business is done.'" 

Physical assaults and death threats have been reported by candidates from all levels of government and all parties, and in other countries, including police charging a woman "for pinning a Liberal incumbent against a wall with a table,"  an office being lit on fire, candidates receiving packages of chemicals and violent images, and the fatal stabbing of MP David Amess. 

Masks Work

 I posted this on social media, and it garnered some notice:

At almost half a million distinct views in four days, it's doing considerably better than my entire blog! Of course many viewers were not also likers and I've had to set aside some blocking time each day to weed out the bots. Many non-bots, however, appear to really believe that masks do nothing to stop the virus and may even bring us significant harm, so I'm taking the time and trouble here to debunk their rabid misinformation.  

Student Led Differentiation

Occasionally we actually get some good ideas from PD in-servicing. I previously wrote in praise of Paul Gorski's anti-grit (possibly now anti-resilience) stance. Today we watched a video that, in a nutshell, asked us to better understand how stats work, which is a very necessary concept for everyone to grasp in order to recognize that the average of a group isn't reflective of each individual. The more interesting bit here, though, is instead of teachers differentiating instruction for each student, we might be able to teach students to figure out what they need to be their best learners, I think possibly by offering weighted options, challenging them to adhere to time limits, and helping them figure out the difference between true limitations and failures due to educational barriers. This is a bit round-about, but it all comes together in the end.

In my social science classes, I belabour the implications of population data falling on a normal curve. What we take as "normal" is typically just 68% of the population, and the other 32% is... something else. If we can really wrap our heads around this idea that only 68% will be one standard deviation from the norm, then we can better understand how stereotypes form, and how terribly simplistic and inaccurate they are as a way of understanding any group of people, thus beginning to dismantle prejudices and discrimination.  

Not Dead Yet!

This pandemic feels like living in a horror movie that just keeps going on and on. We think the killer is dead, but then they come back for yet another attack. Is this one finally the end? Is this one?? When is it over?? Checking our watch is a bad sign for any movie: it should have ended ages ago. But every horror film has a cast that does the stupidest things that make us yell instructions at the screen. Don't split up! Don't go in there alone!! Take off your high heels to run, you idiot! If only they'd have listened to us, they would all still be alive.  

And here we are: Yelling at our screens (and on our phones and at meetings) to keep protections in place for at least a few more weeks after March break, but the cast running the show isn't listening. We have been abandoned to our own risk-analysis, and, in our schools, the choice that will make or break us is left in the hands of children. 

Politicians appear to be placating people who want to come to schools and stores without a mask to get things to feel normal again, but they're completely ignoring the real fears of the people who are now wary of entering these buildings because they don't want to get a brain-invasive virus. Make it make sense!!

On Removing Mask Mandates

I'm gobsmacked by the recent move to remove the mask mandate for schools starting March 21st, at the start of spring. In the words of Dr. Genevieve Eastabrook, it's premature demaskulation! The Hamilton Board dared to face down the ministry, but my board only had one trustee, a former nurse, willing to go on record as voting against the new rule that students must be allowed to go to school without a mask. A few voted in favour, but most abstained. The special meeting and vote took place from the safety of their private homes, of course. Hamilton's decision, if it sticks, will provide us with an excellent control group in this macabre experiment on our children. One argument my board's trustees made in favour of following the ruling was that, since the trustees aren't medical professionals, they don't have a right to make a medical decision and therefore have to follow Dr. Moore's lead. They do, I would counter, make calls on pedagogy, ventilation, urban planning, etc. despite not being specialists in those areas because they've been voted in to make informed decisions that affect the well-being of our students. And they could have made an effort to look to other specialists' views for some advice:

IT ISN'T SAFE YET

We appear to be following behind Denmark's lead as they dropped mask mandates on February 1st. This graph shows how closely our fatalities aligned until their mandates were dropped, and then their rate of fatalities soared. Canada is bound to follow that trajectory. We're significantly less vaccinated than Denmark, so things could be even worse for us. So why are we okay with this?? 

On Masks, Ventilation, and Contact Tracing - Yes, Again!

On Monday I presented to my school board to try to persuade them to keep masks even if (when) Ford removes mandates and to allow me to keep my Corsi-Rosenthal filtration unit in my classroom, dammit! Here's my 8 minute presentation/plea. They said "thanks" very politely, then the Associate Director started talking about nearing endemicity (at 101:15-23 here), which isn't remotely the case but more on that later, and then a trustee reported on the harm caused by masks both from the ingredients in the material and the restrictions on talking while eating during lunchtime, as they harkened to our pre-pandemic lives. 

But at least I tried. I don't mind trying and failing, but nothing feels worse to me than not trying at all then always wondering what might have happened had I done a little more or at least done something. Nobody tried to suggest it's a mental health problem to wear masks this time, although I was prepared for it since that was the Associate Director argument at a previous meeting. Current studies show that the strongest correlation to mental health isn't tied to mask wearing but to levels of the virus in the community. If we wear masks to keep levels low, then it will improve mental health in the region! 

On the Importance of Civics Classes

On Monday, I did a five minute bit on CBC Radio's Metro Morning with Ismaila Alfa about teaching civics. They called me last Sunday afternoon, having exhausted all other avenues, because I happened to tweet this the previous day:

It wasn't even a particularly well-liked tweet! 

And then right after that interview, I was called to do it all again on Thursday on CBC-KW with Craig Norris, who tweeted out my profile picture. I update that picture ever ten years, so this one is six years old, but seeing it spread around all big and everything just brought it home that I've aged about 20 years in the last six! It's been quite a time!

Lunatic Fringe?

I'm a bit of a social media addict, but I quietly wandered away from Facebook last summer when too many people I know in real life were making fun of people wearing masks. A quick peek back finds far too much support for this inane convoy making a mess of Ottawa. It's bad enough having to deal with that unnerving feeling in person, my blood running cold as it's explained to me that N95s are too uncomfortable to bother with, and that we have to make peace with death and the death of others. We have to live our lives!! The lack of concern for how overwhelmed hospitals are and childhood hospitalizations increasing has me reeling. 

And we can live our lives for so much longer, and with much greater pleasure from good health, if we get vaccinated, wear better masks, and keep buildings well ventilated. It's baffling to me the level of denial and the weird rationalizations people are making around the pandemic. I hear that, like me, people are terrified for their lives and the lives of our children, but denial just makes it so much worse. It IS possible to mitigate the risks and avoid the costs with just so little effort! 

Questionable numbers here, but estimates still show N95 give better protection.

The "truckers convoy" is a perfect symbol of misdirected discontent. I put it in quotation marks because most of this gang aren't truckers, and most truckers have denounce the whole shenanigans, with over 90% vaccinated. It's really a white nationalist grift and a distraction from worse events allowed to continue.  

Bad News is Increasing, but More Slowly?

Teaching in Ontario right now is an absurdist's wet dream. Schools can only close if there's more than 30% absent, and many classes are half full, but nobody's actually away because any online contact gets them marked present, so even sick kids are logging in. Masks provided for kids smell of kerosene and are adult sized, huge on tiny faces. One teacher suggested using them as car covers. The vast majority of classrooms do NOT have a HEPA filter, and many classrooms don't have windows at all or the windows are frozen shut, but we all have excellent ventilation. There are no CO2 monitors to know for real, though, but trust us. Two doses are "almost worthless" as protection past six months, but 12-17 year olds who got dose 2 back in May aren't eligible for a booster because they're perfectly fine. Classes aren't sent home from a contact in the room anymore since nobody is allowed to tell if there's a positive case in the class, but we all go home if one person gets lice, which makes me think of this scene from Pleasantville:

Ontario Schools Opening Monday: A Collection of Responses

There is a simmering rage out there from Lecce & Moore's reiteration of the "leaked" news of schools being in-person in five days. Of course it wasn't truly leaked. This is how Ford gets feedback on his ideas before making them his ideas. It's a childish way of establishing plausible deniability. And now, IF they schools actually shift to in-person learning (schools haven't closed since this all started - they just shifted online), then it could be "absenteeism" that closes them, and Ford's in the clear!! Of course it won't be "absenteeism" as far as any authentic definition is concerned, i.e. teachers and staff avoiding work without just cause. No, it will be from illness and family care days. They're ready with an arsenal of retired teachers and parents that they're hoping will step up to take the place of teachers that they expect to get sick! Parents won't hear anything about it, though, until we hit 30% - THIRTY PER CENT - absences in a school. So no more late night texts to find out a student in our class has the virus. A question for the Minister and Doctor, if they wouldn't mind: By the time 30% of the school is absent from omicron, what are the chances that the rest have it?? 

Here's a selection that was live tweeted during the announcement from my disgruntled corner of the world. I didn't include attribution in case people don't want to be mentioned here, except in the case of authorities in their field. Some of my own tweets are in the mix:

Juris My Diction Crap

This Matrix clip has been at the front of my mind since I started looking into how to get a booster for my youngest, who's 17, because I question if recent orders around delaying boosters for the 12-17 and around getting kids back to school in nine days are really for our protection! 

My oldest caught the covid from their partner who got it from an ill-advised trip into Shoppers Drug Mart, and my little bunny is very sick, and it sucks so much!! (Wear N95 masks, and wear your googles, too, kids!!) But we've been lucky that the oldest's bedroom is in the basement with their own bathroom, so they're relatively easily contained, and the rest of us made it to day five unscathed and testing negative. My biggest worry aside from the well being of my triple vaxxed oldest, who doesn't have the strength to get out of bed, is my unprotected teenager getting it. 

LTC Homes: Ownership Matters

Nancy Olivieri, Michael Hurley, Vivian Stamatopoulos, and Natalie Mehra explained Doug Ford's sneaky passing of Bill 37 just before Christmas in today's Toronto Star.  They warn, "Hope to live out your old age in dignity and comfort? Think again." 

Ford doesn't want us to know what's been stolen from Ontarians. This bill "smooths the way for billions of public dollars to be funnelled to for-profit LTC for another generation," allowing Ford to promote for-profit ownership and issue new licenses to operators with terrible records. 

Covid-19 has exacerbated problems in LTC homes, but the problems were already quietly brewing: 

"Decades of tax-funded incentives aimed at improving for-profit facilities were offered to their operators--and were declined. . . . for-profit LTC is worse than that in publicly run facilities, across a range of outcomes. Owners siphon off revenue to shareholders, spend 24% less on direct care, have fewer staff and lower pay compared with non-profits, and fail to deliver on standards of care. . . . Ford confirmed plans to allocate thousands of new beds in 30-year licenses to for-profit companies, including to operators of homes in which the military exposed hideous examples of neglect . . . paid for by public taxes, and by residents' fees."  

Resilience During a Pandemic

I learned little from English classes. I think my highest grade in high school was a 53. I mastered grammar and that formulaic essay enough to slip over into a passing grade, but I never understood all the metaphor and symbolism talk. At the time, I suspected it was all made up. Secretly, I still think so. I had the same reaction to formal theory discussions in art classes: the lesson that every single choice of colour and line and space is carefully pre-determined with an eye to balance and complementary structure and all the other elements I now forget. Our teacher encouraged us to watch a Georgia O'Keefe interview on television one night, which I imagine he later regretted. O'Keefe described painting by filling the canvas from the upper left corner to the lower right. She had no idea what it would look like until she was finished! Ha!! Okay, so I get that we were not a crew of burgeoning Georgia O'Keefes sitting there, in Mr. Millar's grade 9 class! Some people have a feel for design, it's in them, so they don't need to be taught how to structure words or images. The way it seems to work is that the rest of us have to try to figure out what the talented few did and copy it perhaps to become writers and artists good enough for mainstream consumption or a largely unread blog, but scarcely able to affect anyone at any depth. 

Parenting in the Time of Covid

He was on his way out the door, to walk around with a new friend outside. 

Me: Rapid test, masks, or walking 6' apart? Which are you doing?

Him: It bothers me that you ask. I shouldn't have to live with your anxieties. You just ask because you're anxious about it, and your anxieties shouldn't have an effect on my life.

Me: You're going to hang out with someone and then come back into the house with other people who are vulnerable. Omicron is far more contagious, so being outside isn't enough. There is a very real risk that you could catch and spread the virus walking outside next to someone if you're both unmasked. You have to choose one of the three. Either she tests before you go, or you both wear masks, or you walk far apart. 

Him: But that fact that you ask means you don't trust me. I know what I'm doing. I read the research.

Me: I read the research too, which says that we need to start masking outside. I trust that you'll follow your own risk assessment. But I think we have different risk levels that we're comfortable with. I accept far less risk because your sister is way past needing a booster. Once she gets it - if that ever happens - I might be less inclined to check that your risk levels are in line with mine. Right now, I want some reassurance that your plan is in line with my lower level of risk comfort. 

I'm at the "My house - my rules!" point in the pandemic. It makes it very difficult to live with adult children - for everybody. He said he'd be gone an hour; he was out for five hours. I'm happy he's meeting people and getting out there, but I'm also really glad that I pushed him to wear a mask! Here's hoping that he actually kept it on!

ETA:Turns out, she was on it. She insisted on rapid testing first and wearing a mask outside. Thank god for small favours!

On "Fixing" ASD

I watched a course-load of videos by Dr. Alok Kanojia (@HealthyGamerGG) this past summer. He's a therapist specializing in addiction in his day job and focused on gaming addictions online, but he has broadened his videos to encompass many other issues. He doesn't do therapy online but "coaches" people instead. And typically right there I'd be out. Coaching?? It all sounds a little goofy and new-agey. But I got hooked when I first saw his video with Natalie Wynn (aka ContraPoints) the previous October because of his openness to really listen to her experiences and learn from them before asking the precisely right questions necessary to get her to understand herself at further depth. And then they meditated. It's a mix of Freud and a mountain top guru; at the very least I'm learning lots of Sanskrit words in the process.

I appreciate how he let Natalie explain her experience as a trans person, BUT then I saw a more recent video with a streamer, DesMephisto, taking about being autistic. Dr. K focused on fixing their ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). He often uses an addiction analogy to explain that, generally, first we need to understand and accept who we are, like we have to accept being an addict, but we don't stop at acceptance; the next task it to change ourselves so we can better live in the world. And then he asked Des what many consider an offensive question: "If I gave you a pill that would make you no longer autistic, would you take it?" 

Yikes. 

If that doesn't seem offensive, then imagine if he had asked Natalie that same question about being trans. It doesn't even make sense.