Depressed and burned out, Ontario nurses planning to leave the field in droves, poll finds

WHERE WILL THEY GO?

EVERY PROVINCE IS FACING THE SAME PROBLEM AS IS THE USA

Swikar Oli - Friday, May 13,2022

National Post

Overworked and overlooked during the pandemic, a large majority of Ontario nurses feel demoralized at work and are asking for things to change, according to a new survey.

Emergency room nurse Aimee Earhart speaks to a reporter as the Omicron coronavirus variant continued to put pressure on Humber River Hospital in Toronto, on Jan. 20, 2022.

The survey, conducted by the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario (RNAO), finds 75 per cent of nurses in the province experiencing “burnout.” Hospital and frontline workers were the most likely to report higher levels of “depression, anxiety, stress and burnout,” according to the findings, which accompanies a report detailing the personal toll the pandemic has taken on nurses across the province.

The survey was conducted between May and July of 2021, “during the height of Ontario’s third wave,” RNAO said in a news release. Close to 5,200 Canadian nurses, most of them from Ontario, participated in the survey.

It found that 70 per cent of respondents were planning to leave their jobs in five years. Among those who wanted to leave the profession, 42 per cent said they wanted out for good and would look for work in a different field altogether or simply retire.

B.C. health care workers who speak out about under-staffing hit with gag order: nurses union

'Crisis proportions': Burnout among Ontario nurses is threatening the health system

“Burnout has made me leave a department I love and felt like I had a calling for,” said one respondent, adding: “I feel greatly unappreciated.”

Staffing levels were the greatest challenge, the survey found, with a significant majority of respondents (60 per cent) saying they were concerned. About 54 per cent of nurses also assigned a particular importance to having higher ratio of experienced staff during shifts. And while 53 per cent expressed concern about the workload during the pandemic, only 15 per cent reported seeing a significant increase in staffing.

Only 35 per cent of nurses reported having adequate support services to spend time with patients or clients.

“The numbers are both sobering and alarming and represent a call to action for the government, health employers, educators, and nursing associations,” Dr. Doris Grinspun, the CEO of RNAO, said in the release.

Adding to the exhaustion, a significant majority of nurses (58 per cent) said their organization limited their vacation days due to workplace demands, while 53 per cent said they had to restrict their vacation to accommodate their employer’s request.


Related video: Why Quebec’s nurses are quitting in droves (cbc.ca)

“The results are even more stark when you consider that Ontario went into the pandemic with a shortfall of 22,000 registered nurses on a per-capita basis compared to the rest of Canada,” as RNAO points out.

The report also proposes a list of recommendations to improve retention and alleviate the burnout nurses face. They include:

— Repealing Bill 124 in Ontario, which imposes wage restraints

— Increasing the registered nurse workforce by expediting applications and finding pathways for 26,000 internationally educated nurses living in Ontario

— Increasing enrollments and funding for baccalaureate nursing programs,

— Developing and fund a Return to Nursing Now program to attract registered nurses back to the workforce

— Expanding the Nursing Graduate Guarantee, reinstating the Late Career Nurse Initiative and bringing back retired registered nurses to serve as mentors.

— Establishing a nursing task force to make recommendations on retention and recruitment of registered nurses.

Sixty-eight per cent said the biggest key to retain nurses planning to leave the profession was offering better workplace supports. Having the ability to adjust their work schedules was the second biggest deciding factor in retention, at 58 per cent. Improving benefits and providing better career opportunities were other measures requested, at at 55 and 43 per cent, respectively.

“We must pay unique attention to RNs – who are the ones exiting the profession en masse,” president of RNAO Morgan Hoffarth said in the statement. “We know nurses are committed and have vital expertise, compassion and skills to share. What we need is sustained effort to retain the nurses we have, and ensure welcoming workplaces for new graduates and others who join the profession.”

The Ministry of Health is reviewing the RNAO report, spokesperson Bill Campbell wrote in an email. He noted that Ontario introduced measures during the pandemic to improve nursing workforce stability, including a nursing recruitment incentive and “the increase in seats in nursing programs to add nurses to the health system in the coming years.”

Campbell also highlighted the province’s collaboration with Ontario Health and the College of Nurses of Ontario on an initiative to “deploy internationally educated nurses to hospitals and long-term care homes.” Under the program, the province has pledged $100 million to add 2,000 nurses to the long-term care sector by 2024-25.

Campbell added: “Mental health supports have been developed for health-care workers who had been impacted by COVID-19.”

Bill 124 “applies to over one million people working in Ontario’s public sector, including those in schools, colleges, universities, the provincial government, hospitals, and the provincial police,” Kyle Richardson, a spokesperson for Ontario Treasury Board Secretariat wrote in an email. The bill, which limits wage increases for public sector workers to a maximum of one per cent for three years, has been singled out by advocates as the biggest impediment to retaining nurses.

“The Act enables three-year moderation periods on compensation increases, but it does not impose a wage freeze, rollback or job cuts. Ontario’s public sector employees are still able to receive salary increases for seniority, performance, or increased qualifications.”

RNAO’s call to increase staff levels and to increase the province’s registered nurse workforce has been backed by the Ontario Hospital Association, Ontario’s Long-Term Care COVID-19 Commission, Colleges Ontario and the Council of Ontario Universities.

The one “silver lining” in the study, said Hoffarth, is the 35 per cent increase in applications to baccalaureate nursing programs in Ontario.

Survey suggests majority of Albertans think UCP should drop Kenney while only a slim majority trust the leadership review process

Ashley Joannou - May 16,2022
Edmonton Journal

A new survey by University of Alberta researchers suggests that the majority of Albertans believe Premier Jason Kenney should lose his leadership review when the results are announced Wednesday.


Jason Kenney speaks in Calgary on March 25, 2022. The Alberta premier, buffeted by party infighting and a contentious leadership review, is rejecting speculation he may call an early election as part of a last-ditch effort to maintain control.

However, only a slim majority said they have faith in the process, which the survey’s principal investigator warns could lead to political instability if Kenney is able to secure a win.

The latest online survey from Common Ground , published Monday, asked 2,151 Albertans of all political stripes a slew of questions about themselves and where they stood on the province’s current political leaders as well as the UCP leadership review.

Approximately six out of 10 of those surveyed said they believe UCP members should vote to remove Kenney as party leader. Only 21 per cent said Kenney should stay, with the remainder saying they were unsure.

Slightly less than half — approximately 47.4 per cent — think that Kenney will be removed, compared with 28.9 per cent who think he will remain in power and 24 per cent who aren’t sure.

When asked whether they had confidence that the leadership review would be conducted fairly, only 55.1 per cent of those surveyed were either “very” or “somewhat” confident.

Kenney’s office referred questions to either the party or his leadership campaign, neither of which responded by deadline.

Common Ground’s principal investigator and associate professor of political science Jared Wesley said the survey’s numbers are part of a broader trend among Western Canadian conservative parties that are having a difficult time instilling confidence among their members and leadership contestants as to whether their processes are fair.

“For example, in Manitoba, we saw the outcome of a race for premier among the Progressive Conservatives was thrown into court because the person who placed second didn’t believe in the results,” he said.

“So this is part of a worrying trend, I think, for those of us that study political and democratic institutions where we’ve entered a period now where we can’t take for granted that the results of a particular election will be accepted by the folks that lose.”

Wesley called the idea of “losers’ consent” a cornerstone of modern democracy for the peaceful transfer of power.

“And according to this poll, I don’t think we can take that for granted in Alberta,” he said.

The United Conservative Party’s first leadership race is still under investigation by the RCMP. Meanwhile this latest review has faced controversy after it was moved from in person to mail-in voting. Correspondence obtained by The Canadian Press indicates Elections Alberta is investigating allegations of possible illegal bulk buying of party memberships.

If party members disagree with the results some could try and force another review, Wesley said.

“But I think probably the more likely outcome for those that are really disaffected is to leave the party and either take up membership in an existing party or form a new party,” he said.

Because the survey is not just of voting UCP members, Wesley said the results are not necessarily proof of how things are going to unfold on Wednesday but do suggest the kind of political environment Kenney will be dealing with if he stays in charge.

“We’re not sure how members of the UCP will vote. This just tells you what the likely public reaction is going to be,” he said.

Online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population. If the data were collected through a random sample, the margin of error would be plus or minus two per cent 19.5 times out of 20.

ajoannou@postmedia.com
twitter.com/ashleyjoannou

Whether Jason Kenney wins or loses on May 18, the UCP is still headed for a showdown

Tyler Dawson - Saturday
National Post

EDMONTON — Jason Kenney is finished — or not. He’s the only hope the United Conservative Party has at re-election — or their greatest liability. It all depends on who you ask about the former Harper cabinet minister turned Alberta premier.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney announces construction of a major highway project in Leduc, Alberta on Thursday, May 12, 2022

On May 18, the ​United Conservative Party — and Albertans — will find out if Kenney retains his job as party leader when the results of a leadership review are made public after roughly one month of mail-in voting.

Whatever the outcome, the question that’s looming over the party is whether the UCP can defeat Rachel Notley’s New Democrats in the 2023 election.

“Everything comes down to the election, basically a year from now,” said Zane Novak, with Take Back Alberta, a committee created to get rid of Kenney. “If the UCP doesn’t have its act together, we believe that their chances of success are very slim. And we feel that with Jason Kenney at the helm that their chances of success are almost impossible.”

Brock Harrison, who’s running communications for Kenney’s leadership review team, said ​unity is key ahead of an election.

“There’s a ton of work to do and you’re seeing, the NDP, they’re already doing it,” said Harrison. “And we’ve been hamstrung by this leadership review.”

When Kenney united Alberta’s right back in 2017 and won the 2019 general election, he did so on a massive wave of support. But the premier has had a rough few years — a lot has changed since April 16, 2019, when Kenney declared that “help is on the way and hope is on the horizon.”

For months, polls have reflected Kenney’s unpopularity among UCP voters and Albertans at large. In April, polling from ThinkHQ found that just 29 per cent of Albertans approved of Kenney’s job performance. It also showed 61 per cent of current United Conservatives want Kenney gone, and 45 per cent say they would be less likely to vote United Conservative in the 2023 election if Kenney’s leading the party.

​Many who want Kenney gone have expressed a deep anger over the way the United Conservatives handled the COVID-19 pandemic.

“There had already started to be a lot of frustration,” said Novak. “The whole thing just came to a flashpoint — accelerated — when it became the mandates, the pandemic and how he handled it.”

On April 9, when the party kicked off the leadership review with a special general meeting, Kenney addressed those who disliked his COVID-19 approach directly, saying the party risked looking in the “rear view mirror” and ending up in a divisive leadership contest.

“It will drive a wedge right down the middle of our party from which we may never again recover, and there’s only one person who wins from that, and her name is Rachel Notley,” Kenney said.

There are other decisions that have frustrated the party’s base. For example, Kenney’s unite the right campaign had promised to respect grassroots decision-making, but as far back as 2018 Kenney said, “I hold the pen on the platform.”

Over the past year, the party has been riven by infighting, much of it public. In September 2021, leaks from caucus suggested a putsch was imminent. At the November annual general meeting, anti-Kenney members attempted to take over the party’s board. None of this was successful; Team Kenney has held its ground.

But will it on May 18?

The leadership vote is happening by mail — itself a controversy. Ballots were due in to Deloitte, which has been hired as an independent overseer and manager, on May 11. On May 18, the party will reconvene its special general meeting to announce the results.

When the party first decided in December to hold a leadership review, the plan was for in-person voting in Red Deer on April 9. But on March 23, the party announced a change: More than 15,000 people had registered to come vote, paying a fee to do so, and the party said, simply, they could not manage that amount of in-person voting.

Instead, ballots were mailed out to the nearly 60,000 party members. This has sapped some of the confidence in the process. Brian Jean, the former Wildrose party leader, who lost in 2017 to Kenney in the race to lead the United Conservatives, said in a March statement that “a rushed mail-in ballot is a formula for fraud and cheating.” (Jean, who recently won a byelection to return to provincial politics, has been open about his desire to see Kenney gone — and that he’d like to replace him.)


© Vincent McDermott/Fort McMurray Today/Postmedia

UCP’s Brian Jean said the mail-in ballot is a formula for fraud and cheating. QUOTING TRUMP

The anti-Kenney side argues the extended timeline for the vote allowed Kenney to do a lap around the province, promoting the fuel tax cut that came into effect April 1 and the upcoming rebates for home heating costs.

Related video: Kenney calls Alberta court of appeal decision striking down Bill C-69 ‘a huge win for the people of Alberta' (Global News)

“On and on and on he uses our tax dollars to make himself look like a hero and detract, deflect, smoke and mirrors away from the mail-in ballot,” said Novak.

Cynthia Moore, the party’s president, told the Calgary Herald she’s “absolutely convinced” the vote will be fair and honest. “The premier was not involved at all in the decision-making,” Moore said.

Kenney’s opponents argue that the in-person voting favoured those who were mad enough to buy a pass to the special meeting and take time from their lives to drive to Red Deer — ie., their camp. A wider membership vote reaches those with less fiery bellies, or older members instead of new, agitated ones, and that may favour Kenney.

“If people are now saying, well, ‘Jason’s more popular, a vote of the broader membership advantages Jason,’ well, so be it,” said Harrison. “If the allegation is that that Jason is more popular with grassroots members, then I guess, you know, guilty as charged.”

There are three basic scenarios before the party: Kenney wins big, Kenney wins small or Kenney loses. All lead into the election question.

Kenney has said that he will step aside if he loses the leadership review. If that happens, the party would enter a leadership race to find someone to lead the party against the Notley NDP next year.


Alberta NDP leader Rachel Notley. 

Photo by David Bloom

“A new leader means the party, potentially, can go in an infinite number of directions,” said Matt Solberg, with New West Public Affairs. “And if there is a new leader coming, it’d be at least six months before that can be presented to voters. And now you’re getting pretty close to that election redzone.”

The other two scenarios are more complicated, because it’s not clear what threshold Kenney might need to reach in order to retain the support of his caucus.

In November 2009, Ed Stelmach won the confidence of the Progressive Conservatives — a UCP precursor — with 77 per cent support. He was gone two years later. Then, in November 2013, Alison Redford won with the exact same percentage — she was gone by March 2014. In both instances, there were questions about their leadership of the party.

“For a long time, the minimum bar was 77 per cent. Now, if Jason Kenney got 77 per cent in this vote, I would say that’s winning big and I think a lot of folks would agree with me on that,” said Solberg.

Harrison argued the context for these reviews was totally different, because it’s a huge pool of voters.

“This should not in any way be compared to a leadership review where 2,000 party faithful file into a hotel ballroom, pay their fee to go to an event and render their verdict on the leader,” said Harrison. “So I think the result, whatever it is, has to be interpreted in that context.”

Kenney has been reluctant to put a number on the threshold he’s hoping to reach. In a recent interview with the National Post, he said he wouldn’t give an “arbitrary figure,” and noted the UCP constitution sets 50 plus one as the threshold that needs to be cleared.

Fifty plus one, said Vitor Marciano, a long-time conservative strategist, spokesman for Brian Jean and vocal Kenney critic, is “not a survivable number.”

Kenney’s opponents are absolutely convinced the premier isn’t going to win big. there are no exit polls, no way of knowing who has voted and who hasn’t.

“We’re all flying a little blind,” said Harrison.

Marciano said the math simply isn’t on Kenney’s side, with so many of the party’s members in rural areas.

“If he actually legitimately got a really big number, the MLAs would fall into line, but it’s not going to happen. That’s just not available to him.”

Kenney’s supporters believe there’s big support for his leadership, thanks in large part to the balanced budget, new investment and the end of COVID-19 measures.

“They’re not the ones holding press conferences on the steps of the (legislature) and making wild allegations that aren’t true and phoning journalists complaining about things. They’re the ones who are living their lives,” said Harrison.

If he wins small, then it’s anyone’s guess what will happen.

“If he wins in that 51 to 60 bracket, even 65, I believe that the party will implode,” said Novak. Even beyond continued internecine fighting, Novak suggested in a year’s time, conservative voters might simply stay home, rather than vote for Kenney.

But, said Solberg, at the end of the day, there’s an election next year, and members of the legislature — not to mention the party faithful — have to think about what will give them a shot at winning.

“If he comes in around, say 65 per cent, for most of the MLAs that have been rabble rousing, I think they would look at that number and say, ‘You know, that’s a pretty solid demonstration of support,’” said Solberg.

Kenney has said he’ll leave if he loses, without a fuss. The same standard should apply if he wins, said Harrison.

“He’ll respect the results if it doesn’t go his way. But by the same token, if it does go his way, he expects the same respect to be shown to that result from, certainly, members of his caucus,” said Harrison. “He’ll want to offer some of these folks … a chance to say, ‘look, you may not like me personally, but look, the members have spoken.’”

What will matter beyond just the vote is what Kenney does on May 19, there could be a shuffling of the deck, and what his caucus does, whether the vast majority stand with him, or a significant number of them abandon the UCP to sit as independents.

“It’s possible that he looks at the crew around him and who is still supporting him on May 19 and says, ‘you know, I may have 51 per cent but I don’t have my caucus, and if I don’t have my caucus, I don’t have the legislature,’” said Solberg.

“At that point, it’s, you know, you step down, or you test the confidence (of the legislature) and you could see an election.”

• Email: tdawson@postmedia.com | Twitter: tylerrdawson

Sikh Motorcycle Club of Ontario raising awareness for two decades

Kevin Connor - Saturday
 Toronto Sun

A group of 85 Sikhs wearing turbans and biker jackets on motorcycles driving along Ontario motorways may turn some heads, but such rides have been happening for 20 years.

“Some people are surprised, but that is dwindling rapidly,” said Jagdeep Singh, spokesman for the Sikh Motorcycle Club of Ontario, which puts on rides for charities.

“When the club started, it was an effort for the acceptance of turbans, making sure citizens are equal and able to wear turbans.”

A turban is a important symbol for Sikhs and some motorcyclists of the faith have had helmet exemptions for years.

British Columbia and Manitoba first granted Sikhs a helmet exemption in 1999. Ontario and Alberta granted the exemption in 2018.

In Ontario, there are 85 club members and they participate in eight to 10 charitable rides a year.

One upcoming charitable ride will be to support victims of Canada’s aboriginal residential school system.

“We can relate to systematic oppression and the loss of territory, language and culture ever since we lost self rule (in Punjab) in 1849,” Singh said. “We were displaced and oppressed in that geographical area. The residential schools, we resonate with that.”


© Supplied

Sikh Motorcycle Club of Ontario members participate in their Ride to Support Farmer Protests.

He said bike riding is a lifestyle

The group rides daily to places of work and appointments, said Singh, who is an architect and real estate broker.

“The Sikh Motorcycle Club of Ontario is the essential ally and advocate of turban-wearing Sikhs who wish to ride a motorcycle in Ontario, as they are permitted to do in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, the United Kingdom and many other jurisdictions across the world,” the group’s website states.

“The Sikh Motorcycle Club of Ontario members are passionate abut their membership and the good it does in promoting Sikhi and the Turban across Canada. The case was controversial, causing heated debate and protest across the country. Many critics felt that Canadian tradition was being sacrificed for the needs of immigrants.”

The bike club isn’t first at standing up for rights regarding turbans.

In 1991, Baltej Singh Dhillon was the first member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police allowed to wear a turban instead of the Mounties’ traditional Stetson.

The move triggered national debate about about religious accommodation in Canada.


© Handout

Baltej Singh Dhillon was the first RCMP officer allowed to wear a turban and beard.

In March 1990, prime minister Brian Mulroney announced several changes to the RCMP dress code that allowed Dhillon to be able to serve wearing a turban.

PRODUCED IN ALBERTA BY THE REFORM PARTY
LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: More Flag Ballyhoo (plawiuk.blogspot.com) 

The SMCO is a non-profit organization. which doesn’t discriminate against any race, gender, religion or ethnicity.

There mission is to promote and enforce rights of the Sikh motorcycle riders. They also plan to lobby the next Ontario government for more turban rights.

“There are a lot of places where turbans aren’t allowed, like construction sites where you have to wear a helmet,” Singh said.

The club strives to bring together a group of people with a belief in Sikh philosophies and riding style to spread awareness among the people about the importance of the Sikh turban and promote the fellowship among the motorcycle riders.

“We are passionate about riding and will continue to do so for good cause, give us a call,” Singh said. “We enjoy getting conversations started.”

Nationally, the organization has raised $28,000 for United Sikhs — a UN affiliated multi-national NGO, currently operating on the borders of Ukraine for relief work; $100,000 for Khalsa Aid — a multinational NGO; $170,000 for Diabetes Canada; and $115,000 for the Canadian Cancer Society, just to name a few.

kconnor@postmedia.com

ALBERTA
Rally to honour nurses demands more funding for public health services

Samantha Schwientek -  GLOBAL NEWS

About 200 people came out to a rally to support nurses at the Alberta Legislature Building Saturday afternoon. Similar rallies were also held in Calgary, Red Deer, Lethbridge and Medicine Hat.

Heather Smith, president of United Nurses of Alberta, said the event was organized as part of National Nurses Week to thank nurses for their ongoing work throughout the pandemic.

But Smith said there were other reasons for the rallies as well — she's worried about increasing privatization and underfunding of public health care.

"What we need is money and political will to invest in public health care," Smith said. "We need to move forward with things like pharmacare and real reforms to our long term care system."

Sue Reid, a retired anesthesiologist who worked in Edmonton for 30 years, said she showed up to honour nurses and also to advocate for "publicly funded, publicly delivered health care."


© Julien Latraverse/Radio-CanadaHeather Smith, president of United Nurses of Alberta, said she would like to see more funding for public health care from both the provincial and federal governments.

Reid spoke at the rally as a member of Canadian Doctors for Medicare, a group that aims to improve publicly-funded universal health care.

Earlier this year, the Alberta government proposed using public funds for surgeries at private clinics to clear surgery backlogs.

Reid said she worries the move could potentially worsen public surgical services.

"You steal people from the public hospital system and put them in the private system and there's no surplus," she said. "So if you're an anesthetist working in the private OR [operating room], then the one public OR is closed."

Her concerns were echoed by Chad Ohman, technical producer at ProtectOurProvince Alberta.

"We're seeing that with Alberta Precision Laboratories being privatized over to Dynalife," Ohman said.

Dynalife Medical Labs was set to take over a majority of community lab services on July 1, but the move has been delayed until Dec. 5 because of operational issues.

For Smith, these issues demonstrate a greater need for more public health funding from both the provincial and federal governments.

She added she would like to see money from the federal government come with "strings attached" so it can't be directed toward private services.

Advocates rally at Lethbridge City Hall to support public health-care system
Erik Bay - .
Global News

Lethbridge joined several cities across the province playing host to rallies in support of Alberta's public health-care system over the weekend.

Organized by the Lethbridge and District Labour Council and Alberta Federation of Labour, roughly 50 people attended the event held at city hall.

Read more:
Albertans rally to support public health-care system

"We're trying to do it across the province, and get the energy up and bring the conversation to the forefront," organizer Krysty Thomas said.

"There's been a dismantling of our public health care services.

"We're seeing privatization in the labs, wait times going up, lack of hospital beds, hospitals put in place but no staff to staff them. It's a real issue across the board," Thomas said.

Video: Town of Fort Macleod hoping incentives cure municipality’s doctor shortage

Many in the assembled crowd were holding signs showing support for Alberta's public health-care system.

"We need a provincial government who will support public health care, rather than attack it," Friends of Medicare executive director Chris Gallaway said. "Who will mend relationships with doctors and health care workers and respect them. There's this real need for respect."

Similar rallies were scheduled in Calgary, Edmonton, Red Deer and Medicine Hat.

Canada's premiers are missing a real chance to fix our ailing health-care system

Tom McIntosh, Professor, Politics and International Studies, University of Regina - Yesterday

The Conversation

When Canada’s premiers doubled down earlier this year on their demand for a $28 billion unconditional increase in the Canada Health Transfer (CHT), they missed an opportunity to finally achieve the kind of health-care reform our underperforming system has been told it needs over and over again.

The rationale for this demand is that the system is chronically underfunded (itself a debatable contention), and this is supposedly because, as Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe is fond of tweeting: “Ottawa used to fund 50 per cent of health care costs and now only funds 22 per cent of those costs.”

The premiers are also suggesting they’re being modest in their demands. They’re not asking for a return of the 50/50 deal struck in the 1960s, but only that Ottawa up its share to 35 per cent.

As I’ve argued previously, the premiers’ demand fundamentally misrepresents the history of health-care financing in Canada.

Read more: The disingenuous demands of Canada's premiers for $28 billion in health-care funding

They have forgotten that the 50/50 deal ended in 1977 with the full consent of the provincial governments. Since then, the size of the federal cash transfer for health has been subject to both intense federal-provincial diplomacy and federal unilateralism.

Their misleading take on history aside, the premiers seem determined that any increase in health funding from Ottawa pertains to the more or less unconditional general CHT, set at $45 billion to the provinces in 2022-23 — and not part of an agreement that might specify priorities for action and reform on their part.
Health accords didn’t bring about change

It’s clear that national accords, like those in 2000, 2003 and 2004, did little to effect real change in the system, although the 2004 Health Accord did provide stable and predictable increases in the CHT.

When the 2004 accord expired in 2017, neither the federal nor the provincial governments were in the mood for another grand bargain. Instead, Ottawa took a very different tack. It agreed to a 3.5 per cent annual increase in the CHT (up from a three per cent from 2014 to 2017) and to provide an additional $11.5 billion in targeted funding for improvements to community and mental health care.

In order to receive the cash, provinces had to sign bilateral agreements that set out, in varying degrees of detail, where and how the money would be spent.

As a colleague and I have argued elsewhere, these bilateral agreements, though still imperfect, are a markedly improved way of increasing transparency about where health-care dollars go.

They could also serve as an accountability tool for measuring progress focused not just on fixing but actually improving Canada’s publicly administered health-care system.

In all likelihood, Ottawa will want to continue what it started in 2017 and tie any significant funding increase to a new set of bilateral agreements based on priorities chosen by the provinces. It’s just as likely that this is what the premiers are really trying to avoid.

The impact of COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic presents us with a unique opportunity to rethink and reform public health care in Canada.

There is no doubt that the system was hit hard — its capacity was stretched, its workforce took a still uncalculated toll and all manner of service delivery was interrupted. Most notably, surgical wait times (already a serious problem in Canada’s system) were made worse, with one report indicating Ontario alone had a backlog of a million surgical procedures.

Read more: How to solve Canada's wait time problem

Furthermore, the pandemic exposed profound problems in long-term care and community and mental health-care systems.

It’s precisely because of so many simultaneous challenges that we should be thinking not just of rebuilding Canadian health care, but undertaking the necessary and long demanded changes that would create a 21st-century publicly funded and administered health-care system.

There are two likely scenarios.

In the first, Ottawa agrees to a significant increase in the CHT and the provinces simply take the money without making any of the necessary changes to how and what services are delivered (much as the Senate concluded happened with the $40 billion provided by the 2004 Health Accord). At best, that means we return to a pre-pandemic status quo in which the provincial systems continue to lose ground.

In the second, new agreements target the funding to remake the health-care workforce, make better progress on primary health-care reform, reconfigure long-term care, build real community-based mental health care or reconfigure the continuum of care to manage wait times on an ongoing basis.
Co-operation from premiers needed

The second will not happen without some form of conditionality, transparency and accountability from the premiers themselves. Unfortunately, the 2017 bilateral agreements contain no obligation on the provinces’ part to report on achievements relative to their commitments.

Asking provinces to report to the federal government on how they manage their constitutional responsibilities for health care could be taken as a violation of provincial sovereignty. But they should not refuse to report to their own residents.

It’s hardly inappropriate for Ottawa to insist that provinces report to their residents on any targeted funding aimed at priorities the provinces themselves commit to tackling.

So, unless and until the premiers agree to set out — perhaps in a new set of bilateral agreements — how they intend to spend and report on the 62 per cent increase in transfers they are demanding to actually bring about real change in their respective health systems, Ottawa should refuse. And Canadians themselves should just say no.

Read more:

Ontario public health cuts will endanger the public

The disingenuous demands of Canada’s premiers for billion in health-care funding

Tom McIntosh received funding through the University of Calgary for a study of the 2017 bilateral health care accords.

OUTLAW BLASPHEMY LAWS

Nigerian Christians demand justice for student killed over alleged blasphemy

By REUTERS - Yesterday
© (photo credit: REUTERS/AFOLABI SOTUNDE)


Nigeria's largest grouping of Christian churches on Friday condemned the killing of a female student who was beaten and burned by fellow students for alleged blasphemy and demanded the authorities bring the culprits to justice

Two suspects were arrested in connection with the murder of Deborah Samuel, who was accused by other students of posting blasphemous statements about the Prophet Mohammad in a Whatsapp group.

Nigeria is almost evenly divided between the largely Christian south and mainly Muslim north, where some states have adopted strict sharia laws, including death sentences for blasphemy.

The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), whose members include Catholic, Anglican and Methodist churches as well as indigenous churches, said those responsible for killing Samuel in the northwestern state of Sokoto should be prosecuted.

"The unlawful and dastardly action of the perpetrators must not only be condemned by all right-thinking people but the security operatives must fish them out, prosecute them as it is expected of them," Joseph Daramola, CAN general secretary said.

Witnesses said school security and police attempted to rescue the victim but were overwhelmed by the students.

President Muhammadu Buhari said in a statement there should be an impartial investigation and criticized those who took the law into their own hands.

"Violence has and never will solve any problem," he said.

Showing the religious and political sensitivities of the case, former vice president and presidential aspirant Atiku Abubakar, a Muslim, deleted his Twitter post condemning the incident.

Nigerians go to the polls next year to elect a new president, governors and parliamentarians. Abubakar is seeking the opposition ticket to run for president for the sixth time.

Reuters has not been able to reach Samuel's family for comment.

Journalist who kickstarted #MeToo, exposed Weinstein, honored by TAU
By JERUSALEM POST STAFF - 6h ago
© (photo credit: CHEN GALILI)

Jewish-American journalist Jodi Kantor, famous for exposing the sexual abuse allegations against American film mogul Harvey Weinstein, was awarded an honorary degree by Tel Aviv University in a festive ceremony during the 2022 Board of Governors meeting.

Kantor, a journalist for The New York Times, was recognized for her pivotal contribution in her work, especially regarding the expose of Weinstein, which kickstarted the #MeToo movement calling for powerful figures, especially in Hollywood, to be held accountable for sexual abuse. The expose was widely lauded and is cited as a generation-defining moment in journalism, winning Kantor a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 in the process.

In total, TAU awarded 11 individuals and one organization with honorary degrees for making a positive impact on the world.

These recipients included Prof. Katalin Karikó, developer of the mRNA-based vaccine platform that proved instrumental in combating COVID-19; theoretical physicist Sir Michael Victor Berry; influential neurobiologist and geneticist Prof. Cornelia Bargmann; philanthropist and business sector leader James S. Gertler; Jewish history scholar Prof. Jehuda Reinharz; Prof. Bernd Huber, president of Munich's Ludwig Maximilian University; philanthropist and industry leader Solomon Lew; evolution expert Prof. Jurgen Renn; and former Banks of England and Canada governor Mark J. Carney, who was awarded the George S. Wise medal.


© Provided by The Jerusalem

 PostHonorary degree recipients

 (credit: ISRAEL HADARI)

Also recognized was the Iranian American Jewish Federation of New York, which was awarded an Honorary Fellowship.

All these honors were awarded by TAU Board of Governors chairwoman Dafna Meitar-Nechmad, president Prof. Ariel Porat and rector Prof. Mark Steif.

“The honorees of this event are all driven by a deep social consciousness, whether in the areas of academia, business, civic service or philanthropy, and their contribution is boundless,” Meitar-Nechmad said.

WOULDN'T HAPPEN WITH DEATH PENALTY 

Convicted killer turned tech whiz confronts his sordid past

REHOVOT, Israel (AP) — When he was 20 years old, Harel Hershtik planned and executed a murder, shooting his victim in the head and burying the body in a crime that a quarter of a century later is still widely remembered for its grisly details.

Today, he is the brains behind an Israeli health-tech startup, poised to make millions of dollars with the backing of prominent public figures and deep-pocket investors.

Neither his conviction for premeditated murder, his lengthy prison sentence nor his parole board-mandated nightly house arrest have obstructed his rise. His partners tout him as a successful case of rehabilitation and second chances.

But with his company set to go public, Hershtik’s past is coming under new scrutiny, raising questions about whether someone who took a person’s life deserves to rehabilitate his own to such an extent. It also tells an astounding tale of a life derailed and improbably set back on track through a combination of intellect, drive and guile.

“When I was young, I would say that I was stupid and arrogant,” said Hershtik, now 46, sitting in his office beside a futuristic-looking computer with colorful cooling mechanisms he built on his own. “You can be a genius and yet still be very stupid and the two don’t contradict each other.”

Today, Hershtik is the vice president of strategy and technology at Scentech Medical, a company he founded in 2018 while behind bars and which says its product can detect certain diseases through a breath test.

In a three-hour interview with The Associated Press, his first with an international news outlet, he repeatedly expressed remorse for his crime.

At 14, Hershtik met Yaakov Sela, a charismatic snake trapper with a coterie of young fans who gravitated toward his warm personality and kooky profession. Hershtik, who said he was physically and emotionally abused over his weight by peers at a kibbutz where he was raised, loved snakes and met Sela at a zootherapy program.

Hershtik learned from Sela about the world of snake handling and the two set up snake exhibits together and partnered to crossbreed the reptiles. But despite their initial connection, the relationship morphed from a mentorship to one of “mutual hate and loathing,” according to court documents.

Sela was known for having numerous girlfriends at once, including Hershtik’s mother. Hershtik told the AP he felt uneasy with the way Sela treated some of those women and had “a problem seeing him talking to women in demeaning ways, especially toward someone that I cared about and loved.”

Tovia Bat-Leah was among Sela's admirers. She met him at a kibbutz in the late 80s and six months later was pregnant with his child. She called him a brilliant and warmhearted but troubled man who was traumatized by his upbringing by adoptive parents who were Holocaust survivors. She said Sela was always loving but could be unreliable.

“When you were with him, you were the only person who existed on the face of the earth and he was fully focused on you. And when you weren’t there, you didn’t exist,” she said.

In early 1996, Sela discovered that Hershtik had stolen 49,000 shekels (about $15,000 at the time) from him, and the two agreed that instead of involving the police, Hershtik would pay him back double that amount. Court documents say Hershtik concocted a plan to drive Sela to banks around the country, duping him into thinking he was gathering up the money to pay him back.

During the drive, Hershtik pretended he needed to throw up and Sela stopped the car. Once he pulled over, Hershtik’s accomplice fired three shots at Sela, using Hershtik’s mother’s pistol. He then handed Hershtik the gun, according to the documents, and Hershtik shot Sela in the head at close range.

The pair shoved Sela’s body into the trunk and buried it in a grove in the Golan Heights, according to the documents. Weeks later, hikers saw a hand poking up from the earth, and Sela’s body was found.

The sensational crime gripped the nation. Sela’s disappearance, murder and the trial — and the Shakespearean details of deceit, lust and tragedy that emerged from it — repeatedly splashed across newspaper front pages.

In court documents, prosecutors say Hershtik schemed and lied in his attempt to distance himself from the killing. Even his own mother, also convicted in the incident, called him a “pathological liar,” according to the court documents. Prosecutors said he lied repeatedly about his whereabouts the day Sela disappeared and claimed that Sela fled the country following a hit-and-run incident.

“I am telling you unequivocally that we didn’t use violent means as a solution to problems. I am a person who uses pens and pencils and computers to solve problems,” he told an interviewer at the time, according to the court documents, as police were working to crack the case.

Today, Hershtik said he was compelled to lie so that he could protect the others involved in the scheme, which included a friend eventually found to be mentally unstable as well as his mother. His mother was convicted of several crimes, including for having tried to thwart a police complaint by Sela's mother about his disappearance.

After Hershtik’s accomplice confessed to police, Hershtik was sentenced to life in prison for premeditated murder and obstructing justice, among other crimes.

In a sense, Hershtik flourished during his prison time. He earned two doctorates, in math and chemistry, and he got married three separate times. He said he established 31 companies, selling six of them.

Aside from the physical limits of life behind bars, Israeli law doesn’t bar prisoners from doing business, although Hershtik’s success is rare.

“You are limited by reality. You’re in jail,” Hershtik said. “You’re running a company. You can’t run it from jail yourself. You have to rely on other people to go talk, do contracts, deals.”

To circumvent that hurdle, Hershtik installed CEOs to run the day-to-day activities of his companies. He used whatever infrastructure was available to him in prison, being granted a computer in his cell at one point. With limited access to the internet, Hershtik said he had to get lengthy documents read to him over the phone.

His first company, which he launched in 1998, focused on video compression technology. He enlisted a tech columnist as CEO of the company, which was eventually sold, netting Hershtik an undisclosed amount.

Hershtik met his first wife through regular interpersonal contact while he was in remand. He met his second wife after he put a call out in a widely-read women’s magazine while he met the third in an online chat room, sparking a relationship that lasted 14 years. He is now divorced, with no children.

He said he hobnobbed with some of Israel's most famous prisoners while behind bars, including former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and former President Moshe Katsav.

But prison was also a fraught time for Hershtik. He said he spent 11 years in quarantine because of health issues that led to a serious deterioration of his immune system. Contact with other inmates could imperil his condition. He was punished twice for setting up internet access to his cell, in one case building a modem out of two dismantled DVD players. He said he spent weeks in solitary confinement — in a “dungeon” as Hershtik describes it — for his violation.

He also said he was stabbed by two Arab inmates after being caught up in a plot to catapult a severed pig’s head with a Quran in its mouth into Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque. Hershtik said he suggested the plot to two Jewish nationalists he met in prison, but said he was being hypothetical.

When the country’s domestic security agency Shin Bet caught wind of the plan, it enlisted Hershtik as an informant, he said. When the Arab inmates heard Hershtik assisted the Shin Bet, they stabbed him, Hershtik said.

Court documents related to the case say Hershtik “proved himself to be a very problematic witness and source of information,” saying he repeatedly changed his story regarding his involvement.

Last year, a parole board determined Hershtik had been rehabilitated and no longer posed a danger to society.

“Throughout the treatment, the inmate presented as a person with especially high intelligence, with no judgment or comprehension disorders,” the parole board wrote.

As part of his early release and until 2026, he is under nightly house arrest from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. He must wear a tracking device around his ankle at all times and he is barred from leaving the country.

A free man, Hershtik sat recently with the AP in his office in the central city of Rehovot, Israel. An electric toothbrush and an energy drink perched on his desk next to a long, curved computer screen. He wore a grey shirt with just a hint of wrinkles, but had two spare ironed shirts delivered just in case he had to make himself more presentable. He did not change during the interview.

He owns an Audi and without a driver's license, he is ferried around by two rotating drivers.

His start-up is waiting for regulatory approval to merge with a company called NextGen Biomed, which trades on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and would make Scentech public. Talks that brought about the merger also took place while Hershtik was in prison.

Hershtik said the company's product is being finalized for detecting COVID-19 through a patient's breath, and it is working to add other diseases such as certain cancers as well as depression. The product is meant to provide on-the-spot results in a non-invasive way.

The company has received a patent for its technology in Israel and said it is preparing to apply for FDA approval soon. Disease diagnosis by breath is a growing field and other companies say they do similar things, but Hershtik said his patented technology allows for unique chemical indicators in the breath to be identified and used to diagnose diseases.

Hershtik said he looks at his potentially life-saving invention as a way to give back to society.

“The remorse that I felt for what I did would become a beacon for my path forward,” Hershtik said. “This company was built because I wanted to do something better, to leave the world a better place.”

Hershtik said the merger values the company at around $250 million and that he has raised more than $25 million in funding over the last two years through private Israeli investors. A large part of the investment is from Hershtik’s own money, although he won’t say how much.

The company is backed by prominent Israeli names. Yaakov Amidror, who chairs NextGen, is a former chief of the country’s National Security Council. Zeev Rotstein, who leads the company’s scientific council, used to head one of the country’s largest hospitals. And Shmuel Shapira, the company’s chief technology officer, is the former director of the Israel Institute for Biological Research, a state-run scientific research body.

“According to the rules of the country, the man is allowed to rehabilitate. He paid his price and he rehabilitated. So there is no reason not to help him rehabilitate,” Amidror, who testified to the parole board on Hershtik’s behalf, told the AP.

But his past is already haunting him. Hershtik was demoted from CTO earlier this year to his current position, in part because he didn’t want his crime to scare away investors once the company goes public. In the About Us section of the company’s website, Hershtik is last on the list of team members even though Scentech is his brainchild. His bio does not mention the murder.

Drew Morris, a board member and investor, admits he was “freaked out” when he first heard of Hershtik’s story. But today, he believes his partner is trying to “do something good for the world.”

“Harel has always said if for some reason his presence is a problem and the company would be better off without him, that he’s willing to leave the company,” Morris added.

And as the company seeks to take its product to market, investors will need to decide whether Hershtik’s rap sheet influences where they put their money.

Ishak Saporta, a senior lecturer at Tel Aviv University’s Coller School of Management, said he believed investors would be drawn to the company’s potential for profit rather than deterred by Hershtik’s history.

“What concerns me here is that he became a millionaire. He paid his debt to society in jail. But does he have a commitment to the victim’s family,” Saporta said.

Bat-Leah, the mother of Sela’s child, remains traumatized. While she was no longer in a romantic relationship with Sela when he was killed, his death was a painful loss that came on the heels of the killing of her brother in 1991 by the notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.

She believes Hershtik should do something for the family. While Saporta proposed that Hershtik give Sela’s survivors company stock, Bat-Leah suggested he help fund her daughter’s education or create a reptile museum in Sela’s name.

“He served his time but he should also make some kind of reparation,” she said. “Whatever that looks like I don’t know.”

Hershtik sees the good that could come about from the company as the ultimate form of repentance. He said he could have used his smarts to create any sort of company with no benefit to society but chose health-tech instead.

“Trust me, this is not for the money,” he said.

___

Associated Press reporter Ariel Schalit contributed to this report.

Tia Goldenberg, The Associated Press

K-9 featured in Netflix's 'Rescued by Ruby' euthanized


PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A Rhode Island dog whose inspiring story of going from shelter dog to lifesaving police K-9 became the subject of a recent Netflix movie has been euthanized.

State Police said Sunday K-9 Ruby was put down Friday following a “sudden, acute, and untreatable illness.” She was 11 years old.

Col. Darnell Weaver, superintendent of the state police, expressed gratitude for K-9 Ruby's years of service.

“K-9 Ruby dedicated her life to serve the citizens of Rhode Island and make a positive impact on every person she ever interacted with," he said in a statement. “She became a symbol of hope for all shelter dogs, showing the world what a shelter dog can do when just given love and the chance to shine.”

Ruby served with the Rhode Island State Police for 11 years and was handled by Corporal Daniel O’Neil, Weaver said.

Part Australian shepherd and part border collie, Ruby was one of the first shelter dogs trained to serve with the Rhode Island State Police. She participated in numerous search-and-rescue missions and made many public appearances during her career.

Ruby gained notoriety in 2017 when she located a teenage boy who was severely injured while hiking in the woods. The boy turned out to be the son of the animal shelter volunteer who had fought to keep her from being put down.

“She was a total knucklehead,” shelter volunteer and dog trainer Patricia Inman had told The Associated Press of Ruby, who had been returned by five families for being too rambunctious before O'Neil adopted the then-eight-month-old in 2011.

Ruby earned national recognition for the rescue — the American Humane Hero Dog organization named her the nation’s “Search and Rescue Dog of the Year” — and her story was made into the 2022 Netflix movie “Rescued by Ruby.”

“She had a full, happy, and wonderful life, not only as a trooper, but as part of a loving family,” Weaver said. “She worked right until the end and never gave up doing what she loved most — making people smile.”

Ruby lived with O’Neil and his family and will be honored privately, police said.

“She was given a chance and she’s been doing everything she can to pay it back,” O’Neil said earlier this year. “You have this dog that was given up on, and she’s changed so many people’s lives.”

Despite her lauded search-and-rescue career, Ruby's mischievous spirit was irrepressible: Three years ago, she bolted near a state park, turning up safe and sound after a 19-hour search. More recently, she returned from a bathroom break with a live skunk writhing — and spraying — in her jaws.

The antics were part of what made Ruby, well, Ruby. Above all, she was a good dog.

“If you show them love and compassion and you give them a certain type of stability, they’ll show their true colors,” O'Neil had said.

The Associated Press

P3 INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

Former IDF intelligence chief Tamir Hayman appointed INSS director

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF - 
© (photo credit: INSS)

Maj.-Gen. (res.) Tamir Hayman, formerly the head of the IDF's Military Intelligence Directorate, was appointed on Wednesday managing director of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS).

Hayman will replace retiring deputy director Brig.-Gen. (res.) Udi Dekel, who served as head of the IDF's Planning Directorate and as the institute's director for a decade.

Hayman's military experience, specifically in research and intelligence, will help increase the INSS' influence in shaping future Israeli security policy, the institute said.

Hayman was drafted to the Israeli military's Armored Corps in 1987. After becoming an officer, he led several units within the Armored Corps before becoming commander of the 36th Division, also known as the Ga'ash Formation. He became head of the Military Intelligence Directorate in 2018. During his tenure, he was involved in the raid in Khan Younis where Lt.-Col. Mahmoud Kheir El-Din was killed.

"I am delighted to welcome another senior figure to INSS," chairman of the board of directors Sir Frank Lowy said.

INSS is an Israeli think-tank and research institute which focuses on security and military and strategic affairs in the Middle East, as well as cyber warfare.


© Provided by The Jerusalem PostDefense Minister Naftali Bennett speaks at the INSS conference. (credit: CHEN GALILI)

"Hayman's extensive military and intelligence experience will prove to be a significant addition to INSS," he added. "He will lead its research activity with professionalism and excellence."

Hayman is "looking forward to being part of the revolution," the former IDF general said.

"I see great value in research aimed at influencing policy, and welcome that the multidisciplinary task-oriented research concept that we utilized in the Military Intelligence Directorate is also used at INSS."