BY PAUL JUNOR

The Ontario government’s 2024 Fall Economic Statement, unveiled on October 30^th, 2024, has sparked widespread criticism from various education stakeholders, including the Ontario Liberals, NDP, Ontario Greens, and the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO). These groups have voiced their opposition to the government’s fiscal priorities and its failure to address critical issues facing Ontarians, particularly in the education sector.

Ontario Liberals and Other Stakeholders Respond

The Ontario Liberal Party (OLP) expressed disappointment that the Fall Economic Statement failed to tackle urgent issues affecting the province. In a press release, the OLP outlined several key priorities they believe should have been addressed, including:

• Real investments to maintain emergency room services
• Expanding access to family doctors for 2.5 million Ontarians
• Providing long-term financial relief for residents
• Addressing the affordability crisis in housing

Bonnie Crombie, Leader of the Ontario Liberal Party, criticized Premier Doug Ford’s government for prioritizing “billion-dollar giveaways” to wealthy insiders instead of investing in critical public services like healthcare. “Doug Ford is more focused on giving billions to the rich than addressing the real issues affecting Ontarians. People are dying on waitlists while this government squanders money on alcohol sales, foreign spas, and Greenbelt scandals,” said Crombie. “It’s time for Ontarians’ tax dollars to work for the people, not Doug’s wealthy friends.”

Similarly, the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA), representing 160,000 university students across the province, also expressed its disapproval. The group, which advocates for the interests of full-time and part-time undergraduate students, emphasized the need for stable, public investment in post-secondary education. Michele Wodchis-Johnson, President of the University Students’ Council at Western University, argued that “Public education should be publicly funded and financially stable enough to provide quality education to future generations. Investing in post-secondary education is an investment in Ontario’s economic future.”

ETFO’s Strong Condemnation

The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO), which represents over 83,000 educators, also sharply criticized the Ontario government’s failure to address the ongoing crisis in public education. In a media release issued on October 30, 2024, ETFO President Karen Brown condemned the government’s 2024 Fall Economic Statement, calling it a missed opportunity to reverse the damage caused by years of funding cuts to Ontario’s schools.

“There are no meaningful investments for public education in this statement. It reflects a deeply troubling trend,” said Brown. “Violence in schools is on the rise, class sizes continue to grow, and special education remains severely underfunded. Meanwhile, the Ford government focuses on expanding alcohol sales and funding vanity projects that benefit insiders. This is not fiscal responsibility—it’s gross mismanagement and a deliberate attack on our public education system.”

Brown pointed out that, in the 2024-2025 school year, funding for students will be, on average, $1,500 lower than it was in 2018. This translates to a staggering $3.2 billion in cuts for the current academic year alone. Notably, this figure mirrors the approximate amount that Ontarians will receive in rebate cheques from the government in 2025, a move widely seen as an attempt to sway voters ahead of the next election.

“Sending out $200 cheques to voters right before an election is an insult to Ontarians. It’s clear the Conservatives have run out of ideas,” President Brown continued. “It’s outrageous that they continue to cut funding for public schools while using Ontarians’ own tax dollars to try to buy their votes. The message is crystal clear: this government doesn’t care about public education.”

ETFO’s Call for Accountability

The ETFO concluded its statement with a firm commitment to hold the Ford government accountable for its neglect of public education. “We will not stand by while this government abandons Ontario’s schools,” said President Karen Brown. “Students and educators deserve a fully funded, equitable, and inclusive public education system. Our future depends on a strong, well-resourced public education system, and we will not let this government dismantle it.”

ETFO also made it clear that they will continue to advocate for the restoration of education funding and push for policies that prioritize the needs of students and educators across the province.

For more details on the 2024 Fall Economic Statement, visit the Ontario government’s official website: Ontario’s 2024 Fall Economic Statement.

BY PAUL JUNOR

The launch of the campaign, “For Us, For You” by ten provincial associations on October 17^th, 2024, is intended to increase awareness of the growing wage gaps for frontline workers. The resultant staffing challenges and impact on patient care are of primary concerns to these organizations. Details of the campaign can be seen on the website of the Canadian Mental Health Association: ontario.cmha.ca. The campaign highlights the need for urgent investments in Ontario’s community health sector to ensure crucial services and support remain available to meet the needs of Ontarians of all ages.

The campaign indicates that there are currently more than 200,000 workers that are working in various fields in the community health sector. These include primary care, mental health, addiction organization, home and community care, long-term care and other community health settings. In addition, there is an accumulated wage gap of over two billion that these workers are shortchanged compared to their counterparts who worked in hospitals and schools. They play essential roles in emergency departments and hospitals as they are the first ones the public meet.

There has been attention focused on the effect of significant staffing shortages on the patient care of Ontarians. The results from a survey show that:

• 94% of community health organizations identify compensation as the biggest challenge with hiring and keeping staff
• Over 80% are seeing wait times for services and supports continue to grow

The “For Us, For You,” campaign hopes to work with the Ontario government so that it can:

• Invest over $500 million each year over the next five years to close the wage gap, in addition to sustainable and ongoing increase in line with projected inflation.
• Address Bill 124 shortfall that continues to impact the community health care sector.
• Establish a working group with the government to develop a sustainable approach to building and supporting the community health care workforce.

The names of the ten organizations involved in the “For Us, For You” campaign are:

• Addictions and Mental Health Ontario
• AdvantAge Ontario
• Alliance for Healthier Communities
• Association of Family Health Teams of Ontario
• Canadian Mental Health Association of Ontario
• Children Mental Health Ontario
• Family Service Ontario
• Indigenous Primary Health Care Council
• Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinic Association
• Ontario Community Support Association

Leaders related with these organizations released statements for the campaign.

Tatum Wilson, CEO of Children’s Mental Health Ontario states, “By addressing wage disparity, we can strengthen the entire system and ensure that Ontarians have access to the comprehensive care they need, when and where they need it.”

Sarah Hobbs, CEO of Alliance for Healthier Communities states, “Primary care teams are experiencing ongoing recruitment and retention challenges, driven by wage disparities and inability to offer competitive compensation. These staffing shortages result in fewer professionals available to provide the care patients need, leading to delays and reduced access to services. Addressing pay parity is a practical and necessary step to ensure we can attract and retain the skilled professionals required to maintain consistent, high-quality primary care for all Ontarians.”

Dr. Kevin Samson, President of the Association of Family Health Team of Ontario states, “The community mental health and addictions workforce continues to struggle with staff retention and difficulty attracting new workers at a time when there is a surge in demand for our services. Meanwhile, the wage gap for the community health sector continues to grow. Our staff deserves to be paid an equivalent living wage as that of their counterparts in health and other sectors so that they can focus on providing quality care for Ontarians.”

Camille Quennevile, CEO of the Canadian Mental Health Association states, “There is a crisis in child and youth mental health that we can’t solve without addressing workforce shortages. Too many families are turning to hospitals in distress because of long wait times and a lack of treatment availability at community-based child and youth mental health centres. This is further exacerbated by frontline vacancies and high turnover because our wages can’t compete with hospitals and schools.”

BY SIMONE J. SMITH

“I decided to leave aside my well-prepared speech because …yesterday I was watching the silent TV in the leaders’ lounge, where the organizers have thoughtfully added green plants above the comfortable couches.

“People there eat, drink, meet, and take photos together, while images of voiceless speeches from leaders play on and on and on in the background.

“To me, this seems exactly like what happens in the real world every day. Life goes on with its old habits, and our speeches, filled with good words about fighting climate change, change nothing.”

ALBANIA PRIME MINISTER EDI RAMA

“We have a clear choice between a safer, cleaner, fairer future and a dirtier, more dangerous, and more expensive one. We know what to do. Let’s get to work. Let’s get it done.”

U.S. CLIMATE ENVOY JOHN PODESTA

“Already, catastrophic climate events worldwide have led to significant loss of life, property, and infrastructure. And yet, we persist in responding to these events as though they are merely unfortunate, isolated, and national incidents. I ask you to look beyond borders, beyond flags: the fires that devour your forests and the hurricanes that devastate our homes are not distant misfortunes but shared tragedies.”

“What we endure, you endure. What we lose, you lose. And if we fail to act, it will be our children and grandchildren who bear the burden, their dreams reduced to memories of what could have been.”

BAHAMAS PRIME MINISTER PHILIP DAVIS

“We’ve been sold a lie, a carefully crafted narrative that absolves the powerful and blames the powerless. Our leaders, cloaked in righteousness, preach about climate change, inequality, and corruption while their actions directly contradict their words. What I am going to share with you will expose how they indulge in lavish lifestyles, fund wars, and exploit resources, all while pointing fingers at us, the ordinary citizens. It’s time to rip off the veil of deception. We must acknowledge the hypocrisy, the double standards, and the blatant disregard for the well-being of our planet. We are not the problem; they are.”

In March 2024, the State of the Global Climate Report was launched, and below are some of the items we as global citizens were told that we need to be aware of:

Earth’s issuing a distress call.  The latest State of the Global Climate report shows a planet on the brink.

Fossil fuel pollution is sending climate chaos off the charts.  Sirens are blaring across all major indicators:  Last year saw record heat, record sea levels and record ocean surface temperatures.  Glaciers likely lost more ice than ever before.

Some records aren’t just chart-topping, they’re chartbusting. Changes are speeding up.  Sea level rises are accelerating — threatening coastal communities.  And last September, Antarctic Sea ice was 1 million square kilometers smaller than the previous record low for the time of year. That’s an area almost 25 times the size of Switzerland. The impact of all this is stark, brutal and accelerating with a deadly force.

The report from the World Meteorological Organization details extreme weather around the world in 2023, and the trail of destruction left in its wake:  Thousands killed, millions displaced, crops failing and vast economic losses.

While the rest of us sip on soggy paper straws and grapple with increasingly frequent natural disasters, the uber rich are apparently running errands in their private jets.

According to a recent study published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, ~19% of private flights cover less than 200 km and ~50% are shorter than 500 km.

Who’s to blame? Recent reports are showing that a small group of ~256k jetsetters, or 0.003% of the global adult population, many of whom are among America’s wealthiest: 69% of private jets are registered in the US.

About a quarter million of the super wealthy — worth a total of $31 trillion — last year emitted 17.2 million tons (15.6 million metric tons) of carbon dioxide flying in private jets, according to a study in the Nature journal Communications Earth & Environment. That’s about the same amount as the 67 million people who live in Tanzania,

Private jet emissions jumped 46% from 2019 to 2023, according to the European research team that calculated those figures by examining more than 18.6 million flights of about 26,000 airplanes over five years.

Only 1.8% of the carbon pollution from aviation is spewed by private jets and aviation as a whole is responsible for about 4% of the human-caused heat-trapping gasses, the study said.

“It may seem like a small amount, but it’s a matter of fairness and priorities,” said the study’s lead author, Stefan Gossling, a transportation researcher at the business school of Sweden’s Linnaeus University.

“The damage is done by those with a lot of money and the cost is borne by those with very little money,” Stefan explains.

The highest emitting private jet user that the team tracked — but did not identify by name — spewed 2,645 tons (2,400 metric tons) of carbon dioxide in plane use. That’s more than 500 times the global per person average of either 5.2 tons (4.7 metric tons) that the World Bank calculates or the 4.7 tons (4.3 metric tons) that the International Energy Agency figures.

“This report presents further proof that billionaires are causing the climate crisis,” said Jonathan Westin, executive director of the advocacy organization Climate Organizing Hub. “They are clinging to their private jets and oil profits while regular people see increasing floods, hurricanes and wildfires.”

 “It’s a grim joke that the billionaire class is flying private jets to the annual climate conferences, and the United Nations should crack down on this hypocritical practice,” said Jean Su, energy justice director for the Center for Biological Diversity.

It’s infuriating to be lectured about our carbon footprint while witnessing the lavish lifestyles of those preaching sustainability. Private jets, sprawling mansions, and endless consumption fly in the face of their demands for sacrifice.

They lecture us about plastic straws while corporations dump millions of tons of plastic into our oceans. It’s a grotesque display of hypocrisy, where the privileged few demands austerity from the masses while exempting themselves from the very rules they impose.

We are expected to sacrifice our lifestyles, our livelihoods, and our freedoms in the name of “climate change.” Yet, the same demands are not placed on the global elite who profit from the very systems they claim to want to dismantle.

It seems the only ones expected to change are the ordinary people, the ones who can least afford it. This hypocrisy is a slap in the face to those who genuinely care about the environment. It’s time for accountability, not empty rhetoric. If we are all in this together, then let us all bear the burden.

REFERENCES:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/carbon-pollution-from-high-flying-rich-in-private-jets-soars

https://press.un.org/en/2024/sgsm22168.doc.htm

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01775-z?_hsenc=p2ANqtz–nMZXs6KSym7OY78J8-dgdA6YAEffltO31s84kl3mfL9t8azFg2IlQwJF45EnTIKwAKWAkmGKhq1rC_xoCmR64joRrvg&_hsmi=333866231