Bacon Scrapins – “Doctors, Police, or Undertakers?”
by Barry S. Wolfe
Bacon Scrapins are the little bits of meat left in the greasy fry pan. They’re tasty, but the ‘nutrition’ needs searching for. This tale is a bacon scrapin.
Ontario budgeted $74.1 billion for health care in 2021-22. That sounds like a lot of money!
According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, Ontario is projected to spend LESS on health care per capita than any other province or territory. They conclude that this is due to, “…a decrease in per capita spending in the 1990s, flat spending between 20212 and 2016 and spending below the minimum required to keep pace with demand in other years.”
Ontario’s per capita spending is 8% lower than the average for other provinces and territories.
Funding for health in Canada is the responsibility of the province. The federal government originally committed to funding 35% of the cost. Over the years the cash transfer has declined to 22%, BUT the federal government has transferred tax credits to the provinces allowing them to increase provincial taxes while federal taxes declined. This was called an off-set. The cash transfer was offset with tax credits. Ontario has apparently used those tax transfers to fund things other than health care over the years, including large tax cuts or financial incentives to high income individuals and corporations.
This was referred to as “trickle-down” economics, Reaganomics, or Thatcheromics. The theory assumed that the wealth given to the rich would result in newly created jobs and money would trickle down to the less wealthy eventually. It didn’t work. The wealthy put more money into private stocks and bonds or into offshore tax-sheltered accounts. They bought private property, jewels, gold. They paid themselves dividends which are taxed at a lower rate than personal income. Corporations bought back their own shares on the market.
No “trickle down”, just a massive transfer up of public monies into private hands. It must just be coincidence that retired politicians then got placed onto lucrative “Board” positions in these areas.
Ontario’s Financial Accountability Office indicates that Ontario’s base health-sector spending plan in the 2021 budget called for per capita spending to decline by an annual average of 0.5% from 2019-20 to 2029-30.
In other words, Ontario appears to be intentionally under-spending and is planning to continue under-spending on health-care services for its citizens.
In 2021, according to the GlobalEconomy.com, Canada had 278 doctors per 100,000 people.
According to the OECD Ontario has 232 doctors per 100,000 people. Ontario ranks 7th out of 10 provinces in Canada. That’s by political choice!
According to the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) which analyzes data from 32 countries, Canada ranks #23 and Ontario would rank #28 out of 33 regions.
These results are due to political choices. We have the money if we chose to spend it. Our politicians are not choosing to spend available money for public health care.
If you don’t wash your clothes, they stink. If you don’t eat properly, you get ill. If you don’t maintain your vehicle, it breaks down. If you don’t fund the health-care system, it breaks down.
Why would Ontario do this intentionally? 1) It spends money elsewhere: a) to build highways to save 9 minutes driving time in the GTA, b) to provide tax cuts to special sectors of favour, c) to build unaffordable houses on a Greenbelt; 2) to break the system so that they can privatize it as Mike Harris Sr, did with senior care?
The 2021 Municipal Benchmarking Report said Waterloo Region had 184 police officers per 100,000 people in 2021. The WRPS has underspent its budget for the past 2 years, and wants an increase. Why? Capital projects. It can’t hire enough qualified candidates so it spends money on stuff, not front-line services.
Maybe what we need is more undertakers to process our health care failures?
Choices forced by the present Ontario government: more doctors, more police officers, more undertakers?
Probably not undertakers, that’s already a privatized business and will grow itself to meet the need. It’s the public services people that are being cut, so as to break them, so as to privatize them for “buddies’” profits and spots on corporate boards afterward.
My choice? A different Ontario government with different priorities for all citizens.
NOTE: This Bacon Scrapins tale is based on current factual data.
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