Random Access

George Smitherman tried to head those pesky bad guys off at the pass.
You know, the ones who keep bringing up the equity-in-health-care-dollars-for-growing-and-already-underfunded-regions issue at public forums when he comes to Mississauga or Peel.
In his introductory remarks at the launch of the Integrated Health Service Plan hosted by the Mississauga Halton Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) a week ago, Smitherman made a point of saying in his opening remarks (anticipating question period nicely) that there are some who want to pretend that health care networks are bounded by nice neat lines on maps.
He said some of the arguments made by organizations such as the 905 GTA Health Care Alliance, “do not respect a dollar spent on a Mississauga resident who is a patient at Princess Margaret Hospital.”
In fact, there is a discount of about 15 per cent in funding for hospitals out here to recognize that about that proportion of people here are served in Toronto.
The minister said in jest that he didn’t want any tough questions but he got them anyway.
Despite the minister’s attempts to dissuade him, John Huether, the Mississauga resident who spearheaded the formation of the Peel Fair Share Task Force in 1990, asked the question that the situation clearly begged.
Since LHINs (the new regional bodies that are to distribute hospital and local agency funding and bring health care planning closer to the community) are now a reality, Huether wanted to know if Mississauga and Peel will be any further ahead.
“There are funding equity issues that affect access that are very real,” said the former executive director of Peel Children’s Aid. “We are planning for substantial growth beyond what we have been unable to cope with for the last 15 years. What’s the long-term thinking on the long-term funding for the LHINs because we’re behind the eight-ball already in serving vulnerable people.”
With those few deft phrases, Huether seemed to completely flummox the minister. Smitherman, who grew up near Mississauga’s eastern border and whose Dad always had his businesses here, spent a couple of minutes bailing manfully at the mic as the boat started to slip beneath the waves. Then suddenly, it apparently occurred to him to answer the question.
He admitted the obvious, that Mississauga and Brampton are woefully underfunded in social services compared to the rest of Ontario. “Mississauga’s got it tough,” were his exact words.
Not only that, as new dollars become available he’d like to see them distributed on a more equitable “blended per capita” basis recognizing the squeeze that Mississauga is in, with growth continuing to exacerbate a chronically underfunded social service base.
Smitherman is the latest in a long line of government ministers of every political stripe to support the Fair Share argument in principle and, to be fair, some progress has been made in certain funding models, especially involving hospitals. But the essential woeful gap that sees Peel among the lowest-funding places in all of Ontario for critical services such as child care, children’s mental health, and family services counselling of all kinds remains essentially unchanged 16 years after the campaign was launched.
Since the McGuinty Liberals have been making essentially the same Fair Share pitch to Ottawa lo these many months about how Ontario is getting a raw fiscal deal, maybe they can finally set an example of how to put your money where your equity argument is.