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Newsstand: December 12, 2014
Stephen Harper hasn't met with Kathleen Wynne in over a year, and yet he found time to meet with Mayor John Tory less than two weeks after Tory took office. How about that. Some more morning news: Corrections Canada rejects the cornerstone recommendation from the Ashley Smith inquest, Ontario doctors have some new rules to follow, John Tory meets the prime minister, and racial disparity in foster care creates waves.
It’s been more than seven years since Ashley Smith’s death in a Kitchener, Ontario correctional facility, and a year since a coroner’s jury ruled her self-inflicted death a homicide because of the damaging effects of her stay in solitary confinement. And yet the Correctional Service of Canada has just released its response to the inquest, and has rejected one of its key recommendations: an end to indefinite solitary confinement of prisoners. The CSC also refused to refer to solitary confinement as such (the term used by the inquest), instead calling it “administrative segregation” and insisting it is used to maintain the security and safety of everyone in prisons, and not as punishment. With the CSC’s starting-point so far from the inquest’s, inmate advocates will have a lot of work to do if they want to succeed in ending indefinite solitary confinement in Canada.
The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario will now adhere to new guidelines in the areas of end-of-life care and refusing to treat patients. Doctors in Ontario, pursuant to a Supreme Court of Canada ruling, can no longer unilaterally decide to take a patient off life support. Under the new guidelines, taking someone off life support is considered a form of treatment, and thus requires consent. As for doctors whose religious convictions preclude them from performing procedures such as abortions, they will now be required to refer patients to other doctors willing to perform those procedures. Somewhat unbelievably, this was not previously a requirement for those refusing to treat patients.
Mayor John Tory met Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper last night, and the meeting sounds like it went great: it took place at Pearson Airport, and they discussed, as Tory very blandly phrased it, “the challenges of traffic and transit [… and] jobs, the economy and housing.” Nary a gaffe or arm-wrestling competition in sight as the new leader of our city met with the long-time leader of our country. Quite a change from the last man in the office, that Tory is.
Disturbing numbers showing the racial disparity in children placed in foster homes have motivated calls for an increased focus on eliminating child poverty in Ontario. Children of African and Caribbean descent make up about five per cent of Ontario’s children, but account for 12 per cent of those placed in foster and group homes. Even more damning, a Toronto Star investigation revealed that 41 per cent of the children in the care of the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto are black, while just eight per cent of the city’s under-18 population is black. These numbers have led to calls from black community leaders and political actors like the NDP for the Ontario Liberals to rededicate themselves to eradicating poverty in the province.