TORONTO -- A program aimed at measuring homelessness in Ontario has been put on hold by Premier Doug Ford's government, raising concerns that lack of access to data could prevent some municipalities from addressing the problem.
The enumeration was launched by the former Liberal government in 2018 as part of a broader strategy to eliminate chronic homelessness in Ontario by 2025. The Liberals issued a ministerial directive making the count mandatory for municipal housing service managers.
But in a recent letter to those managers, a top civil servant with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing said the government recognizes some things have changed since last year, including the fact that some communities are using real-time data to track homelessness.
https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-pauses-homelessness-count-citing-gaps-and-limitations-in-data-1.4678709
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2015: Ontario sets 10-year deadline to end homelessness
Ontario is giving itself 10 years to end chronic homelessness, as recommended by an expert advisory panel.
“For far too long we have not challenged ourselves, as we should, to solve this problem. We have accepted it,” Deputy Premier Deb Matthews said Wednesday. “Well, we are no longer going to turn a blind eye.”
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/10/29/ontario-sets-10-year-deadline-to-end-homelessness.html
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2020: StatCan says 3.2 million living in poverty, including 566,000 children.
The review shows using the existing formula shows the national poverty rate dropped to 8.7 per cent in 2018 compared to 9.5 per cent a year earlier.
The child poverty rate of 8.2 per cent however is little changed from 2017 but has almost been cut in half since it peaked at 15 per cent in 2012.
Overall 566,000 children were living in poverty in Canada compared to one million children six years earlier.
(THE REPORT DOESN'T SAY WHERE THOSE PEOPLE ARE NOW OR SAY THEY HAVE JOBS AND A HOME)
The results are being closely watched today by the federal Liberals, who have touted their work on reducing the number of people living in poverty since 2015.
https://www.kelownanow.com/news/news/National_News/StatCan_says_3_2_million_living_in_poverty_including_566_000_children/
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2019: Feds give Toronto $15M to help curb 'greater demand' on shelters due to migration.
The federal government is giving Toronto $15 million to help address mounting demand on the city's shelter system as it faces the added pressures of refugee claimants. It's the latest injection of funding since Ottawa committed $11 million last summer.
In a news release Friday, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada acknowledged that while affordable temporary housing has been a "key challenge in Toronto for some time," the impacts of "global" (OR IS IT DEPRESSION ERA) migration have placed the system under greater strain over the past year.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/feds-give-toronto-15m-to-help-curb-greater-demand-on-shelters-due-to-migration-1.4994142
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2018: Report blasts Toronto’s emergency winter shelter system for homeless people
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/toronto/article-toronto-ombudsman-blasts-citys-emergency-winter-shelter-system-for/
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2016: Homeless death toll in London, Ont. nearly on par with Toronto.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/homeless-death-toll-in-london-ont-nearly-on-par-with-toronto/article33426873/
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TORONTO -- Former attorney general Michael Bryant is calling on the Ontario government to repeal the "rotten law" that targets panhandlers and so-called squeegee kids.
Bryant is among a coalition of individuals and organizations urging his former Liberal government colleagues to take the now 15-year-old Safe Streets Act off the books.
During his four years as Ontario's attorney general, Bryant says he "failed" by not repealing the act when he had the chance.
"I am accountable and responsible for it," he said at a news conference Monday. "I should have, period. I have no excuses."
Bryant was joined by fellow members of the coalition, who note that the wealthy, middle-class people or charities are not issued tickets when they fundraise on the streets.
"We, the Coalition to Repeal the Safe Streets Act, call on the Ontario government and the legislature to repeal this rotten law," Bryant said. "Let's stop criminalizing the poor for being poor."
Stephen Gaetz, the director of the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, said the act is the outcome of a "moral panic" about homeless people living on the streets in the 1990s.
"That act, as I say, was a response to public fears and prejudice and it wasn't based on policy and evidence," he said.
Gaetz, a professor at York University, conducted research and found that between 2000 and 2010 incidents of panhandling and squeegeeing "declined dramatically" in Toronto. His research showed that 29 per cent of street youth surveyed reported panhandling and squeegeeing as their main source of income in 1999, a figure that dropped below three per cent 10 years later.
But the number of tickets being issued rose from 780 in 2000, to 3,000 five years later, to 15,000 tickets in Toronto alone in 2010, he found.
"So this becomes part of a policing practice that again is meant to intimidate and push homeless people off the streets," he said.
The majority of people ticketed can't -- and don't -- pay the fines, Gaetz said, estimating that the cumulative fines have placed $4 million in debt upon people in extreme poverty in Toronto.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/former-attorney-general-wants-ontario-to-repeal-panhandling-law-1.2148206/comments-7.589645
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2011: Report says homeless youth are unfair police targets.
TORONTO - Homeless youth are getting unfairly ticketed by police in Toronto despite the fact that panhandling and squeegeeing have declined over the past decade, a new report suggests.
"It's a problem in Canada that at its root is because we aren't doing what we should around homelessness, we're not dealing with the source of the problem, we're dealing with the symptom by criminalizing homelessness," co-author Stephen Gaetz, a professor at York University, said in an interview.
His research showed that 29 per cent of street youth surveyed reported panhandling and squeegeeing as their main source of income in 1999, a figure that dropped below three per cent 10 years later.
https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/report-says-homeless-youth-are-unfair-police-targets-1.723970
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SELLING CANADIANS TO THE LOWEST BIDDER...
2020: For-profit welfare scheme draws concerns.
The idea of a welfare system in Ontario run by multinational, for-profit corporations strikes Dr. Gary Bloch as a bit odd.
“Where I get worried about it, is thinking around, really, what are the goals? What are the incentive structures put in place and who will be administering this?” asked the researcher and family physician with St. Michael’s Hospital’s City Health Associates. “We know there will be private companies bidding to help administer this system. That, to me, is extremely concerning.”
https://www.catholicregister.org/item/31137-for-profit-welfare-scheme-draws-concerns
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2018: What will Premier Doug Ford cost Ontario?
Stephen Maher: The lawsuits are piling up after a series of rash decisions and ham-handed moves. Expect plenty more liabilities the province can ill afford.
https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/what-will-premier-doug-ford-cost-ontario/
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2019: Ford government going to court to keep ministers' mandate letters secret.
Province fighting order from commissioner to release letters after CBC News freedom of information request.
Ontario's information and privacy commissioner says the government is going to court to prevent the release of Premier Doug Ford's mandate letters to his cabinet ministers, which outline their key priorities.
Former premier Kathleen Wynne began making those documents public in 2014, but the current government is fighting an order from the commissioner to release them.
The government denied a CBC News freedom of information request for the mandate letters, saying they are cabinet documents and therefore automatically exempt from disclosure.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ford-government-going-to-court-to-keep-ministers-mandate-letters-secret-1.5255495
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2020: Proposed changes to Ontario’s class-action laws would make it harder to sue corporations and government, experts say.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-proposed-changes-to-ontarios-class-action-laws-would-make-it-harder/
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2019: Ontario PCs want to make it next to impossible to sue the government
Legislation buried in budget bill would make many government actions immune to civil suits
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/proceedings-against-the-crown-act-repeal-replace-pcs-1.5097205
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2019: Legal critics claim new Ont. law makes it harder to sue provincial government.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/legal-critics-claim-new-ont-law-makes-it-harder-to-sue-provincial-government-1.4742008
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2019: Ontario is using a new law to retroactively dismiss lawsuits it lost: lawyer. A class action lawyer suing the Ontario government over alleged mistreatment of several vulnerable groups says a new law the province is using retroactively to try to shut down those cases is unprecedented and unfair.
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-monday-edition-1.5389171/ontario-is-using-a-new-law-to-retroactively-dismiss-lawsuits-it-lost-lawyer-1.5389627
https://www.theloop.ca/watch/canada/news/new-law-retroactively-ends-lawsuits-lost-by-ontario-government/6117786163001/1653715534829397999/
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2020: Ford government reveals the end Ontario's home care system.
Reforms will affect the 700,000 people who receive publicly funded home care every year
There will be no limits on the amount of video home care that patients in Ontario can get under a revamp of the system proposed by Health Minister Christine Elliott as part of a broader effort to end hallway health care.
https://outline.com/P325qD
Here's what's wrong...
Homecare workers will be in a call center somewhere in Ontario (or maybe India) waiting to hear this sound before they sent anyone to "help."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfWD1voJS_w
And how many nurses will they need to sit in a call center answering calls. Not many I'm thinking.
New measures will include secure video conferencing and remote monitoring devices, allowing people with chronic conditions to be monitored at home “with a nurse checking in as needed.”
Nurses and therapists could also check in with patients by video conference to coach personal support workers, aiding them to provide more specialized care, the backgrounder added.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-health-home-care-hallway-medicine-1.5475463
https://www.thestar.com/politics/provincial/2020/02/25/ford-government-says-it-will-remove-limits-on-home-health-care.html
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2020: What ACT Team and South East LHIN deem suitable living conditions.
Homecare services for elderly mother and ACT team for mentally ill son BOTH said they didn’t want to leave them in this squalor BUT THEY DID.
Local authorities acknowledge the problem is serious but not serious enough to warrant official invention...
https://youtu.be/61mzn9SgWgU
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Should an Alleged Drug Dealer Serve Time – As Premier?
More than a few people have observed the irony of Ontario Progressive Conservative (PC) Party leader Doug Ford urging Premier Wynne to leave the distribution of cannabis, when it is legalized, to the private sector. This, allegedly, is his area of expertise.
Let’s look at the history of these allegations. In an investigative article, published on May 25, 2013, about the Ford family’s connections to illegal drugs, The Globe and Mail claimed that in the 1980s, Doug Ford had been a major dealer in hashish in central Etobicoke. In a background piece, editor John Stackhouse reported that the authors had worked on the article over 18 months, and conducted multiple interviews with 10 people who had bought hashish from, or sold it to, Doug Ford. Given the Ford family’s political power at the time, the sources all chose to remain anonymous.
Doug Ford issued an immediate and angry denial, saying that he hadn’t ever sold hashish. He also threatened to sue The Globe, but never did. There were two complaints to the Ontario Press Council against The Globe (not made by members of the Ford family), regarding with the use of anonymous sources and partisan intent. Editor Stackhouse issued a statement of defence, and the Council deliberated, and ruled in favour of The Globe.
Now that the PC Party has chosen Ford as its leader for the election to be held on June 7, I think it appropriate to revisit this history in terms of what it reveals about Ford’s character.
In my view, the record shows that The Globe did exemplary investigative journalism, as indicated by Stackhouse’s accounting and the Press Council decision. Doug Ford’s credibility is undermined by his issuing only a denial and by providing no comprehensive explanation of how he spent his time when The Globe claims he was dealing drugs. In narrative terms, The Globe set out a narrative, but Ford provided no counter-narrative. Ford’s decision not to sue is, for me, evidence of his unwillingness to have his behaviour examined in detail. My conclusion is that Ford both broke the law and lied about it. Furthermore, Doug Ford has often spoken about his opposition to drugs, which is hypocritical.
It is instructive to compare Ford to politicians who have recently been accused of sexual harassment. In the case of harassers, for example former Senator Al Franken, behaviour that was considered acceptable in the past has been re-evaluated in terms of new and more demanding standards, and found wanting. While our attitudes towards harassment have become stricter, our attitudes towards drug use have become more tolerant. Cannabis was illegal in the 1980’s, but is now on the road to legalization. Some might therefore conclude that though Ford broke the law in the 1980s, he has been vindicated by the change in attitudes.
Another point of comparison might be the attitude – to this point – of conservatives in the US towards President Trump’s personal history of sexual harassment. The first line of defence is that he’s repented. The second line of defence is that, even if he hasn’t repented, it was a long time ago and he, apparently, hasn’t repeated that behaviour recently. And the third line of defence is that even if it wasn’t such a long time ago, his behaviour doesn’t matter because he has delivered on enacting and implementing the conservatives’ desired policies. If Doug Ford’s character becomes an issue in the Ontario election, one could imagine his supporters making a comparable defence.
In my view, both a politician’s promised policies, and his character, should be relevant to whom you vote for. You want to vote for someone who will enact policies you prefer. But, the world is uncertain and a lot of unexpected things can happen during a four-year mandate. Character is the measure of how a politician will deal with the inevitable crises and “unknown unknowns.”
A politician’s character is something that you judge on the basis of his/her record. In Doug Ford’s case, I think the allegations of drug dealing are a significant stain on his record. He broke the law, lied about it, and hypocritically claims opposition to drug use. He hasn’t been very forthcoming about the rest of his record. His profile on the PC Party website is cursory in the extreme. It says a bit about his record as a municipal councilor, claims 20 years of volunteer work with the Toronto West Rotary Club, and refers to him as a businessman, but says nothing about his business career. There is a lot more we need to know before we can judge Doug Ford’s character. I will discuss that in my next post.
Sandford Borins
Professor of Public Management, University of Toronto. A leading scholar on narrative and innovation.
http://www.sandfordborins.com/2018/03/23/should-an-alleged-drug-dealer-serve-time-as-premier/
2013: Doug Ford accused of 'vote buying' after being filmed handing out $20 bills to public housing residents.
Toronto City Councillor Doug Ford has been accused of vote buying after he was filmed handing out $20 bills to public housing residents. It’s the second time in a week he has faced accusations of using his personal wealth for political gain.
https://youtu.be/2ckIcOiJyH4
Ford was filmed by a CBC News crew giving out $20 bills from a large stack in his hand at the Toronto Community Housing building, near Albion Road and Elmhurst Drive in Rexdale. He also handed out presents to kids.
Councillors Gord Perks, Karen Stintz and Joe Mihevc cried foul over Ford’s Santa Claus routine.
“What he’s doing is just plain corrupt,” Councillor Perk told reporters Thursday afternoon. “We’re not elected to hand out our private wealth.
https://nationalpost.com/news/toronto/doug-ford-hands-out-20-bills-to-public-housing-residents-accused-of-vote-buying
https://torontolife.com/city/toronto-politics/doug-ford-hands-out-cash/
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/12/12/doug-ford-20-bills-public-housing-video_n_4433880.html
https://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2013/12/12/video_shows_councillor_doug_ford_handing_out_20_bills_at_tchc_building.html
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/doug-ford-defends-himself-after-handing-out-20-bills-to-constituents/article15920479/
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2018/06/04/rob-fords-widow-sues-doug-ford-alleging-he-has-deprived-them-of-millions.html
Globe investigation: The Ford family’s history with drug dealing.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/globe-investigation-the-ford-familys-history-with-drug-dealing/article12153014/
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/05/toronto-deputy-mayor-doug-ford-robs-brother-former-hash-dealer/314893/
https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/83sg65/globe_investigation_the_ford_familys_history_with/
Rob Ford's alleged drug dealer is running for school board trustee in Doug Ford's old ward.
Sandro Lisi, one of several shady figures at the centre of the Rob Ford crack scandal, is running in Doug Ford's old Etobicoke North backyard – must be a coincidence
https://nowtoronto.com/news/rob-ford-doug-ford-sandro-lisi/
https://mashable.com/2014/09/12/doug-ford/
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2013/05/rob-fords-family-has-history-of-drug-dealing.html
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2019: Brad Blair makes his call for a public Commission of Inquiry in the wake of the utter failure of public watchdogs to expose corruption and hold public officials to account.
The appointment of Ron Taverner is not an isolated case. The Premier’s Chief of Staff, Dean French, resigned in June amidst other appointment controversies. An internal investigation of Doug Ford and his own people by the Premier himself will not provide the transparency and accountability the public deserves. Nothing less than a public Commission of Inquiry into the actions of corrupt government players and the collapse of our legislative watchdogs will restore public faith in our government and democratic institutions.
https://falconers.ca/call-for-public-inquiry-into-public-appointments-process/
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Corporatism is a political ideology which advocates the organization of society by corporate groups, such as agricultural, labour, military, scientific, or guild associations on the basis of their common interests.
Fascism's theory of economic corporatism involved management of sectors of the economy by government or privately-controlled organizations (corporations).[Ontario's children's aid societies] Each trade union or employer corporation would theoretically represent its professional concerns, especially by negotiation of labour contracts and the like. It was theorized that this method could result in harmony amongst social classes. However, authors have noted that historically de facto economic corporatism was also used to reduce opposition and reward political loyalty.
In Italy from 1922 until 1943, corporatism became influential amongst Italian nationalists led by Benito Mussolini. The Charter of Carnaro gained much popularity as the prototype of a "corporative state", having displayed much within its tenets as a guild system combining the concepts of autonomy and authority in a special synthesis. Alfredo Rocco spoke of a corporative state and declared corporatist ideology in detail. Rocco would later become a member of the Italian fascist regime.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/corporatism
Corporatism: Fascism's theory of economic corporatism involved management of sectors of the economy by government or privately-controlled organizations (corporations). Each trade union or employer corporation would theoretically represent its professional concerns, especially by negotiation of labor contracts and the like.
Marketization of law making is a process that enables the elites to operate as market oriented firms by changing the legal environment in which they operate in, in the best interest of the child according to a bunch of sociopathic child poaching funding predators...
One of the 14 characteristics of fascism is -
Corporate Power is Protected.
The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
The people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights and procedural protections can be ignored in certain cases because of special need.
When the people who have power in our society can have an influence in law making, the laws that get created will not maintain the appearance of equality and the elites in society can lobby and eventually criminalize the poor.
The laws will start to benefit the big corporations (elites). This is well illustrated in Stan Cohen’s concept of the moral panic. A moral panic refers to the reaction of a group within society (elite) to the activities of a non elite group. The targeted group is seen as a threat to society also referred to as the folk devil.
Today we can see child welfare law is not applied equally to everyone. In this particular instance the child welfare law is benefiting the people with means.
Comack states; “While the pivotal point in the rule of law is ‘equality of all before the law’, the provision of formal equality in the legal sphere does not extend to the economic sphere. Thus, the law maintains only the appearance of equality because, it never calls into question the unequal and exploitative relationship between capital and labour.” This statement implies that the law is in place to be neutral. Therefore, the law would apply equally to everyone, including both the working and elite class. It can be said that in today’s society we have the marketization of law making.
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2020: Ontario Moving Ahead with the Reform of Employment Services
February 14, 2020 10:00 A.M.Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development
January 2020 - Service System Managers selected
The government evaluated all qualified proposals and selected a Service System Manager for each prototype region that is best positioned to manage the employment system and deliver results:
For Region of Peel: WCG, part of the APM Group.
WCG is a Canadian subsidiary of The International APM Group Pty Ltd (APM), a global human service organization based in Australia. In the last year, APM supported more than 350,000 people across 10 countries by designing and delivering employment, health and rehabilitation services.
For Hamilton-Niagara: A consortium led by Fedcap.
The consortium led by Fedcap includes two current Employment Ontario service providers (Canadian Council on Rehabilitation and Work, Operation Springboard) and two current providers of Ontario Disability Support Program Employment Supports (Corbrook, Community Living Toronto).
For the Muskoka-Kawarthas region: Fleming College.
Fleming College has more than 50 years of experience delivering education, skills training and employment services to students, job seekers and employers. Each year, 3,000 job seekers access Employment Ontario services via Fleming College.
https://news.ontario.ca/mol/en/2020/02/ontario-moving-ahead-with-the-reform-of-employment-services.html
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2018: Half of Canadian jobs will be impacted by automation in next 10 years.
Automation will likely affect over half of Canadian jobs in the next decade, but being human could be the very thing that helps Canadians stay employed, a new RBC report claims.
https://globalnews.ca/news/4105713/automation-workforce-canada-human/
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2019: Workers at risk of losing jobs can be retrained for health care, RBC says.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/workers-at-risk-of-losing-jobs-to-ai-can-be-retrained-for-health-care-rbc-says-1.4685009
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The Ontario NDP says a pilot project from the Ford government to contract out employment services in three parts of the province will erode social services and risks turning them into a "cash cow."
A media release from the Ministry of Labour dated Feb. 14 describes the move as a "locally-focused model" that will create a more "seamless and effective" employment service system.
Hamilton-Niagara, Peel and Muskoka-Kawarthas are the three regions where prototypes have been launched.
The idea is to bring together the employment services previously offered separately by Ontario Works, the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) and Employment Ontario.
New service managers have been selected in each of the three regions and will be paid based on their results, according to the government.
"This change to the process will go largely unnoticed by job seekers and employers," said Minister Monte McNaughton in a media release. "At the ground level, things will work better, move faster."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/contract-employment-services-ontario-1.5466860
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ISN'T INVESTING IN EDUCATION THE ONLY WAY TO FIGHT POVERTY, UNEMPLOYMENT AND THE RISING COST OF WELFARE ASSISTANCE IN A HIGH TECH COUNTRY?
2019: Study finds more than half of university students feel they need better basic skills to succeed.
(MAYBE IF THE GOVERNMENT SPENT MORE ON EARLY, SECONDARY AND POST SECONDARY EDUCATION WOULDN'T BE AN ISSUE.)
TORONTO, April 25, 2019 – A survey of students at four Ontario universities has found that more than half feel they lack competence in basic academic skills that would enable them to succeed in university and beyond.
Researchers from York University, Western University, the University of Waterloo and the University of Toronto (Scarborough and Mississauga campuses) surveyed 2,230 students at their universities to learn how confident they were with their writing, test taking, analysis, time and group management, research, presentation and numeracy skills.
Based on the students’ responses, an advanced statistical classification algorithm allowed researchers to conclude in their study that only about 44 percent of students felt they had the generic skills needed to do well in their academic studies, 41 percent could be classified as at risk in academic settings because of limited levels of basic skills, and 16 percent lacked almost all of the skills needed for higher learning.
The study team, co-led by York University Department of Sociology Professor J. Paul Grayson and Western University Department of Sociology Professor James Côté, included professors Robert Kenedy of York University, Liang Hsuan Chen of the University of Toronto Scarborough and Sharon Roberts of the University of Waterloo.
Using the results of the student survey, the researchers concluded the skill deficiencies of students at each of the four universities were about the same. Family background had no noticeable influence on the skill level and neither did factors such as being a first-generation university student or an international student.
Not surprisingly, students with inadequate skill levels got relatively low grades, frequently thought of dropping out, and were generally dissatisfied with their university experience. In other words, skill levels as measured in the study were predictive of important university outcomes. Over two-thirds said they would welcome a first-year course in academic skills such as effective studying, critical thinking, writing and university standards.
The researchers point out that Ministry of Education policy documents show that most of the skills in which they are interested are objectives of the secondary school system in Ontario. Still, students can obtain good high school grades and still be deficient in these skills. In other words, high school grades do not reflect the development of many skills embodied in Ministry objectives. Arms length evaluations of students would be one way of ensuring that grades reflected the Ministry’s objectives.
"Students want help. They want to do well in school, future jobs, and in their roles as citizens,” said Grayson. “Students recognize they are lacking sufficient skills including literacy and numeracy, which are part of Ontario’s secondary school curriculum and key factors for academic and job success.”
The researchers surveyed students in humanities, social sciences and professional studies programs.
“The most shocking findings were that many of the students who were surveyed and said they have low levels of academic skills also reported being given very high grades in high school,” said Côté. “Some of the same students apparently can make their way through university without much trouble and without acquiring basic academic skills.”
Student participants with serious skills deficits earned high grades in secondary school, according to the survey. In high school, 63 percent of students classified as functional earned grades of A or A+; however, 56 percent of the at-risk students and 45 percent of the dysfunctional students also made those grades.
The research team also discovered that the skill gaps did not improve with more time spent in university. About the same percentages of students in all year-levels of university were considered deficient in their academic skills.
Additional quotes from researchers on the study:
"The data regarding student skills is disturbing, even though we suspected this was the case through our anecdotal experiences. We need to make sure student skills courses are available in order to ensure student success and resilience."
– Robert Kenedy, York University, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology
“There is a troubling skills deficit - pervasive among domestic, first generation and international students. The need to provide more support to students across the board is clear and urgent.”
– Liang Hsuan Chen, University of Toronto Scarborough, Associate Professor, Department of Management
“These preliminary findings confirm that a significant proportion of our undergraduate students face challenges related to fundamental academic competency skills at all levels of undergraduate study. Our findings suggest that many students need extensive supports in place before and after they enter university.”
– Sharon Roberts, University of Waterloo, Associate Professor, Social Development Studies Department
York University champions new ways of thinking that drive teaching and research excellence. Our students receive the education they need to create big ideas that make an impact on the world. Meaningful and sometimes unexpected careers result from cross-disciplinary programming, innovative course design and diverse experiential learning opportunities. York students and graduates push limits, achieve goals and find solutions to the world’s most pressing social challenges, empowered by a strong community that opens minds. York U is an internationally recognized research university – our 11 faculties and 25 research centres have partnerships with 200+ leading universities worldwide. Located in Toronto, York is the third largest university in Canada, with a strong community of 53,000 students, 7,000 faculty and administrative staff, and more than 300,000 alumni.
York U's fully bilingual Glendon Campus is home to Southern Ontario's Centre of Excellence for French Language and Bilingual Postsecondary Education.
Media Contact:
Janice Walls, York University Media Relations, 416 455 4710, wallsj@yorku.ca
https://news.yorku.ca/2019/04/25/study-finds-more-than-half-of-university-students-feel-they-need-better-basic-skills-to-succeed/
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2010: University students can’t spell. Profs say high schools aren’t teaching grammar.
(maybe were there really enough teachers and schools were properly funded this wouldn't be an issue.)
Little or no grammar teaching, cellphone texting, social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, are all being blamed for an increasing number of post-secondary students who can’t write properly. For years there’s been a flood of anecdotal complaints from professors about what they say is the wretched state of English grammar coming from some of their students.
Now there seems to be some solid evidence.
The University of Waterloo is one of the few post-secondary institutions in Canada to require students to pass an exam testing their English language skills. Almost a third of those students are failing. “Thirty per cent of students who are admitted are not able to pass at a minimum level,” says Ann Barrett, managing director of the English language proficiency exam at Waterloo. “We would certainly like it to be a lot lower.” Barrett says the failure rate has jumped five percentage points in the past few years, up to 30 per cent from 25 per cent. “What has happened in high school that they cannot pass our simple test of written English, at a minimum?” she asks.
https://www.macleans.ca/education/uniandcollege/university-students-cant-spell/
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2018: One in four Ontario postsecondary students lacks basic literacy, numeracy skills, studies say.
(maybe is there were enough teachers and the schools were properly funded this wouldn't be an issue)
About a quarter of graduating students in Ontario’s postsecondary programs lack adequate literacy and numeracy skills, according to new research from the government agency that monitors the system.
The Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) completed two large studies of more than 7,500 students at 20 Ontario postsecondary institutions and found that a large number of students achieved scores below the level it considered adequate to succeed in today’s job market. Less than a third of graduating students scored at a superior level.
Harvey Weingarten, president and chief executive of HEQCO, said the research is among the first of its kind to try to measure employment-related skills outcomes in the higher-education system. He said one of the main reasons students pursue postsecondary education is to get a good job. But while universities and colleges say they prepare students for the world of work, employers are frustrated, he said. Many employers say the students they encounter don’t have the communication, problem-solving and critical-thinking skills they’re seeking.
“It troubles us that, in our opinion, too many students are graduating with skills in those two areas that are not as highly developed as we would like,” Dr. Weingarten said. “We need to do better than we’re doing now.”
This work aims to measure student skills and provide a basis for understanding what is valued in the labour market, and how those attributes could be taught.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-one-in-four-ontario-university-students-lack-basic-literacy-numeracy/
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BACK TO THE SOUP KITCHEN LINE ...
Approximately 700,000 students attend more than 850 publicly funded secondary schools in Ontario. Every student is unique, and our high schools are changing to meet students' individual needs.
Innovative programs that help students customize their learning are helping more students graduate. The government's goal is to have 85 percent of students graduating.
85%... WTF IS THAT???
Might just as well just put 15% of them on welfare now...
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/secondary.html
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Concerns have been raised that child welfare systems may inappropriately target poor families for intrusive interventions. The term “neglect” has been critiqued as a class-based label applied disproportionately to poor families WHITE, RED OR BLACK.
The objectives of the study are to identify the nature and frequency of clinical and poverty-related concerns in child neglect investigations and to assess the service referral response to these needs; to examine the contribution of poverty-related need to case decision-making; and to explore whether substantiated cases of neglect can be divided into subtypes based on different constellations of clinical and poverty-related needs.
This study is a secondary analysis of data collected through the 2008 Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect (CIS‑2008), a nationally representative dataset. A selected subsample of neglect investigations from the CIS‑2008 (N = 4,489) is examined through descriptive analyses, logistic regression, and two-step cluster analysis in order to explore each research objective.
Children and caregivers investigated for neglect presented with a range of clinical and poverty related difficulties. Contrary to some previous research, the existence of poverty-related needs did not influence case dispositions after controlling for other relevant risk factors. However, some variables that should be, in theory, extraneous to case decision-making emerged as significant in the multivariate models, most notably Aboriginal status, with Aboriginal children having increased odds of substantiation, ongoing service provision and placement. Cluster analyses revealed that cases of neglect could be partitioned into three clusters, with no cluster emerging characterized by poverty alone.
The majority of children investigated for neglect live in families experiencing poverty-related needs, and with caregivers struggling with clinical difficulties. While poverty-related need on its own does not explain the high proportion of poor families reported to the child welfare system, nor does it account for significant variance in case decision making, cluster analysis suggests that there exists a subgroup of “neglected” children living in families perhaps best characterized by the broader notion of social disadvantage. These families may be better served through an orientation of family support/family welfare rather than through the current residual child protection paradigm.
PUBLICATION DATE: 2012
https://www.homelesshub.ca/resource/exploration-relationship-between-poverty-and-child-neglect-canadian-child-welfare
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Is the high cost of clean water and hydro putting your family at risk of CAS involvement?
The effect of provincial policies on struggling families was especially apparent in the late 1990s, when the Conservative government slashed welfare payments and social service funding while at the same time, it introduced in child protection the notion of maltreatment by “omission,” including not having enough food in the home and this after giving the society what amounted to an unlimited funding scheme. The number of children taken into care spiked as did their funding.
“The ministry has been pretty clear with us that advocacy is not part of our mandate,” Goodman said speaking for the society. “It’s not like they’re asking for the (poverty) data. They’re not.” Goodman then when on to suggest the silence suited the government more than the silence suited the society's funding goals.
https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/08/15/report-shines-light-on-povertys-role-on-kids-in-cas-system.html
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2019: Provincial memo lays out plan to cut 3,475 Ontario teaching positions in 4 years. CBC News ·
A provincial memo obtained by CBC Toronto lays out the Ford government's plans to cut thousands of full-time teaching positions in Ontario beginning this fall.
In the 2019-2020 school year, the memo says, there will be 1,558 fewer full-time teachers in Ontario. By the 2022-2023 school year, that number will be 3,475 — about three per cent of Ontario's current teacher workforce.
The total savings for removing those full-time positions would be $851 million.
The memo, which was sent by the Ministry of Education to school board administrators, also clarifies that the positions will be shed through attrition — meaning teachers that quit or retire and are not replaced — as well as changing student enrolment numbers and bumped-up class sizes.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/provincial-memo-teacher-cuts-1.5085851
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2019: Fiscal restraint? Doug Ford's Ontario government spent billions more than Wynne had planned in 2018-19.
Opinion: At the current rate of spending, an additional $42 billion will be added to Ontario’s debt from now until a balanced budget in 2023.
https://business.financialpost.com/opinion/doug-fords-ontario-government-spent-billions-more-than-wynne-had-planned-in-2018-19
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Are Ford's alleged net gains greater than the net losses?
2019: Canada’s jobs market suffered its single-worst month since 2009, shedding 71,200 jobs in November, according to Statistics Canada. The Financial Post dug into the numbers and asked some of the country’s top economists whether this is a blip, or a sign of something more ominous.
By Victor Ferreira, Financial Post.
THE DEEPEST JOB LOSSES — 27,500 — CAME IN MANUFACTURING
ACCOMMODATION AND FOOD/RETAIL LOST A COMBINED 14,300 JOBS
Stephen Brown, senior Canada economist at Capital Economics: “It’s pretty clear the slowdown in GDP growth, both at home and globally is weighing on the labour market and you can see that in the manufacturing figure.
https://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/canada-just-had-its-worst-month-for-job-losses-in-a-decade-so-just-how-bad-was-it
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2018: 'Wacky' Canadian economy lost 51,600 jobs, led by Ontario plunge. By Theophilos Argitis, Bloomberg News.
Canada’s economy unexpectedly lost 51,600 jobs, with wage gains slowing and Ontario recording its biggest employment drop in nearly a decade, removing any urgency for the central bank to accelerate rate hikes.
The nation’s largest province lost 80,100 jobs in August, all part-time, the biggest decline for Ontario since 2009. Nationally, the economy lost 92,000 part-time workers, though a 40,400 gain in full-time employment is one sign the labour market is firmer than the headline number suggests.
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/canada-s-economy-lost-51-600-jobs-in-august-1.1134558
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2019: Doug Ford hedges on promise that 'no one' will lose their job.
Ontario to lose more than 10,000 teaching positions over five years under Ford government changes: watchdog.
Nurses and education staff among those facing layoffs despite PC campaign pledge.
Premier Doug Ford and his PCs are backing away from his campaign promise that no one in the public sector will lose their job under his government.
As the Ford government prepares to deliver its first budget on April 11, the PCs are signalling that their promise only applies to undefined "front-line" workers.
"Under Premier Doug Ford and the Government for the People not a single front-line worker will lose their job," Ford's press secretary said Friday in a statement emailed to CBC News.
However, Ford clearly promised on several occasions during the election campaign that no public sector jobs would be cut by the PCs.
"Under our government, I'm going to reinforce this, not one single person will lose their job." Ford said during the televised leaders debate on May 27.
"I say it every night and I'm going to say it again and again. No one, no one will lose their job," he said at a rally in Windsor on May 31.
"Don't listen to the scare tactics," he said at a rally in Nepean on June 2. "No one will lose their job, absolutely no one."
"I want to assure our public sector workers, to our nurses, to our teachers and to our doctors, that no one, and I repeat no one, will lose their job," Ford said at a news conference in Burlington on June 6, the day before the election.
Despite all those statements, there is now a significant change in wording from Ford and his finance minister.
"You're going to see our promises kept, and one of the promises that the premier made is that no front-line workers will be cut," Finance Minister Vic Fedeli told a news conference Thursday to announce the budget date.
Neither Fedeli nor Ford has defined what they mean by front-line workers.
There is evidence that some front-line workers are being laid off anyway.
The Grand River Hospital in Kitchener is laying off 40 nurses.
The closure of the Thunder Bay office of the Child and Youth Advocate will result in an undetermined number of job losses.
Scrapping $25 million in specialized education program funding is forcing school boards across the province to lay off staff
"They can mince words all they want, but ... the PC party promise during the campaign that no jobs will be lost is absolutely unbelievable," Horwath told reporters at the legislature this week. "Jobs are being lost as we speak."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/doug-ford-ontario-no-job-cuts-layoffs-public-sector-1.5048662
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2019: Workers at risk of losing jobs can be retrained for health care, RBC says.
OTTAWA -- A new report says some of the more than one million Canadian workers who could lose their jobs could fill growing gaps in the nation's health-care system with the right training now.
The issue is time and money for a sector that previous research suggests doesn't invest as much as other industries do in skills training.
Health-services jobs account for 13 per cent of the country's workforce and federal projections estimate the rapid pace of growth seen over the last decade will continue over the next.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/workers-at-risk-of-losing-jobs-to-ai-can-be-retrained-for-health-care-rbc-says-1.4685009
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2019: Doug Ford’s cancellation of green energy deals costs Ontario taxpayers $231 million.
The government cancelled the contracts last July, saying the move would save ratepayers $790 million — a figure industry officials have disputed.
https://business.financialpost.com/commodities/energy/doug-fords-cancellation-of-green-energy-deals-costs-ontario-taxpayers-231m
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2019: Ontario to lose more than 10,000 teaching positions over five years under Ford government changes: watchdog.
By Kristin Rushowy Queen's Park Bureau
Ontario will have 10,000 fewer teaching positions over the next five years as the Ford government boosts class sizes and introduces mandatory online courses, says the legislature’s independent financial watchdog.
Some 994 elementary and 9,060 secondary positions will be gone from the system based on the previous student-teacher ratios, the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario said in an explosive report — one that landed in the midst of contract negotiations and just days before the high school teachers’ union is set to sit down at the bargaining table with the government and school boards.
https://www.thestar.com/politics/provincial/2019/09/26/ontario-to-lose-more-than-10000-teaching-positions-over-5-years-under-ford-government-changes-watchdog.html
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2020: Province’s tough stance on teacher contract negotiations.
https://toronto.citynews.ca/video/2020/01/16/provinces-tough-stance-on-teacher-contract-negotiations/
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2007: Has Ontario taught its high-school students not to think?
Elementary and high schools spend so much time on the content-laden curriculum that students are unprepared for the analytic and conceptual thinking they'll need at university.
Has Ontario’s educational system taught a decade of students not to think? There is growing evidence that the combination of standardized testing with a content-intensive curriculum that’s too advanced – both introduced by the Conservative government between 1997 and 1999 – has done exactly that.
A dramatic indication that there could be a serious problem was the performance of my introductory physics class on their November test last year. It was identical to one given in 1996, but the class average over this 10-year period had plummeted from 66 to 50 percent. There is about a five-percent fluctuation in this test grade from year to year due to variation in student ability and the difficulty of the questions but, when I looked at the class average over the many times I have taught the course since 1981, I found that four of the five lowest grades have occurred in the last four years, with the lowest this year. When I enquired elsewhere at Trent University, I found the same pattern in the mathematics department, where the first test in linear algebra was down some 15 percent from its historic mean, and the calculus average had dropped nine percent from the year before.
https://www.universityaffairs.ca/opinion/in-my-opinion/has-ontario-taught-its-high-school-students-not-to-think/
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FACT-CHECKING THE FORD GOVERNMENT
https://www.knowmore.ca/government-misinformation
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Making the Grade? Troubling Trends in Postsecondary Student Literacy.
While the benefits of strong literacy skills are well established, there is growing concern that Canadians’ literacy skills, including those of students attending postsecondary institutions in Ontario, are not meeting expectations. The timing is especially problematic given that strong literacy skills are critical to students as
they graduate into a highly competitive and increasingly globalized labour market.
A review of literacy data from Statistics Canada and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), including results from the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS), the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey (ALL) and the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), point to some troubling trends in literacy achievement and a lack of consistency in expectations for high school students who go on to postsecondary education.
According to IALS, not even a quarter of respondents aged 18 to 65 scored above level 3 – the minimum level of proficiency. The results from ALL, which was carried out several years later to follow up on IALS findings, found no substantial improvement in Canadians’ literacy skills in this same age group. The most recent literacy results from PIAAC also registered no improvement but rather a slight deterioration in Canadians’ scores at both ends of the literacy spectrum, with a greater number of Canadians scoring at level 1 and below and fewer Canadians scoring at levels 4 and 5.
The pressing question for Ontario is whether students entering postsecondary education have the literacy skills required to succeed. Data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which tests students’ abilities in reading, science and math, suggest that while students who score highest on the reading assessment at age 15 are more likely to attend university, a considerable percentage of students scoring below level 3 will also attend. Results also underscore that colleges are attracting individuals with a much wider range of language abilities, with fewer students from the upper end of the proficiency scale and more students from the lower-mid range.
Research also reveals the existence of several conflicting literacy standards for students entering postsecondary education. On the one hand, the OECD establishes level 3 as the minimum proficiency level for high school graduation. Yet Ontario’s high schools operate with yet another standard, and the expectations of faculty members for high school graduates set yet another standard. This lack of clarity in expectations is problematic both for students and for institutions.
http://www.heqco.ca/SiteCollectionDocuments/HEQCO%20Literacy%20ENG.pdf
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ONTARIO FAMILIES SIDE WITH EDUCATION AND THEIR CHILDREN'S FUTURES.
2020: TORONTO — Nearly twice as many Ontarians side with teachers’ unions as those who side with Premier Doug The Slug Ford’s government in the ongoing labour dispute, including 22 percent of Progressive Conservative voters.
“By a margin of nearly two-to-one (57 per cent versus 30 per cent), the public are siding with the unions, not the Ontario government,” pollster EKOS Politics said as part of new research released Thursday.
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/ontarians-side-teachers-ford-government_ca_5e2a0c3ac5b6779e9c2fc0b9
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/how-ontarios-teachers-strikes-could-end_ca_5e2b6314c5b67d8874b1b9a4
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Will Ontario students ever forget or forgive the conservative party when it's their turn to vote? Doug Ford provides students with a teachable moment.
This week, Doug Ford did what no parent or politician should ever do to students who look to adults for leadership: He diminished and disrespected them.
More than a teachable moment, Ford gave high-school students a life lesson in how Ontario’s “Government for the People” treats young people.
By Martin Regg Cohn Ontario Politics Columnist Fri., April 5, 2019
https://www.thestar.com/politics/political-opinion/2019/04/05/doug-ford-provides-students-with-a-teachable-moment.html
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When Doug Ford attacks student life, he’s attacking Guelph.
The Ontario government's Student Choice Initiative is a threat to local institutions, writes Vish Khanna
OPINION Mar 20, 2019 by Vish Khanna Guelph Mercury
https://www.guelphmercury.com/opinion-story/9231224-when-doug-ford-attacks-student-life-he-s-attacking-guelph/
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2019: In Doug Ford’s e-learning gamble, high school students will lose.
Next school year, Ontario plans to launch a massive learning experiment with high school students that seems set to increase inequality and compound failure for students already struggling in face-to-face classes.
The Ministry of Education, under Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative Party, plans to require students to take a minimum of four e-learning credits to graduate. This announcement came this past March. The province also plans to “centralize the delivery of all e-learning courses.” This means school boards will have less control over how e-learning is administered locally.
There’s been little detail about how the province will oversee or run e-learning, beyond a 2020-21 phase-in. If Ontario indeed introduces e-learning with no in-person class hours — what’s called “supplemental e-learning” — each student will lose 440 hours of face-to-face class time.
Questioned in the legislature about the plan, Lisa Thompson, then the minister of education, asked:
“What is wrong with making sure that our students, at minimum, once a year, embrace technology for good?”
The fantasy of progress reflected in this statement — that technology can determine educational outcomes — suggests that technology offers simple solutions to complex problems.
I am part of a chorus of voices critical of Ontario’s proposal. My perspective is informed by my doctoral research in the department of geography at the University of Toronto on e-learning in the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), and my extensive background teaching e-learning as a secondary school teacher in the same board.
Bad policy
Forcing high school students to take e-learning courses when they get more support in face-to-face classes is bad policy. Advancing mandatory e-learning risks diverting resources and energy away from young people who have a right to a robust and culturally responsive education right where they live. In this way, advocating mandatory e-learning for high school students risks contributing to inequitable public policy.
Research by education researcher Carl James at York University has shown that inequitable public policy impacts Black students disproportionately; scholars Anita Olsen Harper and Shirley Thompson at the University of Manitoba highlight that the lower graduation rate for Indigenous students is due to the many structural oppressions that Indigenous people experience including schooling that doesn’t address the realities of racism or provide support for students to enhance their traditional practices.
http://theconversation.com/in-doug-fords-e-learning-gamble-high-school-students-will-lose-122826
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Editorial: Doug Ford is reckless, and the law agrees
https://westerngazette.ca/opinion/editorial-doug-ford-is-reckless-and-the-law-agrees/article_d13d3d3a-109b-11ea-86bf-6f83a7dac390.html
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2019: Resetting Social Assistance Reform. Summary of Recommendations.
Reduce unnecessary reporting and monitoring – complicated definitions, red tape, and other reporting and monitoring burdens produce inefficiencies for individuals and the government and do not contribute to the overall goal of helping people transition into work
Improve the adequacy of benefits – enhancing benefits could come in different forms including increasing base benefits, adding additional cash benefits tailored to specific needs and circumstances or providing other assistance with costs or services in the broader social safety net
Reduce the cost of working while on social assistance – smoothing out clawback thresholds and rates is critical to incentivizing participation in the workforce
Expand transitional health benefits beyond the social assistance system – pilot an extended, auto-enrolled programs for clients exiting Ontario Works to continue receiving access to health benefits in order to see how it affects attachment to the workforce
Respond to housing cost differences in different parts of the province – use the new Canada-Ontario Housing Benefit to provide place-based housing supports that recognize costs difference in different parts of the province
Use digital and streamlined services to make it easier to access support – digital options for accessing client information and delivering benefits can reduce red tape for individuals and produce efficiencies for government.
Outcomes-based funding that focuses on people’s success – the social assistance system must focus resources on outcome-based metrics including for employment supports and broader support programming
Noah Zon and Thomas Granofsky on resetting social assistance reform.
https://on360.ca/policy-papers/resetting-social-assistance-reform/
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2007: Nearly half of children in Crown care are medicated.
The researchers have found that not only were psychotropic drugs prescribed to a clear majority of the current and former wards interviewed, but most were diagnosed with mental-health disorders by a family doctor, never visited a child psychiatrist or another doctor for a second opinion, and doubted the accuracy of their diagnosis.
A disturbing number, the network's research director, Yolanda Lambe, added, have traded the child-welfare system for a life on the street.
"A lot of people are using drugs now," she said. "There's a lot of homeless young people who have been medicated quite heavily."
'whole range of disorders'
Nowhere is concern greater than in Ontario, where the provincial government recently appointed a panel of experts to develop standards of care for administering drugs to children in foster care, group homes and detention centres.
The move was made after the high-profile case last year of a now-13-year-old boy in a group home outside Toronto came to light. The boy was saddled with four serious psychiatric diagnoses, including oppositional defiant disorder and Tourette's syndrome, and doused daily with a cocktail of psychotropic drugs before his grandparents came to his rescue. Now living with his grandparents, he is free of diagnoses and drugs.
Marti McKay is the Toronto child psychologist who, when hired by the local CAS to assess the grandparents' capacity as guardians to the boy, discovered a child so chemically altered that his real character was clouded by the side effects of adult doses of drugs.
"There are lots of other kids like that," said Dr. McKay, one of the experts on the government panel. "If you look at the group homes, it's close to 100 per cent of the kids who are on not just one drug, but on drug cocktails with multiple diagnoses.
"There are too many kids being diagnosed with ... a whole range of disorders that are way out of proportion to the normal population. ... It's just not reasonable to think the children in care would have such overrepresentation in these rather obscure disorders."
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/nearly-half-of-children-in-crown-care-are-medicated/article687480/
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2014: Use of 'behaviour-altering' drugs widespread in foster, group homes.
In almost half of children and youth in foster and group home care aged 5 to 17 — 48.6 per cent — are on drugs, such as Ritalin, tranquilizers and anticonvulsants, according to a yearly survey conducted for the provincial government and the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies (OACAS). At ages 16 and 17, fully 57 per cent are on these medications.
In group homes, the figure is even higher — an average of 64 per cent of children and youth are taking behaviour-altering drugs. For 10- to 15-year-olds, the number is a staggering 74 per cent.
“The medication problem is huge,” says Raymond Lemay, who retired this summer after 32 years as executive director of the Prescott-Russell children’s aid society. “It’s catastrophic.
“We should be doing other things than medicating these kids,” he says, adding his agency discourages the use of psychotropic drugs. “Medication is inappropriate in many circumstances and will do these kids long-term damage.”
MEET THE PUSHERS...
At the Brant CAS, drugs make up 52 per cent of expenditures on health insurance claims. The top five drugs prescribed and paid for by insurance are all used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), including Concerta, Strattera and Adderall.
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/12/12/use_of_behaviouraltering_drugs_widespread_in_foster_group_homes.html
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2015: Ontario Foster Care System Overmedicates, Underdiagnoses Kids.
by Robert Franklin, Esq, Member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization
Before you read this article and the following blog post, you might want to go back to Sunday’s post about Molly McGrath Tierney’s excellent TEDx talk in Baltimore last year (Toronto Star, 12/12/14). Her talk is just 11 minutes long, but she pretty much demolishes the system of foster care that we foist on so many children. Tierney’s a veteran of the child welfare system and a successful manager in Baltimore. But she’s clear that the system harms kids and is driven by money. The federal government pays states for each kid taken into care where they are all too often less well off than they were with their parents. Studies show that to be the case and when we ask children their preferences, they say they want to go home to their parents.
The Star article is about the shocking overuse of psychotropic medication on children in foster care in Ontario. Mental health experts agree that kids are overmedicated, but that’s just the start of the problem.
Almost half of children and youth in foster and group home care aged 5 to 17 — 48.6 per cent — are on drugs, such as Ritalin, tranquilizers and anticonvulsants, according to a yearly survey conducted for the provincial government and the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies (OACAS). At ages 16 and 17, fully 57 per cent are on these medications.
In group homes, the figure is even higher — an average of 64 per cent of children and youth are taking behaviour-altering drugs. For 10- to 15-year-olds, the number is a staggering 74 per cent.
The figures are found in “Looking After Children in Ontario,” a provincially mandated survey known as OnLAC. It collects data on the 7,000 children who have spent at least one year in care. After requests by the Star, the 2014 numbers were made public for the first time.
Top CAS officials describe the high number on “psychotropic or behaviour-altering medication” as a crisis.
“The medication problem is huge,” says Raymond Lemay, who retired this summer after 32 years as executive director of the Prescott-Russell children’s aid society. “It’s catastrophic.
“We should be doing other things than medicating these kids,” he says, adding his agency discourages the use of psychotropic drugs. “Medication is inappropriate in many circumstances and will do these kids long-term damage.”
Those percentages for kids in foster care dwarf those for kids in the general population.
For youths in care, the rate of psychotropic drug use is significantly higher than the general population. A 2005 study in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry estimated that only 2.5 per cent of Canadians aged 15 to 19 were on psychotropic medication.
Of course it can be argued that kids in foster care are those with abusive family backgrounds, and are therefore more in need of medication. That’s probably true, but foster kids rarely receive proper mental health evaluations to determine whether they need medication. That means that kids who don’t need medication often get it anyway and those who do may be getting the wrong drugs or the wrong dosages.
Ontario’s highly decentralized child-protection model — 46 private agencies funded largely by tax dollars — seems to make matters worse.
Only half of children’s aid societies have a prescribed way of assessing the mental health needs of children, and barely 15 per cent of these use methods recommended by the provincial government, according to a 2009 survey sponsored by OACAS, the lobby group representing the agencies.
The lack of standardization “likely means that many children in need are not identified and referred for treatment,” concludes the survey report, co-authored by Elisa Romano, professor of psychology at the University of Ottawa.
The sheer number of kids in foster care and group homes, the lack of diagnostic resources and the need to maintain control of a population that’s experienced the worst of parental care inevitably leads to medicating children as a means of control. Unsurprisingly, the great majority of the medications given are for ADHD.
MEET THE DRUG PUSHERS:
At the Brant CAS, drugs make up 52 per cent of expenditures on health insurance claims. The top five drugs prescribed and paid for by insurance are all used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), including Concerta, Strattera and Adderall.
Again, many kids are getting that medication whether they’ve been properly diagnosed or not.
A soon-to-be-published report by Klein, Taraba and other child-welfare experts also warns of children who have symptoms of attention deficit disorder being misdiagnosed and given “unhelpful medications” for long periods. “The big question is, what are we treating?” [Dr. Ben Klein, medical director at the Lansdowne Children’s Centre in Brantford] says.
Perhaps worse, the overmedication of the kids obscures real mental health issues many of them have. The drugs damp down and alter behaviors that could tip off a mental health professional as to the proper diagnosis for a child.
Drugs can ease disruptive behaviour. But doctors and CAS officials are concerned that mental-health issues caused by trauma aren’t being addressed..,.,
Medication might make them less likely to act out, Klein adds, but it doesn’t deal with the root cause of a child’s trauma. That requires “trauma-focused cognitive behaviour therapy,” which he says is almost impossible to access in Ontario.
This is all going on despite a relative lack of information on the long-term side-effects of many of the drugs being administered. For other drugs, the side-effects are known to be harmful.
A Star investigation in 2012 found 600 cases, reported to Health Canada during a 10-year period, of children and youth suffering serious side effects while on ADHD medication, including amnesia and suicide.
Finally, kids who’ve endured significant periods of abuse, particularly early on, produce high levels of the stress hormone cortisol that can have long-term deleterious effects on learning and impulse control. That’s not ADHD, but it can be mistaken for it, resulting in both a failure to diagnose the correct problem and the wrong medication.
As a sidelight, boys are more likely than girls to undergo that particular response to abuse early in life. As psychologist David Geary has written, “M. Davis and Emory..,., found that newborn boys showed an increase in cortisol levels after exposure to mild but prolonged stressors, but newborn girls showed no such increase..,., [A]n overall sex difference in cortisol responses..,., would make boys and men more susceptible to growth disorders and other diseases – through suppression of immune functions and growth hormones..,.,” That may explain the remarkable difference between the numbers of boys diagnosed and treated for ADHD as compared to girls.
Add to that the fact that parenting in foster care is, on average, markedly worse than it is in biological families, even somewhat abusive ones, and we have a “prescription” for lasting damage to the very children we’re supposed to be helping.
A recent study co-authored by researchers at the Child Welfare Institute of the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto found that poor parenting in foster homes partly accounts for higher levels of behaviour problems in some children.
Here’s the experience of one boy, Nick Woolridge, profiled by the Star:
Woolridge was taken into care a month before his eighth birthday. He was bounced from foster homes to group homes — a dizzying 22 different homes during 10 years in care.
“I had a lot of anger issues due to my past, and dealing with my family,” he says. “And, growing up in foster homes and group homes, my anger just kept getting worse.”
During visits with his grandmother, Woolridge noticed she patiently found ways to defuse his outbursts and calm him down. Foster parents rarely tried doing so, and Woolridge says the Brant CAS too easily acquiesced to bouncing him around.
“I don’t think it’s right for a kid growing up in CAS to be shipped from foster home to foster home,” he says.
Is it any wonder that, as Molly McGrath Tierney said of kids in foster care, “they just want to go home?”
https://nationalparentsorganization.org/blog/22448-ontario-foster-care-system-overmedicates-underdiagnoses-kids
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2019: These Are The Most Dangerous & Heavily Promoted Prescription Drugs.
What’s worse is that the number of children prescribed dangerous drugs is on the rise. Doctors seem to prescribe medication without being concerned with the side-effects.
Worldwide, 17 million children, some as young as five years old, are given a variety of different prescription drugs, including psychiatric drugs that are dangerous enough that regulatory agencies in Europe, Australia, and the US have issued warnings on the side effects that include suicidal thoughts and aggressive behavior.
According to Fight For Kids, an organization that “educates parents worldwide on the facts about today’s widespread practice of labeling children mentally ill and drugging them with heavy, mind-altering, psychiatric drugs,” says over 10 million children in the US are prescribed addictive stimulants, antidepressants and other psychotropic (mind-altering) drugs for alleged educational and behavioral problems.
In fact, according to Foundation for a Drug-Free World, every day, 2,500 youth (12 to 17) will abuse a prescription pain reliever for the first time (4). Even more frightening, prescription medications like depressants, opioids and antidepressants cause more overdose deaths (45 percent) than illicit drugs like cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines and amphetamines (39 percent) combined. Worldwide, prescription drugs are the 4th leading cause of death.
https://dailyhealthpost.com/common-prescription-drugs/
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2018: What separation from parents does to children: ‘The effect is catastrophic’
This is what happens inside children when they are forcibly separated from their parents.
Their heart rate goes up. Their body releases a flood of stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. Those stress hormones can start killing off dendrites — the little branches in brain cells that transmit messages. In time, the stress can start killing off neurons and — especially in young children — wreaking dramatic and long-term damage, both psychologically and to the physical structure of the brain.
“The effect is catastrophic,” said Charles Nelson, a pediatrics professor at Harvard Medical School. “There’s so much research on this that if people paid attention at all to the science, they would never do this.”
Separating kids from parents a 'textbook strategy' of domestic abuse, experts say — and causes irreversible, lifelong damage even when there is no other choice.
“Being separated from parents or having inconsistent living conditions for long periods of time can create changes in thoughts and behavior patterns, and an increase in challenging behavior and stress-related physical symptoms,” such as sleep difficulty, nightmares, flashbacks, crying, and yelling says Amy van Schagen - California State University.
The Science Is Unequivocal: Separating Families Is Harmful to Children
In news stories and opinion pieces, psychological scientists are sharing evidence-based insight from decades of research demonstrating the harmful effects of separating parents and children.
In an op-ed in USA Today, Roberta Michnick Golinkoff (University of Delaware), Mary Dozier (University of Delaware), and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek (Temple University) write:
“Years of research are clear: Children need their parents to feel secure in the world, to explore and learn, and to grow strong emotionally.”
In a Washington Post op-ed, James Coan (University of Virginia) says:
“As a clinical psychologist and neuroscientist at the University of Virginia, I study how the brain transforms social connection into better mental and physical health. My research suggests that maintaining close ties to trusted loved ones is a vital buffer against the external stressors we all face. But not being an expert on how this affects children, I recently invited five internationally recognized developmental scientists to chat with me about the matter on a science podcast I host. As we discussed the border policy’s effect on the children ensnared by it, even I was surprised to learn just how damaging it is likely to be.”
Mia Smith-Bynum (University of Maryland) is quoted in The Cut:
“The science leads to the conclusion that the deprivation of caregiving produces a form of extreme suffering in children. Being separated from a parent isn’t just a trauma — it breaks the relationship that helps children cope with other traumas.
Forceful separation is particularly damaging, explains clinical psychologist Mia Smith-Bynum, a professor of family science at the University of Maryland, when parents feel there’s nothing in their power that can be done to get their child back.
For all the dislocation, strangeness and pain of being separated forcibly from parents, many children can and do recover, said Mary Dozier, a professor of child development at the University of Delaware. “Not all of them — some kids never recover,” Dr. Dozier said. “But I’ve been amazed at how well kids can do after institutionalization if they’re able to have responsive and nurturing care afterward.”
The effects of that harm may evolve over time, says Antonio Puente, a professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington who specializes in cultural neuropsychology. What may begin as acute emotional distress could reemerge later in life as PTSD, behavioral issues and other signs of lasting neuropsychological damage, he says.
“A parent is really in many ways an extension of the child’s biology as that child is developing,” Tottenham said. “That adult who’s routinely been there provides this enormous stress-buffering effect on a child’s brain at a time when we haven’t yet developed that for ourselves. They’re really one organism, in a way.” When the reliable buffering and guidance of a parent is suddenly withdrawn, the riot of learning that molds and shapes the brain can be short-circuited, she said.
In a story from the BBC, Jack Shonkoff (Harvard University) discusses evidence related to long-term impacts:
Jack P Shonkoff, director of the Harvard University Center on the Developing Child, says it is incorrect to assume that some of the youngest children removed from their parents’ care will be too young to remember and therefore relatively unharmed. “When that stress system stays activated for a significant period of time, it can have a wear and tear effect biologically.
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Standards of Care for the Administration of Psychotropic Medications to Children and Youth Living in Licensed Residential Settings.
Summary of Recommendations of the Ontario Expert Panel February 2009.
http://www.children.gov.on.ca/htdocs/English/documents/specialneeds/residential/summary_report.pdf
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Could Ontario's Pharmacies And Pharmacists Do Anything To Protect Children In Care Of The CAS?
A Rexall medication review provides the opportunity for you to sit down one on one with your Rexall Pharmacist to review your prescription and non-prescription medications. Unless your a child in Ontario's care this process will identify medication-related issues.
Why Rexall Medication Review?
The Rexall Medication Review was created specifically for people who are regularly taking multiple medications at a time.
You can rely on your pharmacist or healthcare provider to let you know if medications you take have any unsafe interactions unless your a child in Ontario's care. Not only do certain prescription medications interact dangerously with one another, but they can also interact with over-the-counter medications, vitamin and mineral supplements, or even certain foods.
In the US if the pharmacist doesn’t feel comfortable filling the prescription they can refuse to fill it.
There are many reasons, including ethical and religious beliefs, for why a pharmacist may not feel comfortable filling a prescription. We saw this recently when a pharmacist refused to fill a prescription for misoprostol, a medication used to end a pregnancy.
A pharmacist is technically allowed to decline filling your prescription based on their moral beliefs. If that happens, try seeing if there’s another pharmacist working at the pharmacy and speak with them. You can also try transferring your prescription to another pharmacy to be filled, although this can add some inconvenience.
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2009: Ninety children known to Ontario's child welfare system died in 2007, according to the latest report from the chief coroner's office – a number the province's new child advocate says is shocking and should trouble us all.
https://www.thestar.com/life/health_wellness/2009/02/23/why_did_90_children_die.html
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2010: Psychologist got degree from U.S. 'diploma mill'
A psychologist with the Durham Children’s Aid Society has pleaded guilty to professional misconduct for misrepresenting himself and for making multiple unqualified diagnoses of mental illness.
Gregory Carter, 63, appeared before the College of Psychologists of Ontario’s disciplinary committee on Tuesday. He and the college agreed on the terms of the penalty, which includes a three-month suspension, a recorded reprimand and one year of supervised practice under an approved practitioner.
In his practice with the Children’s Aid Society, Mr. Carter’s expertise was used to determine child custody cases.
https://nationalpost.com/posted-toronto/psychologist-got-degree-from-u-s-diploma-mill
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2011: Child Welfare and Children's Mental Health in Ontario.
In 2009–2010, spending on child welfare in Ontario represented approximately $1.4 billion. In many ways, the organization of child welfare in Ontario mirrors the organization of healthcare. Child welfare is delivered through 53 independently governed agencies who receive funding through transfer payments from the provincial government. In parallel to healthcare, where the largest proportion of spending is represented by the relatively small portion of patients who receive in-patient care, the largest proportion of spending in child welfare relates to services to children who are "in care" – foster care or group care. In Ontario child welfare, approximately 27,000 children and youth receive in-care services each year, accounting for approximately 40% of total expenditures. A much larger number of children and youth who have been maltreated or are at risk for maltreatment are supported in their homes with their families. The Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies estimates that for every one child in care, another nine children are being supported by CASs at home with their families.
The 2009–2010 spending on core children's mental health services in Ontario was $384 million (excluding funding for complex special needs). Transfer-payment recipients include stand-alone agencies that provide child and youth mental health services, 17 hospital-based outpatient programs and First Nation and non-profit Aboriginal organizations and service agencies, including 27 friendship centres. The provincial government also funds the Provincial Centre of Excellence for Child and Youth Mental Health at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, and the Ontario Child and Youth Telepsychiatry Program. Beyond the formal mental health system, many children and youth receive mental health services through schools, private providers, CASs and other sources. As with child welfare services, the vast majority of children's mental health services are community-based, and children requiring intensive out-of-home treatment are the minority.
https://www.longwoods.com/content/22360//improving-mental-health-outcomes-for-children-and-youth-exposed-to-abuse-and-neglect
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2012: ADHD drugs suspected of hurting Canadian kids.
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2012/09/26/adhd_drugs_suspected_of_hurting_canadian_kids.html
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Between 2008/2012 natural causes was listed as the least likely way for a child in care to die at 7% of the total deaths reviewed while "undetermined cause" was listed as the leading cause of death of children in Ontario's child protection system at only 43% of the total deaths reviewed.
92 children equals 43% of the deaths reviewed by the PDRC. 92 mystery deaths and like every other year no further action was taken to determine the cause...
http://www.mcscs.jus.gov.on.ca/sites/default/files/content/mcscs/images/195633-19.jpg
http://www.mcscs.jus.gov.on.ca/english/DeathInvestigations/office_coroner/PublicationsandReports/PDRC/2013Report/PDRC_2013.html (REDACTED)
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2017: Ontario children and youth with ADHD often prescribed antipsychotics, study finds
Almost 12% of people aged 24 or younger with ADHD have been prescribed antipsychotics.
One in 20 Ontario children and youth have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and many are prescribed antipsychotic drugs, despite having no other mental health diagnoses, researchers have found.
A study by the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences found almost 12 per cent of kids and youth with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, were prescribed antipsychotics like Risperdal, Zyprexa and Seroquel.
"When we looked at the information on the children and youth with ADHD who were prescribed antipsychotics, a very, very small number of them had a condition where you would expect the use of an antipsychotic — conditions such as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia," said senior author Dr. Paul Kurdyak, head of the mental health and addictions program at ICES.
Prescription of antipsychotics to kids with ADHD 'surprising'
They found about five per cent — or 536 — of the children and youth had a diagnosis of ADHD. Eight per cent of them were male and almost three per cent were female.
About 70 per cent of the young people with ADHD were being treated with drugs like Ritalin and Adderall, which are considered standard, first-line therapy for the common condition. About 20 per cent had also been prescribed antidepressants, "which isn't terribly surprising because depression and anxiety commonly co-occur with ADHD," Kurdyak said.
"But the surprising finding to us was the 12 per cent of kids with ADHD who were prescribed an antipsychotic," he said, explaining that the medications have a sedating effect, which could help reduce disruptive behaviour.
However, these drugs can have adverse effects, such as causing significant weight gain. One study found kids gained almost 19 pounds on average after 10 weeks on the drugs — and the risk of developing pre-diabetes or diabetes.
'Not a lot of evidence that they work for ADHD'
"We don't know why these children and youth with ADHD are on antipsychotics, but there is a risk associated with early antipsychotic exposure, so we need to know more about why they are being used, so that the benefits can be weighed against the risks."
Mark Henick, national director of strategic initiatives at the Canadian Mental Health Association, said it's known that some doctors prescribe antipsychotic medications for ADHD, and he's concerned about the high level of use in young people with the disorder.
"They're not indicated for ADHD and there's not a lot of evidence that they work for ADHD," he said Wednesday. "In fact, there's good evidence that they could be harmful."
The ICES study shows that people who go to a psychiatrist for treatment are more likely to be prescribed an antipsychotic, noted Henick, who was not involved in the research. "But it's often not appropriate in these kinds of cases, where we know psychotherapy is quite effective for ADHD."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-children-and-youth-with-adhd-often-prescribed-antipsychotics-study-finds-1.3942049
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2017: Nearly a third of tests and treatments are unnecessary: CIHI.
The study also showed that doctors are increasingly and inappropriately prescribing antipsychotics to children and youth. Between 2005 and 2012, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and British Columbia saw a 300% increase in dispensing of quetiapine to young people aged five to 24, even though the drug is not recommended for use in children and youth.
https://www.cmaj.ca/content/189/16/E620
In our recent study published in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, we report that nearly 40 per cent of adults with developmental disabilities in Ontario were prescribed antipsychotics over a six-year period. Sixty per cent of the individuals prescribed these medications did not have the psychiatric diagnoses for which these drugs are generally studied and approved.
This kind of prescribing has costs — for all of us.
Antipsychotic medications are expensive and their use in this population cost the Ontario government over $117 million during the six-year study period. Scale this amount across the country and the price tag becomes even more significant. If any of that prescribing is potentially inappropriate, as our study suggests, that's a lot of public health dollars that could be better spent elsewhere to support these individuals.
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/no-one-is-talking-about-this-overmedicated-group-of-canadians_ca_5cd5147ce4b07bc729749505
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2017: New study suggests link between foster care system and youth homelessness.
OTTAWA -- A first-of-its-kind study in Canada has painted a national picture of homeless youth and drawn a link to the foster care system that researchers say could be playing a more active role in keeping young people off the streets.
The study found nearly three out of every five homeless youth were part of the child welfare system at some point in their lives, a rate almost 200 times greater than that of the general population.
Of those with a history in the child welfare system, almost two of every five respondents eventually "aged out" of provincial or territorial care, losing access to the sort of support that could have kept them from becoming homeless, the study found.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/new-study-suggests-link-between-foster-care-system-and-youth-homelessness-1.3538232
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2017: Stop dumping kids in care onto the street: Editorial.
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2017/08/09/stop-dumping-kids-in-care-onto-the-street-editorial.html
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2017: Study urges federal, provincial governments to revamp foster care system to help address youth homelessness.
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/08/09/groundbreaking-study-suggests-link-between-canadian-foster-care-system-and-youth-homelessness.html
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2019: A new study, published in Psychiatry Research, has concluded that psychiatric diagnoses are scientifically worthless as tools to identify discrete mental health disorders. ... Psychiatric diagnoses all use different decision-making rules. There is a huge amount of overlap in symptoms between diagnoses.
The main findings of the research were:
Psychiatric diagnoses all use different decision-making rules
There is a huge amount of overlap in symptoms between diagnoses
Almost all diagnoses mask the role of trauma and adverse events
Diagnoses tell us little about the individual patient and what treatment they need
The authors conclude that diagnostic labelling represents 'a disingenuous categorical system'.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190708131152.htm
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2019: Expert who gave more than 100 assessments in Ontario child protection cases lied about credentials for years, judge finds.
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2019/07/31/expert-who-gave-more-than-100-assessments-in-ontario-child-protection-cases-lied-about-credentials-for-years-judge-finds.html
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2019: Province orders children’s aid societies to review credentials of experts used in child welfare cases
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2019/08/23/province-orders-childrens-aid-societies-to-review-credentials-of-experts-used-in-child-welfare-cases.html
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2019: More Canadian teens using over-the-counter drugs to overdose, data show. ERIN ANDERSSEN
The number of intentional overdoses involving common over-the-counter and prescription drugs has increased steeply among young people in the last decade, according to new data provided to The Globe and Mail by the Canadian Institute for Health Information.
The number of cases roughly doubled for children and teenagers in Alberta and Ontario, the two provinces for which data were available, in two categories of drugs that include over-the-counter painkiller medications and prescriptions for drugs such as antidepressants and sedatives, according to the CIHI data, which tracked emergency-department visits.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-canadian-teens-overdoses-painkillers-antidepressants-data/
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2019: Ontario passes bill to join B.C.-led class action lawsuit against opioid manufacturers.
globalnews.ca/news/6288335/ontario-opioid-class-action-lawsuit-bc-led/
(Related: Ontario is using a new law to retroactively dismiss lawsuits it lost: lawyer 2019 - https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-monday-edition-1.5389171/ontario-is-using-a-new-law-to-retroactively-dismiss-lawsuits-it-lost-lawyer-1.5389627)
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2019: Alberta to join B.C. in class action lawsuit against opioid manufacturers.
The lawsuit alleges that Purdue Pharma Inc., the makers of OxyContin, and more than 40 other companies knowingly marketed quantities of the drugs that went well beyond legitimate needs.
https://calgaryherald.com/news/politics/alberta-to-join-b-c-in-class-action-lawsuit-against-opioid-manufacturers
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2018: B.C. Government files class action lawsuit against opioid industry.
More than 40 manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors are listed as defendants. The province will argue the defendants "placed profits over the health and safety of the public."
https://vancouversun.com/health/local-health/b-c-to-announce-lawsuit-against-opioid-manufacturer-for-overdose-crisis-costs
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Mike Smyth: Eby swings the wrecking ball at Big Pharma in opioid crisis.
https://theprovince.com/news/bc-politics/mike-smyth-eby-swings-the-wrecking-ball-at-big-pharma-in-opioid-crisis
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