Ontario Stands up for Health Care by Increasing Pollution
Perhaps it is some distorted sense of humour, but it appears the Ontario government is working very hard to raise taxes, damage healthcare services, hinder service providers and impede medical professionals, and increase pollution.
Climate change is already costing more than 250, 000 lives a year, and the numbers are rising. This is a health crisis, and needs immediate action. To put these numbers into perspective, terrorism ‘only’ affected 20, 000 people in the last year, and that number has been steadily dropping. By number of deaths, climate change is already more than 12 times as unhealthy and dangerous for people, and rapidly getting worse. What’s more, terrorism is targeted; climate change is indiscriminant. Climate change affects everyone, both directly and indirectly, and there is rising recognition that climate change is a leading cause of social disintegration, as we see political unrest and polarization, war, displacement and migration, disease and death increasing as a direct and indirect result. WHO even identifies climate change as the single biggest health problem facing the planet today, ahead of noncommunicable diseases, influenza, vulnerable social settings, antimicrobial resistance, ebola-type pathogens, fragile healthcare systems, vaccine hesitancy, dengue and HIV. No wonder the World Health Organisation considers and others have identified climate change as the greatest threat facing humanity.
Indeed, according to the World Meteorological Organization’s Statement on the State of the Global Climate in 2018, nearly 62 million people were directly affected by natural hazards associated with weather and climate events. If that weren’t enough, the World Health Organization also reports 4.2 million deaths every year from ambient (outdoor) air pollution. The cause of this air pollution is due to the burning of fossil fuels – vehicles, power generation, agricultural/waste incineration, and industry. The drivers of air pollution are the same sources as the drivers of climate change.
Many patients in the SAH are there as a direct result of climate change: asthma, cardio-respiratory diseases, broken limbs and concussions, mental health issues, stress and poverty, all a direct result of climate changes in our region. These are not the statistically anticipated numbers given our demographics and historical experiences; these are increasing numbers of patients.
A very recent report by Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) titled “Canada’s Changing Climate Report” describes in detail how the climate has changed in Canada and will continue to do so. One of the headline statements from the report states, “both past and future warming in Canada is, on average, about double the magnitude of global warming”. Canada's Changing Climate Report notes among other consequences, climate change will cause: increased precipitation, more frequent and intense extreme heat episodes, increased wildfires and droughts, and freshwater shortages. In addition, the ECCC report also states “Annual and winter precipitation is projected to increase everywhere in Canada over the 21st century”. Sault Ste. Marie has already experienced a taste of what is yet to come, with a devastating flood in 2013, road closures on highways and residential flooding in 2018, and intense winter snowfalls this last year.
When a basement floods, or severe weather strikes, there can be months or even years of repairs. These take a very real psychological and economic toll. There is often loss of income, and insurance claims can be onerous at the best of times. When a wildfire wipes out large areas of forest, it generates enormous amounts of smoke; pollutants that cause direct health impacts. Wildfires also wipe out homes, livelihoods, and lives. Harsher winters and summers result in direct death and injury due to falls and cold, and heat stress (especially for seniors and other vulnerable members of our community) due to the heat respectively. Indigenous and rural communities are seeing changes on the land that threaten their ways of life, and radically alter their perceptions of reality and their futures, causing deep psychological distress. The healthcare sector is intimately - as should those who fund healthcare be - aware of the risks and direct harm to health, and rising costs caused by climate change.
It for these reasons that the healthcare and public health sectors have been at the forefront of climate mitigation and adaptation efforts. Healthcare facilities are seeing an increase of climate related illnesses. Healthcare facilities know full well that climate change will be – already is – very costly. Healthcare facilities have been preparing and improving facilities management for decades precisely because they witness the daily costs of climate changes. Health professionals have been crafting policy, designing infrastructure, and generally improving the lives of people who would otherwise be harmed by climate changes. The healthcare sector wants and is at the forefront of action. The healthcare sector fully supports the federal carbon backstop mechanism and wants so much more to protect the health and well-being of Ontarians and Canadians.
A carbon pricing backstop mechanism only exists in Ontario (and three other provinces) because there is no other climate plan in those regions. Ontario, moreover, had a climate plan that would have precluded this backstop mechanism. Despite introducing a similar but weaker mechanism for large emitters, the Ontario government cancelled and tore apart the province-wide climate plan and offered nothing in its place. The carbon pricing backstop distributes all the money collected back to the families and individuals. Despite the carbon pricing money being redistributed back to the people of this province, the federal backstop is not a plan; it’s a small start. The healthcare sector is fully aware of this and are actively at the forefront to advance further actions that save lives.
Increasing the adverse impacts of climate change, delay in taking action on climate mitigation and adaptation, distortions and rhetoric will not help the people of Ontario. People in Ontario and healthcare professionals want protection from climate impacts, they want their costs of living financially attainable, they want their well-being protected.
The new Ontario government has so far increased our exposure to climate risks and raised our costs of living and taxes. They’ve contributed to higher healthcare costs and healthcare funding, seriously impeding the effectiveness of healthcare, preventive medicine and public health services. It’s time the Ontario government worked with the health sector to mitigate and adapt to climate change instead of spending taxpayer dollars in legal battles to fight climate science, raise taxes, decrease services and place at greater risk the lives of literally millions of Ontarians.