Canada is a work in progress. This year more than others, the day is marked by acknowledgement of the realities we face as a society. Our values are being felt, and are palpable. How we are valued in a global society will be contingent on how we treat our own citizens. Our influence in the world must be built on the common goals of peaceful societies -humanity, equality, equity and health. This will be measured against the Canadian reality, not on how many glossy brochures we publish.

The standards which define our values are changing and the day has come when we must tally for ourselves what our value system has become and what has become ‘acceptable’ as we witness how our most vulnerable are treated in Canadian society. We must ask ourselves; ‘who is benefiting?’; ‘what is keeping people ill?’, and ‘how can we improve our standards?’. Unless we begin to be concerned for our fellow Canadians most in need, identify the crises and the driving causes, we will continue to fail to promote a healthy society with social policies that reinforce an individual’s health and welfare. What is needed is dependent upon an honest portrayal of our Canadian public policies, programs and social supports.

We must, on this Canada Day think about our community and why so many people around us are doing so badly in this wealthy country.

We must always take a discerning view and be prepared to consider what is happening to others as if it is happening to each of us, as indeed our people, our society and our values will be otherwise be devalued and exploitive.

Being Canadian must not be put out of reach for Canadians, or a segment of our population. We must, as a society, consider our ability to ‘enjoy the benefit’ of participation in Canadian society and this should not end if you become ill or need assistance to recover from workplace injury and disability.

We must have our values and principles reflect other than fiscal, corporate agendas which will only benefit a person who participates in employment (society), who is a perfect born person – health care only for the healthy, employment only for the perfect worker, disability benefits only if you were perfect previous to accident, injury and disability.

Canadians must create the values under which we live. Canadians must create the standards by which we live.

Our economy is ‘booming’ but fewer are benefiting. Social health is deteriorating as we look to our fellow Canadians’ circumstances. Exclusion and isolation from civil society are due to unhealthy public policies which isolate the vulnerable from our own society. The list of vulnerable people is growing, quickly changing our value to ‘survival of the fittest’. Prosperity can only be of value if it is not at the cost of society itself. We are but one community and creating disposable segments is undermining Canadian society.

The time has come to identify what makes a healthy and productive society and this has been linked with what makes a healthy person, one who is able to participate. This is not done by marketing ourselves as having ‘the best place on earth’, but by honestly portraying the way we affirm the value of work.

There has been a monopoly by leaders or purported leaders in society that has not clearly addressed the realities and circumstances faced by the disabled, especially due to occupation. For too long, the focus by such leaders in the health, legal, academic, research, labour, NGO and peer communities has not been on the effective improvement of the health and welfare of the individual at his/her critical time of need.

Even peer groups have not advocated on the issues contained in the very title – “injured workers”.

The health and legal communities have not clearly and formally identified what is making people ill and keeping them ill post-workplace injury and disability.

Research and occupational health and safety / prevention have become convenient activities to provide funding and income to the researchers.

The current crisis is the culmination of a fundamental redefining of the worker. Instead of the Charter removing barriers and inequities in health and welfare with the special mention of traditionally vulnerable groups (in this case, ‘disabled person’), the effect of the Workers Compensation Acts has been to subrogate injured workers’ rights and impair access to recovery
and health for the “worker” and their families. This dual standard has become blatant, the disparities palpable (with “currency”) and has created the very worst social determinants of health with the most significant flowing from public policy, politically rooted. The discriminatory and adversarial process faced by workers at the time of injury and disability negates any convention of what is needed to recover physically and mentally.

We, as Canadians must step aside from people who have had our voice for too long, and speak as individuals, part of the group or class of persons known as “disabled persons”. We must remove these barriers to health and these disparities in the law and regain the dignity and equity afforded every Canadian under our Charter, Constitution and Human Rights.

To do this, we must work to have our circumstances formally recognized and regain a valued and recognized position in Canadian Civil Society. Labour , peer groups, health care providers, academia, the legal community and representatives in governments must properly address, with honest portrayals, the effects of laws and policies on individuals’ health and welfare. They must describe the crisis of disparity for what it really is, and create awareness about this crisis which is creating an insurmountably negative effect on disabled workers – legislated poverty – increased and/or acquired mental/physical disability – isolation – exclusion from society.

The treatment of long term disabled, permanently partially disabled, and permanently totally disabled people by the workers compensation schemes cannot be justified as ‘for public interest’ and cannot be afforded exclusion from the Charter of Rights and Freedoms under 15(b).

Insomuch as this has evolved, it was allowed to evolve to the point where the most in need of recovery, health and welfare (and of their families) are the ones receiving the worst treatment under our Canadian laws and policies. These laws and policies are now supporting the abuse of injured workers under the workers compensation privilege in law, creating
many thousands upon thousands of secondarily affected parties – victims – many of whom are children. Canadian children have been, and are being, sentenced to ill effects caused by a ‘culture of denial’ by workers compensation boards.

As disabled Canadians we must be prepared to act, and know when and where to act. The standards for others not disabled due to occupation are being lowered by the standards being set by WCBs setting their own definitions, diagnosis and treatment procedures. This effect includes the area of mental health.

We are fortunate in Canada that we have a democratic process, a Parliament and a Senate. The latter creates an area of second, better conscience and debate on our laws and works within Committees to review the product of our laws and policies so as to move forward to constantly improve standards for Canadians.

This only works by our support and participation. This participation is required more than ever as our values are being redefined by the standards we are setting by poor and regressive public policies, initiatives and developments in health and social policy at this time.

We must advocate for proper policies in health and the law. We must speak for those who cannot, and assist those who experience disparities in our community. We must protect the children, elderly, and those experiencing mental or physical health problems and uphold fundamental human value which is the pith and substance of the constant consideration required.

This requires looking closely at how vulnerable groups are affected and how our policies create barriers at the individual level, family level, community level and on Canadian societal level.

Wealth for society is created by the people who make up that society. They are our best resource. Taxes and funds are a means to an end. Large surpluses in government programs that do not provide the services to society that were intended, are the product of poor ideologies from governments who do not consider their social responsibility and effect.

As I watch Canada Day pass, I am reminded that our values in society are deteriorating. I feel it on Remembrance Day, and I feel it on the Day of Mourning for fallen workers, and I feel it walking through our War Museum in Ottawa.

What did Canadians before us fight for? Where are our values now? Why are we having to fight our own government and its benefit providers (like the WCBs) so hard at this time, in an adversarial way at the time of disability? Why are we mourning the living on ‘Workers International Day of Mourning’? Why are we not moving forward to improve human life and remove
these obvious negative social determinants of health that are barriers? And, most of all, why are not these considerations for humanity tangibly present and reflected in our values in Canada?. Why are we as a society, not moving to improve through change of governments, sound principles of fundamental human need?

What are we conveying and exporting to the world?

There is a focus being put on the social determinants of health by respected international leaders in health and social policy, namely; the World Health Organization, and through its Commission on the Social Determinants of Health, the IUHPE, and our own Senate with the Subcommittee on Population Health underway. There are unique determinants of, and
detriments to, health, created by our sophisticated system of governments and subsequent policies that are counter-productive to health.

There is an opportunity now to help identify the disparities in health and social policy. It is the time for persons disabled due to occupation to identify their circumstances, including their families and subsequently their communities – circumstances created by benefit providers, especially workers compensation systems in Canada.

This opportunity has arisen this year at the Canadian Senate Subcommittee on Population Health, where the committee will be reviewing the social determinants of health.

As Canadians, we must work to identify this crisis of our circumstances, the determinants and factors affecting our health and well-being. We as disabled persons (due to occupation) must mobilize across Canada to advocate and bring proper understanding and redress to this denied reality of the product of Canadian workers compensation schemes and their narrow view to social responsibility, as well as the WCBs’ overall abuse of the discretion given to these bodies in law.

There is a responsibility for those involved with treating disabled workers, assisting disabled workers, and the professional societies to honestly portray the disparities, inequities and barriers to health created by that system. Other systems have become the dumping ground of the WCBs – such as CPP and social disability programs. Those programs, as well, must be reviewed as to their effectiveness and service.

We must, as Canadians, work to advocate for health care and promote health by healthy public policies. We must have tangible, preventative health care solutions, not hypotheses.

We must fight for proper integrated health care, not sustain or promote ‘illness care’ and ‘accident care’ in emergency wards because, essentially, the social determinants for disabled workers, having not been addressed, perpetuated the current health crisis, creating a need for more emergency wards. This current trend is a wrong direction in health care delivery.
Preventative care which leads to recovery and health will curtail our need for care becoming emergent.

We must recognize when to act and act together. The time is now, and we are fortunate that we, as persons disabled from occupation, as Canadians, have a place to participate at this time on these very issues. I have, in the past, brought these issues to the Senate Committee on Mental Health. This crisis is pan-Canadian and needs to be addressed at that level.

Is it time for Celebration on Canada Day or is it time to act upon Reflection. Because, in the end, we will decide our values, and they will be reflected in our standards. If we don’t, they will be decided FOR us.

Let us honor our country and build our society

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 1st, 2007 at 6:16 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.