The Romanow Report made serious proposals about compensating people who have to stop working to become long-term caregivers. Right now, those people not only lose an income but also take a hit to their CPP averaging, whereas the Finance Dept has long allowed people taking parental leave to drop those years of lowered income out of the averaging.

Even Romanow, I think, was still tying benefits to EI, which obviously works for fewer and fewer Canadians, especially the self-employed and part-timers, who are, of course, disproportionately women -- as caregivers will also tend to be.

I promised myself after supporting a loved one through an immigration minefield that I would keep fighting and staying involved in activism on that issue, as well as activism on the issues of inadequate provincial jail facilities in the Toronto area (which is where many people under threat of deportation are housed while their cases are under review). But life gets in the way.

There is a real story there in Ottawa. The trouble is, few of us are expert enough to describe carefully just how and why the Finance gnomes are making life tougher and tougher for people who are already in misery -- people on disability pensions, eg.

We have had many many more debates about the sins of the provincial governments as they treat, eg, people on welfare. The economists know, though, that a lot of these problems really reach back to Ottawa and decisions made in Finance first of all.

That's pretty much what the Chretien/Martin Liberals have done to the E.I. system over the years.

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The people I would really like to hear from are the people who know our tax system and also the ideological prejudices of the Finance Dept

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Linda McQuaig took a look at this in one of her books a number of years ago. Sorry but the brain is a bit rusty and I can't remember the title...but a googlesearch should find it.

Various "tax experts" lobby for so-called "technical fixes" to the tax system and the Finance Department obliges.

Well who has the money to hire tax experts? The corporations and the wealthy.

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Originally posted by skdadl:
The people I would really like to hear from are the people who know our tax system and also the ideological prejudices of the Finance Dept.

There is a real story there in Ottawa. The trouble is, few of us are expert enough to describe carefully just how and why the Finance gnomes are making life tougher and tougher for people who are already in misery -- people on disability pensions, eg.

We have had many many more debates about the sins of the provincial governments as they treat, eg, people on welfare. The economists know, though, that a lot of these problems really reach back to Ottawa and decisions made in Finance first of all.

I know just enough to know that there are problems there, and that they often are ideologically driven. Unfortunately, I'm no economist and can't develop the water-tight case that might begin to interest real voters.

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I don't think economists at Finance are the enemy. Or at least, not the ones that I know. This may be hard to believe, but the economists who work at Finance are professionals, and they genuinely care about trying to make good and sensible policies. It's not easy, and the law of unintended consequences has humbled even Nobel prize winners.

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I'm not aware of a convincing defence against conspiracy theories

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Ahhh yes. If one criticizes policies that just so happen to benefit the wealthy and powerful in our society one is engaging in "conspiracy theories".

Funny...just an hour ago on "Counterspin" heard one right-wing apologist for the Bush regime accuse a critic of engaging in "conspiracy theories".

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Its simply this...economics is not an exact science.

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Is is true that economists cannot do experiments - but neither can astronomers. But we both do pretty much the same thing. We make hypotheses about how things work, derive their implications for what we should observe, and then look at the data.

[ 09 January 2004: Message edited by: Oliver Cromwell ]

Well, try thinking of me as a human being who has, like many other human beings in this country, specific experiences with the Finance Dept in Ottawa.

I made a vague -- and imprecise -- reference above, eg, to the campaign against disability deductions (I should have said) that Finance has been carrying on over the last year-plus. Finance has been systematically narrowing numbers of categories and definitions, eliminating long-time claimants -- this development is well-known enough that the Globe and Mail has actually covered it.

I also know a bit about the history of departmental attitudes towards funding social housing in Canada. I'm not about to run through it all here, but certainly, attempts to scuttle such funding go back in that department to the 1930s, and are periodically manifest in others ways -- as in the section of the Charlottetown Accord that only I seem to have read , the department's laundry list of responsibilities they wanted transferred to the provinces. That list began: "Forestry, Housing, ..." Now, you think that we defeated the Charlottetown Accord, don't you? Just because we voted against it? Go check what has happened to Forestry, Housing, etc.

(And yes, there are political reasons for transferring programs you wish to kill to the provinces -- especially housing.)

Like lagatta said, like the 12 month maternity leave, it's a good start, but it only benefits those few who are already well off. Single people, single parents, people living from paycheque to paycheque, people who aren't eligible for EI, all of them are screwed. Again.

[ 09 January 2004: Message edited by: Rebecca West ]

I have a student who is working on the issue of caring for the elderly at home as opposed to placing them in an institution. Health ministries are especially keen on this, since it costs a lot less when they're taken care of at home. And there's a case to be made that the elderly would be much happier staying at home.

That's clearly not the end of the story. It's by no means obvious that it costs less to care for the elderly at home. What happens is that much of the cost is shifted from the health ministry budget to the caregiver's shoulders. And I'm not just talking about lost income; there's also the physical and psychological toll as well. People might like to think that they would rather take care of an elderly parent rather than see them suffer the indignity of being placed in an institution, but the day-to-day reality is much different.

She finds that the cost-benefit analysis depends almost entirely to the cost to the caregiver. If the caregiver pays a heavy cost, shifting the elderly to home care is not a good policy, even if the health ministry saves money.

Basically, if savings generated by home care is enough to pay for income support, visits from health professionals and all the other things that would prevent the caregiver from being crushed by all that responibility, then it's a good idea. If it can't, then it's not.

This sort of programme seems like a first step in recognising that just because home care reduces the drain on on the health ministries budget, it doesn't mean that health costs have been reduced. They've simply been shifted, and they may even have increased.

But you are writing here to one of the crushed.

You are telling me about the last three years of my life. And I have to tell you: like everyone else who has not lived through this, you sound so hopelessly naive.

Did homecare cost both me and the province a lot less? For sure, given how stingy the homecare was. What is a nursing home costing now? A huge amount of money, and my sanity.

Mind you, my physical health was in jeopardy before, so it's much of a muchness, yes?

Ye. Gods. But. Canadians. Are. Stupid.

You are telling me there is no free lunch??? Shit. Tony Clement made that perfectly clear to everyone with a relative in an Ontario nursing home a year and a half ago. And I assume that Dalton McGuinty is about to make it a lot clearer. A lot.

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better than nothing, but not enough.

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swirrly, I think that that is a perfect description of what torments me every morning -- about 4 a.m.

How can I complain about what my love is not getting, when I know that what he is getting is better than what he would get elsewhere?

Oliver: Can you imagine what it feels like to wake up every morning asking yourself that question?

There are sections of the unit that used to be staffed by occupational therapists that are locked now. Why? One: the cleaning budget has been cut. Two: occupational therapists??? are you kidding??? In Ontario???

The contract with the visiting dentist has been cancelled. People's teeth FALL OUT OF THEIR HEADS.

Can you imagine, Oliver, what it feels like to watch that happen to someone you love?

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Originally posted by skdadl:

Can you imagine, Oliver, what it feels like to watch that happen to someone you love?

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In some ways, I guess what I'm saying is that the experience is always going to be crushing no matter what we do, although the underfunding of everything is making it more crushing than it need be, I think.

Maybe some people relax more when they put a loved one in a home, but that choice can also produce new stresses. Even when the home is good, the separation itself feels like such a terrible interruption -- not death, but halfway there.

I can't be the first person who has fantasized about different kinds of buildings, where both the sick and the well could still live together a substantial amount of time, rather than just having visits. Not everyone would want the same things I do, but for me and for many partners, I suspect, just being able to sleep with your partner would make a world of difference, and would have a calming effect on the patient. Visits are a strain because you're "on" all the time, as you are not in a normal family situation.

I know that our institutions have improved dramatically over the last twenty, thirty, forty years. They are much more humane, much less cold and scary than the places I remember from my childhood. And yet they still are -- "facilities."

I dunno. We have a lot of improving still to do. It upsets me most, though, that all signs point to continuing political fear of debt and deficit, continuing resistance to tax reform -- which means that we're not breaking through to enough people about how big the task is.

[ 10 January 2004: Message edited by: skdadl ]