Show Transcript – May 16

Transcript for Sunday, May 16, 2010 – 0700, 1130 and 2400

Monday, May 17, 2010 – 0630

State of Nursing

GUEST –

Vicki McKenna, Ontario Nurses’ Association

Gun Registry

GUEST –

Greg Farrant, Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters

SEAN MALLEN: I have a soft spot for the nursing profession. My late mother was a nurse for many years, as was my sister, who’s now retired. If you ever have to spend time in hospital they’re the ones you see all the time, the front of the front lines of health care, but they’ve had an up-and-down couple of decades in Ontario. In the “˜90’s with budgets tight, thousands lost their jobs and many moved elsewhere. In the last few years there’s been a hiring push, but now in times of another money crunch, we’re starting to hear stories of layoffs again, even as they’re getting more responsibilities.

(video clip in hospital setting)

Nurse (checking on a patient): How long has that been on for?

It is nursing week in Ontario, and the Health Minister used the occasion to support one particular branch of the profession – registered nurse first assistants play key roles in surgery, pushing the boundaries of nursing. The province is going to pay for 34 more of them.

Hon Deb Matthews, Minister of Health and Long Term Care: The position of surgical first assist makes an important difference when it comes to health care.

But both nurses and the opposition point out that they’ve been suffering from layoffs at several hospitals.

Andrea Horwath, NDP Leader: Despite this government’s spin the reality is nurses are being laid off and patients are suffering. When will the Premier finally admit that cuts are happening and commit to fixing the situation.

Premier Dalton McGuinty: There are almost 11,000 new nursing positions in Ontario. There are 1200 more nursing positions today than there were this time last year.

On this week’s Focus – The State of Nursing

From the Global News Room in Toronto, Focus Ontario with Sean Mallen.

SEAN MALLEN: Thanks for joining me again. Later in the program I’ll revisit the debate over the gun registry. Lots of response from last week’s interview with Toronto’s Police Chief; this week we’ll hear from an opponent of the registry. But first nurses, last Wednesday happened to be the 190th anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birth, marked every year as International Nurses’ Day, and my guest is the vice-president of the Ontario Nurses’ Association, Vicki McKenna. She’s in London in the studios of the University of Western Ontario. Welcome to Focus Ontario.

Vicki McKenna: Thanks, Sean.

SEAN MALLEN: So on this Nurses’ Week we had several announcements from the government, the one described in the opening there on Friday, in London, the Minister talking about more ER nursing positions, but the ONA has a campaign going talking about nursing cuts. What’s your association’s view of the state in the nursing profession right now?

Vicki McKenna: Well Sean, the situation that we’re in right across the province of Ontario is that we are a union, and part of our job of course is tracking positions, jobs and hours that our nurses work. We have experienced and have record of over 2100 registered nursing positions lost in the province of Ontario in the last year. Some of those are direct layoffs, some of those are deletions of vacant positions, and in that vacant position category, some people believe oh, there wasn’t anyone there so that really doesn’t matter. The fact is that those vacant positions, those nursing hours, were being filled and worked by our part-time nurses across the province of Ontario, so we’re four million hours of registered nursing care that’s involved with the citizens of Ontario.

SEAN MALLEN: So what’s the impact of that from your point of view?

Vicki McKenna: The impact is tremendous, not just certainly to the nurses, but to the patients of Ontario. The crush in workloads that nurses are experiencing, we know that, we have a high record of injury and illness rates amongst nurses because of the excessive overtime and the workload that they’re incurring every day on the front line. We also have nurses who are struggling every day at the end of their shifts because they are so concerned about the numbers of patients that they’ve been assigned and what the next shift is going to bring. Nurses say to me that they love the profession of nursing, but they hate their job right now. We’ve just come through Nursing Week and it’s been a tough one out there.

SEAN MALLEN: Earlier this week I asked the Health Minister, Deb Matthews, about the conflicting numbers. You’re tracking job layoffs, the government is talking about more nurses hired. I want to play a clip from Deb Matthews and get your take on that.

Vicki McKenna: Okay.

(video clip)

Hon Deb Matthews, Minister of Health and Long Term Care: It is true that in the health care system there are changes, but there are always changes in our health care system. When that happens nurses might receive layoff notices, but there are lots and lots of jobs available for nurses.

SEAN MALLEN: She seems to be saying that yes, there are some layoffs happening, but overall there are more positions for nurses. What’s your take on that?

Vicki McKenna: That’s what she seems to be saying, but the reality is that we know that there’s not. I mean we’re giving real time, front-line information on a day-to-day basis. We have recording in from our leaders right across the province, not only in hospitals, but in our community care access centres, public health units, long term care facilities. And those nurses and leaders are at the front line, they are living this, and the numbers and the discussions that we’re trying to help with the Ministry are real time. This is today and this is our reality today. The nurses are suffering, but most of all our patients are suffering. The research Sean, is really clear, for every additional patient added to a nurse’s workload, patients morbility and mortality rates rise, and that means patients have more complications and the outcomes for patients and nurses are poorer. So that’s not ONA research, that’s not union research, that’s the academic research out there on Ontario, Canada and right across North America. That’s not what we want.

SEAN MALLEN: Okay, if I might, Vicki, just let me pursue the numbers a little bit though.

Vicki McKenna: Okay.

SEAN MALLEN: In the opening the Premier said, I believe it was 10,000 -11,000 more nurses than when his government came to power. It was a key election promise in 2003. Are you saying that there are not more nurses now than there were when the Liberals came to power? I mean are we not better off in terms of nursing numbers?

Vicki McKenna: Well, certainly I think the statistics that he’s talking about are the statistics from the College of Nurses, and the number of nurses that are registered in the province of Ontario, as well as the nurses that self-report their employment status. And you know those nurses may well be working in different capacities, they could be working in different sectors, you know all of that may be true. I’m not discounting the College of Nurses’ statistical numbers in their reporting that there may be more nurses working in Ontario, but I think that when you look at the CIHR data, the Canadian Institute for Health Research data, and look at the ratio of nurses in Ontario against the populace of Ontario, Ontario doesn’t rate very high. So yes, I think we may well have more nurses in Ontario registered, we may have more nurses working in some capacity, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re working in the profession of nursing, a clinical position at the front line delivering care to patients of Ontario.

SEAN MALLEN: Okay, I am going to stop you there. We’re going to pursue and know more about the state of nursing in just a moment.

* * *

SEAN MALLEN: And we’re back with Vicki McKenna of the Ontario Nurses’ Association. Ms McKenna, the people who are losing their jobs that you’ve been tracking, are these principally in hospitals, because we’re hearing about funding crunches in a lot of hospitals, where are these cuts happening?

Vicki McKenna: Yes, primarily it is in hospitals and I think most people who kind of keep an eye on health care or hear about it in the media programs like yours, and in the papers, know that it’s actually against the law for hospitals to run deficit budgets and they can no longer submit a deficit budget, so what we are experiencing, and believe, that the outcome of the budgeting process in Ontario is the balancing of those budgets on the backs of nurses, and ultimately the patients of Ontario. They cannot submit a budget that’s not balanced, and nurses are the highest proportion of workers in hospitals, and nurses are getting layoff notices and are being cut out of the system.

SEAN MALLEN: Okay, speaking about the budget then, as you well know there is a wage freeze for the broader public service.

Vicki McKenna: That’s true.

SEAN MALLEN: In the next two years – your contract is up at the end of March next year, I believe.

Vicki McKenna: Yes.

SEAN MALLEN: And they’re not going to fund any increases for your members. How is that going to play out at the bargaining table do you think?

Vicki McKenna: Well, certainly we’ve been reading the legislation very carefully, and we are preparing for bargaining like we would any other year. We are going to be serving our members as we do every year, preparing for our proposals, and we have read the legislation, yes, but we’re going to go to the table. We understand that they’re not going to fund increases, however, they talked about within the compensation envelope itself. We’re going to be sitting down to negotiate what the needs of our members are across Ontario. So we’re going to go to the table to negotiate as we normally would, and it will play out through our negotiations with the Ontario Hospital Association, which we begin those in January actually.

SEAN MALLEN: Okay, but are your people prepared to accept zeros, because the scenario would seem to be you get a wage increase, you might see more layoffs?

Vicki McKenna: Well, this is true, but we haven’t actually surveyed our members. We’re just in the process now of asking the nurses out there what it is they’re looking for, what are the important things to them, and certainly wages and benefits are always a part of it, Sean, but our number one issue and number two issues are often around workload and professional issues in respect to the process, and then being able to care for the patients that they want to. The collective agreement in the hospital sector is a nursing collective agreement, a lot of the language is around their professional role as nurses and their professional responsibility, and them being able to practice in a safe work environment. So that’s right up there at the top. So I expect certainly after this week to hear a lot about workloads, hear a lot about practices they’re facing every day, and the concerns they have around patient care, but I’m not going to suggest to you that there won’t be feedback from members around wages and benefits and we’ll do our best job to make sure we can achieve what’s needed for Ontario. And we’re there to negotiate, and we’re there to make it happen.

SEAN MALLEN: Okay, let me just pursue one final point, just a minute left in this segment. The national arm of your organization, your sister organization, the Registered Nurses, put out a study this week saying 55 percent of nurses report fatigue while on the job.

Vicki McKenna: Yes.

SEAN MALLEN: What’s the impact of that on care, and I presume that’s related to your concern about workload?

Vicki McKenna: Right exactly. Well, fatigue is certainly something I saw on the faces of nurses in all the hospitals I visited right across the province this week and last week, and I expect to see next week. It is not surprising, you’re right, it directly relates to the workload, and the constant change that’s happening for them. We’ve been under transformation, restructuring, for a decade now, and it’s showing. It’s wearing on people, the fatigue level is very high. The expectation of themselves in their practice is very high and they’re very tired.

SEAN MALLEN: Okay, I’m afraid I have to leave it there, but good to talk to you. Happy Nursing Week!

Vicki McKenna: Thanks Sean, thank you very much.

SEAN MALLEN: And back in a moment to talk more about the gun registry.

* * *

SEAN MALLEN: Later this month there will be hearings on Parliament Hill on the private member’s bill that proposes to eliminate the long gun registry. Last week we heard from Toronto’s Police Chief on why the registry should live on. I’m joined now by one of those who believe it has to go. Greg Farrant speaks for the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters. Welcome to Focus Ontario.

Greg Farrant: Hello Sean, thanks for having me.

SEAN MALLEN: So what’s your argument? Why does this have to go when we have so many police chiefs telling us it’s a valuable crime-fighting tool?

Greg Farrant: Well, it’s interesting that the Chiefs would be the ones that are making this argument. The leadership of those organizations are not in touch with what’s going on on the streets of officers today. In fact we heard from a corporal not too long ago, from the RCMP, who suggested that’s exactly the reason that the Chiefs are in favour of the registry, they don’t understand what’s going on from front-line officers on the streets.

SEAN MALLEN: Well, at their event on Parliament Hill last week they had the Police Association, it represents rank and file. They’re wrong too?

Greg Farrant: Well, the Canadian Police Association has never polled their members and we’ve heard from hundreds and thousands over the last ten years that are front-line officers across this country who say the registry is a failure, that they don’t use it, and it places their lives in jeopardy if they actually rely on the information in that registry.

SEAN MALLEN: Okay, well there seems to be a disconnect here. The Chief says, the overwhelming majority of chiefs say – I know they’re going to say there’s one exception in Calgary – that they use it all the time, thousands of times every day, every call to go to a home, part of the check, is there a gun in that home. They’re wrong?

Greg Farrant: Yes, they’re wrong. The registry certainly may be used 10,000 – 11,000 times a day, that number varies, it runs from 6,000 to 10,000, 11,000 that people estimate – but these are not calls into the long gun registry. In fact very few of them are in to the long gun registry. They’re for transfers, they’re for importation; they’re for distributors, they’re for sales, they’re for even when the police take in firearms that they seize, when they divest themselves of firearms that they’ve seized. From about 2005 to now actually the calls right into the registry for on-line registration of long guns has actually decreased. Only 2.4 percent of all the hits on it are actually for registration. Most of them are for addresses, names, telephone numbers, things like that.

SEAN MALLEN: But information surely is a good thing, isn’t it? Isn’t it good to know who has guns in the country. Yes, we know the argument that most of the criminals use stolen weapons or illegal weapons, but you have to think that any information you have is useful, yes?

Greg Farrant: Well, the Auditor General would take some umbrage at that, I think. She’s found, and the RCMP has certainly found that the mistakes and the errors in that registry, it can be undependable up to 90 percent of the time because of the errors and omissions in the registry. That’s not something that I would like to put my life on the line for when something is that badly flawed.

SEAN MALLEN: Why not just improve it?

Greg Farrant: How do you improve it? I don’t know how you improve this system. The system is flawed. The underpinning of the whole system from day one has been flawed. Criminals don’t register firearms. So what you’ve got in there, you’ve got the duck hunter, you’ve got the recreational shooter, you’ve got the Olympic shooter, you’ve got the farmer. These are not the people who are causing gun crimes in this country. These are not the people that are causing the problems in our communities and on our streets.

SEAN MALLEN: The police would argue though that still when you’re going to a home this is the argument we used last week, said in the big raid in Toronto week before last, when they raided all kinds of homes, before those SWAT teams kicked in those doors, they wanted to know whether there was a registered gun there. I mean of course they’re going in I suppose suspecting there’s a gun anyway, because they’re dressed up in their full SWAT gear.

Greg Farrant: Most officers in this country that we’ve talked to, including actually one that I talked to last Thursday on my way to the studio, said to us that licences are what’s important. If you go in and somebody has a licence, you immediately assume there’s a firearm in that house. The registry can show that there are no firearms in the house, that doesn’t mean they’re not there. The registry deals with where the firearm is registered, not where it’s located or where it’s stored.

Take an example – Mary Jane of Smallville, Ontario. She gets her firearms licence, but she doesn’t own any guns, she gets stopped for a traffic stop, the officer checks the registry, no guns registered against her licence. Great! She goes on her way; but she borrows her brother’s. With the certificate she takes it home. Her home’s broken into. The police come, they check before they get to the house, yes she has a licence, no there’s no gun registered. This gun has now gone somewhere else. We don’t know, and there’s lots of people who have guns.

Take an example, somebody who hunts in northern Ontario. Their gun is registered to their home; it’s not necessarily there, it could be at their hunt camp. Nobody knows where the guns are stored because it’s not a requirement under The Firearms Act to store them where they’re registered.

SEAN MALLEN: Put it another way, there’s an argument frequently put forward by proponents of gun control, you buy a licence for your car. You register your car, we all get a driver’s license with our own picture on it. Somewhere in a registry in the Ministry of Transportation they know what car I drive, they know what I look like, they know where I live. What’s so wrong with doing that for a gun?

Greg Farrant: Well, I don’t think registering automobiles has ever stopped anybody from getting behind the wheel, driving drunk and killing somebody.

SEAN MALLEN: But still we register them, nobody’s complaining about it.

Greg Farrant: Well, the system doesn’t make sense. The whole underpinning of this system was intended to do two things, enhance public safety and save lives. There is no empirical evidence that demonstrates that it is doing that. There’s lots of myths, there’s lots of opinions, but there’s no empirical evidence to demonstrate that it’s done what it said it was going to do, and in fact the Auditor General in her report in 2002 to Parliament said very clearly that the Canadian Firearms Centre had not been able to prove that the system did exactly what it was supposed to do.

SEAN MALLEN: The crime rate is a lot lower here than in the United States, yes, and dropping, violent crime rate dropping?

Greg Farrant: Yes, but the gun crime rate has been dropping since the 1970’s. The registry had nothing to do with that at all, and in fact the homicide rate with hand guns has actually been going up recently. It’s gone up since the registry came into effect, but the Coalition for Gun Control likes to claim the fact that when the long gun registry came in, it was responsible for less long guns being used in crime. I’m sorry, it’s disingenuous, that’s been going down for 35 years. It has nothing to do with Bill C-68 or this registry.

SEAN MALLEN: As we know the Liberals have come up with a form of compromise, they’re now going to whip their members to vote to defeat this bill. The Tories are going to whip their people to vote for it; the Bloc is going to vote against it; which leaves the NDP, some of whose members voted in favour of the bill, some rural and northern members when they had a free vote last time.

Just about a minute left. So what are you going to do to try to influence those members, those who seem to be key ones?

Greg Farrant: Well, we talked to all members of Parliament on this. We provide them with information, we provide them with documentation, with studies that have been done.

SEAN MALLEN: And you’re buying ads in their hometowns, yes?

Greg Farrant: No, not us.

SEAN MALLEN: Someone is.

Greg Farrant: Well, there may be some factions of the gun community that are doing that. We prefer to rely on science, we prefer to rely on facts, and we have lots of facts to demonstrate that our position on this is quite sound. Dr Gary Mauzer from Simon Fraser University, who’s written extensively in law journals on the long gun registry, and the failure of the long run registry to do what it was supposed to do, will also be testifying next week on Parliament Hill. And it’s that kind of empirical evidence that you need.

SEAN MALLEN: But it’s going to be pretty strong pressure on those rural New Democrats, yes?

Greg Farrant: There will be. I’m sure they’re being pulled in all sorts of directions, but have represented the views of their constituents before and I’m confident they will continue to represent the views on the next vote.

SEAN MALLEN: Okay, it’s going to be an interesting vote.

Greg Farrant: It will be indeed.

SEAN MALLEN: Thanks for coming on the program.

Greg Farrant: Thank you, Sean.

SEAN MALLEN: And still ahead on our final segment, your comments and the Play of the Week – a serious one this time, with a happy ending for Mother’s Day.

* * *

Play of the Week

(video clip – Ontario Legislature)

Hon Steve Peters, Speaker of the House: Earlier today in response to the –

SEAN MALLEN: John Yakabuski is known as one of the most energetic hecklers on the Tory side of the House, but when he returned to Queen’s Park this week he had good reason to be a bit more subdued and relieved.

John Yakabuski, MPP, Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke: You know it turned out very well in the end and we’re thankful to God that our son was found.

On Saturday he got word that his 18-year-old son, Lucas, was missing, separated from some companions in Algonquin Park. The Yakabuski’s spent a sleepless night not knowing that Lucas had hunkered down and was able to walk out to meet searchers on Sunday, Mother’s Day.

John Yakabuski: When you’re parents on the outside looking in and it’s minus eight and the wind is howling, and it’s as dark as you could possibly imagine, with no moonlight or anything else, yes, you’re wondering about how your son is. It was quite a night.

Members from all sides of the House joined him in his moment of gratitude.

Mr Speaker: I say to the member for Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke, very glad that everything worked out so well for your son, and that it made for a great Mother’s Day for your wife.

(applause)

He told me afterwards how much he wanted to thank all the people who came out to search for his son, and to give his family support on a pretty rough night.

– – –

And now your comments, and here’s what some of you had to say after last week’s program on the gun registry, starting with an e-mail from a man who describes himself as a retired Toronto officer. Steve McEdwards writes: “They say the registry is checked over 11,500 times a day and four million times a year, but what he doesn’t tell anyone is that every time a police officer checks his computer for a vehicle, and every time an officer responds to any type of radio call, their computers automatically check the registry. This happens when the officers go to parking complaints, traffic accidents, barking dogs, or any other non-violent crime. The current gun registry will not stop gun crime and save lives, and is a political ploy by politicians and bureaucrats trying to save their jobs.”

And listen to this voice-mail: “Are any of your officers naïve enough to believe that they will face no guns in the home, farm or business that does not have a registered weapon. I believe this, and many other federal programs of little benefit to society, should be discontinued.” Gordon Thomson

Got an opinion you’d like to share, here’s how you can send it in. Write me a letter to:

Focus Ontario

Global Television

81 Barber Greene Road

Toronto, Ontario

M3C 2A2

e-mail: focusontario@globaltv.com

voice-mail message at 1-866-895-9555

Our web information: http://www.globaltoronto.com/focusontario

And that’s our program for this week; I’m Sean Mallen, thanks for watching. We’ll see you next weekend.

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