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Desirée Nikfardjam

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NEWS EDITOR Desirée Nikfardjam news.editor@thefulcrum.ca

Ambassador to United Nations, Bob Rae, interrupted during speech at GSIPA by peace activists

Activists protest during Bob Rae’s speech at U of O

On Jan. 23, the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSIPA) at the University of Ottawa celebrated its 15th anniversary. To mark the occasion, the University hosted a talk by Bob Rae, the Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations. The Honourable Bob Rae’s speech was entitled “Walking the Talk: The Pragmatic Pursuit of Principle.”

The talk was interrupted by several peace activists who, while bring- ing attention to different international policy issues, condemned the ambassador for calling Canada’s foreign policy “principled.”

The activists who disrupted the speech included Tamara Lorincz, Yves Engler, and Dimitri Lascaris.

Lorincz is a PhD candidate in Global Governance at the Balsillie School for International Affairs at Wilfrid Laurier University, who was awarded the Rotary International World Peace Fellowship and is currently on the international board of Global Network Against Nucle- ar Power and Weapons in Space. She condemned Canada for its lacking diplomatic engagement with regard to ending Russia’s war in Ukraine. During her interruption she called for Bob Rae to use his mediation skills and diplomatic position to augment Canada’s role in ending the war.

Yves Engler is a Canadian author and activist whose most recent book, entitled Stand on Guard for Whom, was the first to explore Canadian military history from the perspectives of its victims. Engler exposed Canada’s voting patterns at the UN during Ambassador Rae’s tenure. Engler accused Rae of voting against the resolution condemning neo-Nazism, the resolution of the prohibition of nuclear weapons, and the resolution more just economic global order.

The third interruption of Bob Rae’s speech was declared by Dimitri Lascaris, a Canadian lawyer, journalist and activist who reprimanded Canada’s support of Israel, a state whose human rights violations of Palestinian people are well documented.

In a blog post,

Lascaris explained that these interruptions do not “… constitute an exhaustive list of Canada’s radical departures from “principled” foreign policy. It takes a special kind of mendacity to pursue the policies of the Canadian government and then claim with a straight face to be “principled” in international affairs.”

Rae’s talk provided many insights into foreign policy issues, Canada’s role at the UN, and the agendas of peace activists in Canada. The full talk can be found on the GSIPA website.

Ford government to invest in for-profit clinics in hopes of reducing surgery backlog

“This is a move towards privatization which is going to really harm disabled people.”

On Jan. 11, Doug Ford announced a threestep plan that will increase the capacity of for-profit clinics to perform operations for cataracts, knee and hip replacements, and more — all in hopes of reducing the existing strain on Ontario’s healthcare system.

Under the first step of the new plan, clinics in Ottawa, Kitchener-Waterloo, and Windsor will perform 14,000 additional cataract surgeries each year, to reduce the current waitlist by 25 per cent.

The second step will see private clinics undertaking more MRI and CT scans, as well as “non-urgent,” “low-risk,” and “minimally invasive” procedures including colonoscopies and endoscopies.

By 2024, the third and final step will expand hip and knee replacement surgeries at for-profit clinics.

Since it was announced, the plan has received criticism from health care professionals, politicians and disability activists.

Leader of the New Democratic Party Jagmeet Singh warned that outsourcing these procedures could divert already scarce resources from publicly-funded hospitals, such as nurses and anesthesiologists.

In addition, Disability Awareness Consultant Andrew Gurza tweeted that the Ontario government’s new plan could create additional barriers for Ontarians living with disabilities.

“This is a move towards privatization which is going to really harm disabled people. Most of us that are living on social assistance in

Ontario are living on less than 700 or 800 [dollars] a month,” said Gurza, in an interview with the Fulcrum.

Moreover, Gurza mentioned concerns with respect to the accessibility of these private facilities.

“Most public clinics are not accessible. So I fail to see how private clinics will be accessible unless they consult disabled community members. There are things like lifts, and there are things like attendant care on site, I think, that we shouldn’t be outsourcing to private clinics. We should be trying to fix the public sector.”

In a statement to the Fulcrum, Carly Fox, Communications and Partnerships Director of the National Educational Association of Disabled Students (NEADS) and International Chair of the Council for Canadians with Disabilities (CCD), said the

Ford government’s plan will “undeniably exacerbate the healthcare barriers both disabled and non-disabled students currently face.”

“With many disabling conditions and illnesses requiring frequent medical visits and treatments, disabled students are facing the same issues as the general public (think GP/nurse shortages and ER wait times) at disproportionate and lethal levels, with multiple marginalized groups harmed even more.”

While Ford’s plan is a direct response to the lengthening of hospital waitlists due to the COVID-19 pandemic, more attention should be brought to the long-term health consequences of COVID-19 and how this correlates to the procedures that would be outsourced to private clinics, according to Fox.

“It’s important to remember that the COVID-19 pandemic continues to be a mass-disabling event as more people self-identify as a result of long covid, covid complications, and new conditions or illnesses caused by viral infection. As a result, more people are seeking more intensive medical care and medical diagnoses — which often require MRI and CT scans and other diagnostic procedures that are explicitly targeted by Ford’s privatization plan.”

During the Jan. 30 Question Period at the House of Commons, Jagmeet Singh called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to enforce the Canada Health Act (CHA) against Ontario’s plan to increase the use of for-profit clinics.