I am still waiting.
I’m thrilled to be able to talk about accountability from a different lens than my fellow speakers today. But my story starts long before any trucks rolled into Ottawa. So if you will bear with me, I want to put the “count” in accountability.
In 1990, Ontario had roughly 50,000 hospital beds staffed and in operation, but over the following twenty years, provincial governments would slash that number by 38% while Ontario’s population would grew 28%.¹ That meant that by 2019, Ontario would be in a tie with Mexico for the fewest acute care hospital beds per capita in the world.² And as a result, Ontario hospitals have one of the worst occupancy rates out of all OECD countries at 98%³ and that was before a pandemic.
This is where my story starts. This weekend is a special anniversary for me. Two years ago tomorrow, my appendix ruptured. At this point, there were no recorded cases of COVID in Ottawa hospitals, but we still had to drive to four separate medical facilities before we found a hospital with the capacity to admit me. And that’s the health care system that we brought with us into this pandemic: one that could barely squeeze in an emergency surgery on a Saturday morning in our nation’s capital.
I think a lot of Canadians feel pride and relief when they think about the health care system: pride that it’s a publicly funded system and relief that it’s better than the American system. But this can prevent you from seeing the erosion that’s happening to our services. But you know who does see it and ends up shouldering the burden for it? Chronically ill and disabled people who rely on those services. We pay out of pocket for tests and treatments that are no longer covered by OHIP. We live with untreated illnesses for years while we wait to see specialists.⁴ And now. Now 58,000 people are waiting for surgery because of pandemic backlogs.⁵
Which brings me to the occupation. When our city was overtaken, there was an overwhelming and constant threat to the safety of disabled people. I heard about it from every disabled person that I delivered food to, with many of them saying that this was the most scared that they had been in their lives.
While the immediate danger of the occupation is gone, the sense of abandonment for me is greater now than it was two weeks ago. Because the Premier announced this week a total roll back of safety protocols including masking.
During the occupation, I could pull up to a grocery store and check the parking lot for convoy vehicles to see if I would be safe inside. But once masking mandates are removed, there’s no similar check for disabled people to know if they can safely enter a store. All bets are off.
I spent the occupation feeding my neighbours when the occupiers threatened our safety and our leaders abandoned us. But as of April, I don’t know how I will get groceries or do anything safely because political leaders are still abandoning me and every other person with a chronic or high risk condition. And the worst part is, they don’t need to be accountable to me. They’re able to do it because they have public support.
In a Leger poll conducted last month, 43% of Ontario residents agreed that it was time to “learn to live with COVID” because, according to them, it’s time to move on.⁶ The percentage of people in Canada who think that the government should lift all restrictions related to COVID-19 has reached an all-time high.⁷
Learning to live with COVID is coded language that means it’s okay if disabled people die because other people are tired of wearing masks. Learning to live with COVID means a waitlist of 58,000 surgeries isn’t long enough, we can get it to an even 100. Learning to live with COVID suggests that everyone else deserves a break from mandates while disabled people can shelter in place indefinitely. It’s hard to ask for accountability when your life isn’t even factored into the equation or if it is, it’s factored in as acceptable loss.
I’m asking everyone here today to show up for the disabled people in your life. Keep masking. Keep your distance. Advocate for the short and medium term goals of maintaining safety protocols. Advocate for the long term goals of restoring health care funding and while I haven’t mentioned it, I will ask you to support raising ODSP rates which have left people in abject poverty.⁸ Disability isn’t a moral failing or a weakness. It’s time to start being equally accountable to disabled members of our community.
This speech was given at the Community Solidarity Ottawa event at City Hall on March 5, 2022.
References
¹ https://cupe.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/webarc/archivedat6206.pdf Page 16
² https://www.oha.com/Documents/Ontario%20Hospitals%20-%20Leaders%20in%20Efficiency.pdf Page 10
³ http://www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca/wp-content/uploads/FULL-REPORT-July-21-2011.pdf Page 8
⁴ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7292524/
⁵ https://twitter.com/ColinDMello/status/1499046076569038851?s=20&t=x3e38GZIB03ptiAX8iu77w
⁶ https://leger360.com/surveys/legers-north-american-tracker-february-10-2022/ Page 9. In Ontario, 31% of respondents agreed with the statement “I am adequately vaccinated and with Omicron being less serious, it is about time we reopen and learn to live with this thing and move on” while an additional 12% agreed with the statement “I have been opposed to mandates and government measures for a while and believe governments should cease all public safety measures and give us back our freedom” totalling 43% of Ontario residents who want restrictions lifted.
⁷ https://leger360.com/surveys/legers-north-american-tracker-february-10-2022/ Page 11. 32% Of Canadians answered yes when asked: Do you think governments should lift all restrictions related to COVID-19 right now? A chart on Page 14 shows that this is the highest level of support that removing safety measures has received in Canada over the course of the pandemic.
⁸ https://www.tvo.org/article/the-cost-of-living-is-rising-so-why-arent-social-assistance-rates