TORONTO – Changes to provincial health legislation passed last
week threaten to undermine Ontario’s public health laboratories and the delivery
of counseling services across the province, according to the Ontario Public
Service Employees Union.
“In its rush to push Bill 171 through before the legislature
rises for the fall election, the McGuinty government is putting Ontarians’
health at risk,” said OPSEU President Warren (Smokey) Thomas.
One of the omnibus bill’s key features is the creation of a new
Ontario Agency for Health Protection and Promotion, which will take over 12
provincial public health labs from the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.
“Setting this agency up outside the Ontario Public Service is a
bad idea,” said Thomas. “It will weaken government accountability for the
funding and operation of the public health labs and other key services, and it
flies in the face of Justice Archie Campbell’s recommendations following the
SARS crisis.”
Compounding this threat is the government’s failure to guarantee
that no public health lab services will be cut or downloaded, and that the jobs,
wages, pensions and collective agreement rights of the labs’ 600 unionized
employees will be protected under the new agency, OPSEU says.
Meanwhile, the bill’s clumsy move to regulate psychotherapy will
jeopardize counseling services delivered by thousands of health and social
service professionals in Ontario.
“The bill combines a very broad definition of what constitutes
psychotherapy with very narrow restrictions on who can perform these services,”
said Thomas.
“This could prevent thousands of professionals – from child and
youth workers and developmental service workers to people who work in women’s
shelters and other community agencies – from delivering counseling services that
are a key part of their work.”
