Buy local, eat local makes retail sense

Homegrown products gaining shelf space in Island grocery stores

by Michael Erskine

MANITOULIN-The 'eat local' movement is becoming all the rage these days, and a number of stars are aligning in the local skies which will move that ideal forward for Island consumers visiting local grocery stores.

Andrew Orr, the new operator of the Island's Valumart, is currently nailing down the details of a significant new program and supply chain for the Little Current and Gore Bay stores that should significantly increase the amount of locally grown produce available on Island grocery store shelves. Mr. Orr said he is very excited by the prospect.

Ed Laidley, the proprietor of GG's Foodland in Little Current, noted that he has always encouraged local produce, "when and where possible." Mr. Laidley said that his store tends to sell a lot of hard vegetables like cabbages, turnips and peppercorn squash, and that he used to be able to sell a lot of local corn in season.

Richard Mcleod, co-owner of the Manitowaning Freshmart, also encourages local produce. "We like to deal locally as much as possible," he said. "We need to support local farmers, local businesses-if we don't all pull together we all will sink together." Mr. Mcleod has had particular success with locally produced pumpkins and honey. "I would love to be able to sell local beef," he added, "but that has to be federally inspected, so we are blocked from that for the time being."

Bruce Mercer, corporate supervisor for Mindemoya Foodland, noted that they also prefer to be able to offer fresh, locally grown produce. "We do sell a lot of strawberries and potatoes from Beaulieu Farms in Chelmsford," he said. "We are also looking at a supplier for apples." The company would dearly love to buy even closer to home. The arrangement they have with Chelmsford sees the Mindemoya Foodland sending their own van out to pick up the produce in Espanola to make it viable. Transportation costs are a significant issue in the grocery business, which has always been a low margin-high volume business.

Offering produce grown right next door for sale in local grocery stores might seem on the face of it to be quite easy, but when you start looking at the logistics of supply-there has to be enough available to meet demand-and the technical requirements of packing and processing that apply to the province's food distribution regulations, it begins to become much more involved and complex. Add into that mix the contract clauses of the grocery distribution system and purchasing requirements of franchises, and you begin to see just how big a deal getting all this together actually is.

Mr. Laidley said his store is particularly lucky, in that the produce he receives three times a week comes direct from the terminals in Toronto, rather than being transshipped through the Sobey terminal in Sudbury. The fewer the links in the chain, the fresher the produce on a store's shelves can be.

Mr. Orr noted that on a corporate franchise level, Loblaw's CEO Galen Weston has made a strong commitment encouraging the 'eat local' movement. It is part of the food distributor's strategy to fend off a growing challenge from US-based Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart views the food network as a new niche into which to expand its low-cost operations. The Wal-Mart challenge has devastated many of the food-store chains in the United Sates by offering a one-stop shopping experience that is hard for urban consumers to resist and to which the US chains were unable to adapt.

The Loblaws plan seems to centre on the idea of providing quality products and locally grown and raised products as a counter to the Wal-Mart model. This could prove quite successful, offering the company the opportunity to take advantage of growing quality concerns about the food security of products coming from low-cost suppliers like China.

The 'eat local' movement, pioneered here by such operations as Loonsong Garden in Little Current and Burt's Farm in Ice Lake, is not an easy fit with a massive corporation like Loblaws; such companies often find it a lot easier to deal with equally massive suppliers, hauling food across vast distances to satisfy consumer demand. But through the adoption of smaller-scale operations, the company may be able to bring in higher quality, fresher produce to supply a more nutritionally aware consumer, and thereby building a customer loyalty barricade against the ravenous mercantile appetite of the world's premier mega-merchant.

Sourcing local food provides an important added bonus for a local operator, noted Mr. Laidley. If an order is short-shipped to the store or if his store has to turn back a shipment because it does not meet his high standards, being able to meet advertised specials by purchasing from a local supplier is both encouraged by the franchise and a means of providing customer service.

On a related front, the provincial government, through the Manitoulin offices of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA), has stepped up to the plate in order to aid the 'eat local' initiative. "Over the summer we hired a researcher to produce a tool to help local producers assess the market potential and critical mass necessary to supply the local market," said OMFRA rep Brian Bell.

This new tool, which is admittedly somewhat rudimentary, nonetheless brings together a wealth of information about market densities and supply that could prove an invaluable starting point for local farmers interested in supplying the local Manitoulin market.

The Excel spreadsheet program developed by the OMAFRA researcher used the initial base market for the Island of 13,000 people-quite a conservative point as the Island's population tends to be almost three times that large during the busy summer tourist season. The challenge being, of course, to determine what locally grown products would be desirable to that influx of summer residents as well as the year-round population.

Based on the program, it would take approximately 450 acres of market garden to supply the in-season needs of the year-round residents in 20 of the most common produce items.

"Granted, there are a lot of farms and an awful lot of small backyard gardens already in play on the Island," said Mr. Bell. "But there definitely seems to be room for commercial market garden operators in the 40- to 50-acre range."

Experience has proven that the Island is also quite capable of producing high quality varieties of grains such as winter and spring wheat, noted Mr. Bell, who has been working with local farmers for a number of years on grain diversification projects.

Mr. Bell noted that it is extremely important that local growers do their homework in preparing to tackle the 'eat local' market, and in that arena the Ontario government is also ready to help out. "The Ontario Market Innovation Fund will help people do the research necessary to discover what all of the requirements are and what is needed to meet the demands of the market," he said.

The fund is particularly well suited to those who are able to think outside of the box and investigate new product potential for Ontario markets including Manitoulin.

The published objectives of the Ontario Market Investment Fund, noted Mr. Bell, are to develop opportunities through trade events, marketing campaigns and industry research initiatives that foster partnerships and collaboration for the promotion of Ontario foods.

The Gore Bay OMAFRA office can be reached at 282-2792.

Watershed separation urged to control flow of invaders

by Jim Moodie

CHICAGO-The so-called Windy City is often blamed for being too thirsty-and given its daily draft of two billion gallons of Great Lakes water, via a controversial diversion, you can understand why-but Huron dwellers should be equally concerned about stuff that Chicago is poised to spew up this way.

In particular, we might worry about a certain filter feeder of foreign extraction, hearty appetite, and striking heft.

The Asian carp, introduced to the Mississippi River in the late 1990s, gets so big (100 pounds is not unusual) that people have actually been injured by this acrobatic invader, which has a habit of flinging itself at high speeds into boats, or across the seats of personal watercraft. If you don't believe us, check out Asian Carp Invasion Pt. 1 on YouTube.

The risk to human safety pales, though, next to the threat posed to the overall health of the Great Lakes ecosystem. Known to consume 20 percent of their body weight in plankton per day, these bottom eaters would deplete food sources for other species and potentially decimate commercial and sport fisheries across the basin.

For the moment, this remains a hypothetical disaster, but it's not that farfetched. As we speak, the fish is almost literally knocking on Lake Michigan's door.

"It's coming up the Illinois River, and it's just 15 miles below the site of the current electric barrier," says Joel Brammeier, vice-president for policy with the Alliance for the Great Lakes, an environmental advocacy group. Carp plucky enough to test the fence will receive a non-lethal jolt, and drift back down the Illinois (which flows toward the Mississippi), where environmentalists and fisheries officials want to keep them.

But the barricade may not work indefinitely. "It's been a good deterrent, but it's not a 100 percent solution," warns Mr. Brammeier. "If you rely on a power supply and there's a chance of human error or a natural disaster, something can always go wrong."

The present barrier, moreover, is only intended to be temporary, yet a permanent version, while essentially built, "is not yet functional because of safety issues with barge traffic," says Mr. Brammeier. "This has been dragging on at least three years."

In the meantime, Mr. Brammeier's environmental organization, with financial help from the Great Lakes Fishery Commission and the Great Lakes Fishery Trust, has devoted a lot of time and study to the problem, and has come up with what it feels is a more foolproof, if seemingly extreme, answer. In a nutshell: re-engineer the Chicago Waterway System so that nothing equipped with fins, shells or feelers has any way of moving between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi.

The term the alliance uses is "ecological separation," which it defines, in a 100-page report issued last week, as "no inter-basin transfer of aquatic organisms via the Chicago Waterway System at any time," with a commitment to "100 percent effectiveness."

As sweeping as it sounds, the strategy wouldn't put a plug in the transfer of H20 from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi, nor would it necessitate a complete overhaul of waterworks in the area, stresses Mr. Brammeier.

"It would not change the way the water flows, or mean we have to re-plumb northeastern Illinois," he says.

Some relatively major changes to infrastructure would need to take place, however, and there would be an impact on commercial and recreational boat traffic, Mr. Brammeier admits. "Our proposal is to create a physical separation close to downtown Chicago," he says. "All the water would still be flowing through, but boats wouldn't have the same access to Lake Michigan; they'd have to go through a boat lift and be sterilized." Six areas are identified in the study for possible structural changes, such as new locks and concrete walls.

While this might sound like a major reshaping of the Chicago waterscape, it bears remembering that the whole system is unnatural to begin with: over 100 years ago, the watershed here was totally reconfigured to reverse the flow of the Chicago River and link Lake Michigan with the Mississippi via a complex network of canals and rerouted streams.

This occurred, in part, to provide water to places south of the Great Lakes, but also to protect Chicago's water supply, which is derived from Lake Michigan. "The system is designed to send storm and sanitary water to the same place, pushing it to the Mississippi River," says Mr. Brammeier.

The Great Lakes alliance scheme wouldn't undo that network entirely, but simply stopper up the places where invasive species could sneak through from one watershed to the other.

"It wouldn't mean re-engineering the entire city," says Mr. Brammeier. "There are ways of creating a separation that don't require that drastic a solution. All to most of the water flowing to the Mississippi still would."

If a bit ended up flowing back into Lake Michigan, that would just be an ecological bonus, in his view. "Any water Illinois can put back into the Great Lakes is a good thing," says the alliance rep.

The study released last week is the outcome of a process that began in 2003, says Mr. Brammeier, when the Chicago Aquatic Invasive Species Summit was convened by the city's mayor and the US Fish and Wildlife Service to explore answers to the problem of scary stowaways and fish-farm escapees encroaching upon the Great Lakes, of which the Asian carp is only the latest example.

Already, Mr. Brammeier notes, the shipping route at Chicago has contributed to the ingress of such exotic pests as zebra mussels and round gobies. Indeed, more than 150 invasive species have now been identified in the Great Lakes, and many have made their way into the lakes from the south.

As costly to governments, and inconvenient to marine traffic, as an "ecological separation" might be to realize, the Alliance for the Great Lakes is confident that most stakeholders, including the shipping industry, are hospitable to the idea.

To Mr. Brammeier, it's essential that a solid, long-term strategy is put in place to staunch the flow of invasive species, in particular the Asian carp, before more damage is wrought. "Once this gets in, the effects are potentially catastrophic," he says. "With invasive species, you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube."

His organization is now calling upon the US Army Corps of Engineers to grab the tiller for their own "full-scale feasibility study on the same issue," says Mr. Brammeier. "Our study is a first draft at this type of work, and we'll be encouraging the corps to get started on their own plan. We recognize it won't happen overnight; it will take a couple of years and a few to $10 million to do an appropriate study, but we have to get serious about a real solution."

The entire report on invasive species prevention, as drafted by the Alliance for the Great Lakes, is viewable online by visiting www.greatlakes.org.

Sudbury physicians demand

$2.5 million to solve bed crunch

Three hospitals receive 'wraparound' funds

by Jim Moodie

SUDBURY-Nearly $300,000 in funding was announced last week for the Sudbury Regional Hospital to help steer elderly patients towards alternative care options via a so-called "wraparound" approach that's proven effective elsewhere. But it will take much more than that, say medical staff and board members, to fix the current bed crunch.

On Tuesday of last week, the hospital's board backed its Medical Advisory Committee in demanding $2.5 million from the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care to immediately open 24 transitional beds in the facility, which could be used to accommodate alternative level of care (ALC) patients who are taking up surgical and medical spaces.

The high number of ALC patients at Sudbury Regional-of late, they fill over a third of the 330 beds in the hospital-has created long waits in the Emergency Department (ED) and forced the facility's administration to block admissions from smaller hospitals in the region, including Manitoulin's, unless the case is deemed life-or-death.

Sudbury's ALC patients, averaging 120 in recent weeks, would be adequately cared for in nursing homes or, with the support of visiting caregivers, their own homes, but the resources don't presently exist in Sudbury-or the region, for that matter-to accommodate them.

Carol McIlveen, administrator of the Manitoulin Centennial Manor in Little Current, said her facility is booked solid. "In a home like this, which has space for 60 residents, we're not only full, but have 30 people on our waiting list," she noted. "The ministry won't put people in the hall."

Manitoulin's other two nursing homes, in Gore Bay and Wikwemikong, are similarly stretched to capacity.

"They're talking about building new (long-term care) buildings, but that would take a year and a half," said Ms. McIlveen.

A more expedient solution, in her view, would be to boost the level of homecare services, as many of the ALC patients currently stuck in hospital don't necessarily require a long-term care bed. "We don't have enough people doing homecare," she said.

Critics say that the level of homecare has suffered as a result of the Ministry of Health contracting the service to the most affordable provider, which has resulted in lower wages for caregivers and fewer hours of care.

"Even if there was more money for homecare, the workers might not be there," said Mark Manitowabi of the Wikwemikong Nursing Home, adding that a lack of sufficient resources exists throughout the health-care system. "Nurses, specialists, MRI operators, radiologists, they're all in short supply."

While he appreciates the problem being experienced in Sudbury, Mr. Manitowabi noted that "we have our own problem here because the Little Current and Mindemoya hospitals have ALC patients awaiting placements with us. The problem of backup is province-wide."

The situation in Sudbury has been frustrating for the regional hospital's physicians, who issued a letter last week appealing to the province and the Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) overseeing the northeast region to come up with a solution.

"We love Sudbury," wrote nine doctors, all specialists, affiliated with Sudbury Regional. "We do not want to leave. We just want to care for our patients."

The latter has become increasingly difficult, they indicate, due to the backlog of older patients who, while requiring care, don't really need to stay in the hospital, and would be better served elsewhere. "Our hospital is not staffed or physically designed to provide the care these patients require," the doctors write. Such ALC patients "need an environment that meets their care needs," whether it be a temporary or permanent placement in "assisted-living environments or long-term care facilities."

Those requiring emergency treatment or surgery, meanwhile, are suffering as a result of the bed shortage. Since September, 85 patients have had surgeries cancelled, according to the medical staff, and "new patients arriving to the ED, who also require urgent care, are forced to wait long hours in the waiting room because there is no space for physicians to see and treat them."

Referrals from smaller hospitals like our own, meanwhile, are now being rerouted to North Bay or Ottawa or Toronto, which is "not a great option when time to treatment is critical and families must travel far to provide support," the physicians point out.

The future isn't looking any brighter, they say, as 36 fewer beds will exist in the city's new hospital, slated to open next year. Meanwhile, the number of ALC patients is only expected to grow unless something is done in the interim to provide appropriate care outside of the hospital environment.

The Community Care Access Centre (CCAC), which coordinates the placement of ALC patients in long-term care homes and sets up homecare services for those individuals who are deemed capable of functioning in their own residences, is equally eager to find an answer to the problem.

"Our executive director, Richard Joly, has been involved in discussions with the hospital and the North East LHIN," said CCAC communications director Kim Morris.

While not a complete solution to the crisis, Ms. Morris said it was encouraging that the LHIN had freed up some funding for a wrap-around strategy in Sudbury, as had been implemented, as a pilot project, in Timmins.

"The North East LHIN announced $550,000 to be split among North Bay, Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie," she indicated. "It's a one-shot deal to see if it can alleviate the situation."

Sudbury's portion of this outlay, $288,000, was welcomed by the city's mayor, although he indicated more needs to be done. "It's a start," John Rodriguez told the Sudbury Star.

The money will be used to purchase services and speed up the discharge of ALC patients. It likely won't result in all of Sudbury Regional's elderly clients finding instant accommodation elsewhere, or a sudden lifting of the restriction placed on regional admissions, but any success made on this front could be parlayed into more funding, and additional programs to relieve the crunch, suggested the mayor.

"If it helps keep 10 people out of hospital, sends 10 people home or otherwise frees up 10 hospital beds, we can say to the province: 'OK, give me another $250,000 and we can do another 10 beds,'" said Mr. Rodriguez.

Ship backers embrace orphaned kitten

'Little Norisle,' like his namesake, worthy of rescue

by Jim Moodie

MANITOWANING-A 62-year-old steamship is apt to emit a few interesting noises-creaks, clanks, a few squawks from visiting seagulls and kingfishers-but volunteers working on the Norisle last month really perked up their ears when a faint feline cry drifted up from the deepest, darkest part of the vessel.

It was October 18, and members of the Ontario Steam and Antique Preservers Association were on board, along with S.S. Norisle Steamship Society member Rob Maguire, to disconnect a few auxiliary engines for removal and refitting.

Mr. Maguire was on the lower car deck with John Coulter, director of restoration for the Norisle society, when the latter heard the plaintive meow from below. Grabbing a flashlight, Mr. Maguire clambered through a hatch and descended into a grimy, windowless compartment beneath the car elevator, where he found two tiny kittens-one dead, the other barely clinging to life.

The two had been orphaned for more than a week, Mr. Maguire deduced, as a feral cat known to frequent the ship, and lovingly fed by staff from the insurance office in town, had been found dead-seemingly as a result of being hit by a car-on October 9 by Norisle volunteer Paul Rowe. Mr. Maguire had buried this unfortunate stray in his backyard, not knowing at the time that she was female, let alone a mother; now he would have the sad task of interring a kitten beside her.

His first priority, though, was to save this unlikely survivor. About six weeks old, the kitten was all fur and eyes-fur black as coal, eyes like a pair of extra-ripe blueberries. He (for he would turn out to be a 'he') was also crawling with fleas and frighteningly underfed.

When weighed at Scott Veterinary Service, the scale initially failed to register a digit. When a number finally did appear, it was .4-less than half a pound.

Mr. Maguire and wife Lisa fed the waif with an eyedropper at first, then tried him on a bit of mushy food. Eventually he gained an appetite, and following a few medicinal baths, seemed to have kicked his flea condition, too.

When the couple first brought him to the vet, "we learned that he was anemic due to being flea-bitten so badly," Mr. Maguire notes. "When he had his first bath, it looked like rust flowing off him because there was so much dried blood."

While it was touch and go at first, the Maguires can happily report that the new member of their family is flourishing now. "We've had him four weeks as of Saturday," says Mr. Maguire. "And he's three times the size he was. It's kind of a race track in here because he's very spunky and chases Omar (the cat who was previously king of the Maguire household) all over the place."

Not entirely trusting the two to get along without supervision, but not wanting to lock either in a separate room, Mr. Maguire has taken to placing the feisty newcomer in a laundry basket beside his bed at night, with a lid over top, and putting one finger through the webbing to reassure the kitten that he's not alone, while Omar flakes out, as is Omar's habit, on his legs. Apparently wife Lisa is putting up with this cat-centric sleeping arrangement for the time being.

That the kitten is alive at all continues to amaze his owners. "For the first six weeks of his life, he had never seen  a human, experienced warmth or seen any light, as the lower hold is completely dark and dirty and I couldn't imagine anything surviving down there because of the cold from the water against the hull," Mr. Maguire marvels. "We don't know how he survived or what he survived on during the nine days of having no mother. It's kind of a miracle."

Originally Mr. Maguire planned to give the kitten to someone else, mostly because he questioned Omar's ability to accept a brother, but he couldn't bring himself to part with the flea-bitten beast. "This precious little find from the Norisle has captured our hearts and Lisa and I have decided to keep him," he says.

The kitten will be forever associated with the ship, not only because it's where he was found, but because it's become his moniker. Mr. Coulter, having been first one to pick up on its cry, not to mention a key force behind the restoration project, was given the honour of naming the pint-sized stowaway. His immediate response: Little Norisle.

"He's kind of become the ship's mascot," notes Mr. Maguire, who plans to tell the survivor's tale at the Norisle website.

But as heartwarming as Little Norisle's story may be, Mr. Maguire remains disturbed by the number of animals on Manitoulin who "don't have that opportunity and die horrible deaths," as was the case for Little Norisle's mother and sibling.

"This is the 11th stray cat I've encountered since moving back to Manitowaning," he notes. "And since this is the time of year when strays come around needing shelter, I think we have the opportunity, and perhaps the responsibility, to help them."

If people aren't in a position to adopt or foster needy animals, Mr. Maguire suggests they consider "contributing to an animal welfare fund," such as the one established by Little Current animal lover Sandy McGillivray, which assists local veterinarians in providing care to strays, or the one set up by the Wikwemikong Animal Welfare Committee, which supports the work of volunteers in delivering needy animals to shelters and subsidizes vet bills for those who can't afford them.

EDITORIAL

Liberal leadership contenders miss opportunity to inspire

With the declaration of three candidates for the vacant Liberal leadership-Bob Rae, Michael Ignatieff and Dominic Leblanc-interested observers are yet to hear anything that resembles a true vision of Canada from the interested individuals or their supporters.

Instead, Canadians have been subjected to a recent spat between Mr. Rae and Mr. Ignatieff over the proceedings of the future debates.

Have these candidates learned nothing from the recent events in the United States?

President-elect Barack Obama stormed to the presidency by inspiring, among others, millions of young Americans to vote for the first time and to believe in his vision for his country.

After an uninspiring campaign by all parties-including the Liberals-leading up to our election, the Canadian people are undoubtedly ready to be inspired.

Arguably just as important as Mr. Obama being the first African American elected to be president in the United States, is the fact that he will be the first post-baby boom president.

Regardless of his political beliefs, Mr. Obama represents a changing of the guard in a generational sense. He is the voice of young Americans who are hungry for change and a leader who shares their vision of where their country-and the world-should head in light of the many challenges we all face.

The Liberal leadership candidates should take note of Mr. Obama's recent success and use the race for the Liberal Party's top job to tell Canadians what they believe, not to bicker about the inner machinations of party politics.

In many ways it's a shame that there hasn't yet emerged a young, vibrant candidate like Gerard Kennedy, who is able to inspire people to stand alongside him or her.

Mr. Kennedy, in our view, represented the great hope of the Liberal Party to reach out to young voters during the last Liberal leadership race, and his decision to not run this time is a great loss, not only to the Liberals, but also to Canada as a whole.

With the national media already calling the race as being between Mr. Ignatieff and Mr. Rae, and how well they will be able to organize their way to the top, where is the dynamic leader who can inspire his or her way to being leader of the opposition, and potentially prime minister?

Certainly it could have been Mr. Kennedy, had prohibitive entrance fees and election costs not have hindered his hopes before he could even declare his intent to run.

After a federal election that saw record low voter turnouts, it's a shame that the Liberal Party candidates have so far seemed uninterested in trying to arouse Canadians out of their apathy. If this continues, even political junkies will soon grow tired of this leadership race.

Letters to the Editor

Medical Savings Accounts a good solution to current health-care crisis

Lack of beds at Sudbury hospital should be impetus for change

To the Expositor:

Unfortunately, the problems facing our health-care system are not clearly stated, with fairly obvious solutions. To begin with, the problems are demographic and economic.

First of all, we have a population that is rapidly aging in massive numbers. In the past five years, according to Statistics Canada, the number of people over age 64 has increased by 11.5 percent. According to CD Howe Institute analysts, our population aged 65 years or more will increase from 20 percent to 46 percent over the next 40 years.

Secondly, and at the same time, we have a population that is not producing enough children. To produce stable populations, it is necessary to achieve a 2.1 children-per-woman birth rate. Our country's current birth rate stands at about 1.57. This is a critical fact because we lack the ability to support retired workers. To support our social programs and health-care system, we rely mostly on the taxes paid by a salaried workforce, a workforce that is growing smaller and smaller. While immigration can solve some of the immediate labour shortages, most immigrants are not children. This is why immigration fails to solve our population challenges.

Thirdly, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, "health care spending is expected to grow faster than Canada's economy, outpacing inflation and population growth."

And so, we have the perfect demographic and economic storm for the delivery of health-care services. The closure of Sudbury Regional Hospital to outside cases is merely the latest in a long list of agonies our health-care system has been coping with for more than a decade.

The solutions are not easy either.

First, as a society we have left ourselves very little fiscal room to manoeuvre through this crisis. We used to spend $1.30 for every $1 in taxes collected.  Now, the reverse is true: we pay $1 in taxes, but get much less back in service due to debt servicing. There are no savings in the bank, as it were, to spend our way out of this crisis.

Second, we cannot raise taxes enough to spend our way out of this crisis.  At our current rate of spending increases in health care, our taxes are likely to reach well over 90 percent of our earnings, just for health care, within the next 20 years. That conservative projection is based on the assumption that our economy grows by over 2 percent each year, which isn't happening this year, for example. Increasing taxes for health care is only an option if we expect our governments to do nothing else but health care, and if Canadians don't wish to buy anything for a few decades.

Thirdly, if there was a magic efficiency formula that could be applied to the health-care system, it would have been figured out by now. Don't wait for one.

Fortunately there are innovative solutions to the health-care crisis. Usually we hear about building capacity in the health-care system, which we still need to do. But our only hope is to actually reduce our demands on the system.

We need a health-care system with built-in incentives for taking good care of ourselves so that we don't need to visit the hospital. In practical terms, people need to stop smoking, exercise, and eat healthy foods. This will free up health-care services for people who, through no fault of their own, genuinely need healing.

During the last provincial electoral campaign, I ran on a platform of Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs) as a solution to our current crisis. MSAs can be complicated, but among their most important features is that they provide a built-in reward system for looking after your health in a responsible way. We need incentives like improved RRSPs, RESPs or OHOSP-like programs for a first home purchase, all tangible rewards of big ticket items that people require and could earn.

Unlike other candidates in the last provincial election, I was eager to speak about the need for health-care reform. Generally, politicians do not wish to speak about changing the structure of our health-care system, because anything but our universal health-care system is criticized as scary. The difficulties we face concerning referrals to the Sudbury Regional Hospital should give us pause.

The status quo is now more scary than change.

Ray Scott

past candidate for The Family Coalition Party of Ontario

Mindemoya

Sudbury physicians call on province, LHIN to solve bed crisis

Number of ALC patients has reached insupportable peak

To the Expositor:

This is a letter to the community from physicians at the Sudbury Regional Hospital. We have a serious problem. We have too few beds to properly care for patients.

You've heard about the high number of alternate level of care (ALC) patients in our hospital. They are patients who no longer require hospital care but are not ready to return to their homes and live independently as before. According to a recent provincial survey, over 90 percent of these patients, most of them elderly, need temporary or permanent placement in assisted living environments or long-term care facilities. Because there are not enough community facilities to provide the care they need, we cannot discharge them from our hospital.

This is not good for ALC patients who need an environment that meets their care needs. Our hospital is not staffed or physically designed to provide the care these patients require.

This is not good for patients requiring emergency care. Patients in the emergency department (ED) who need to be admitted to hospital may spend days on a stretcher waiting for a bed to become available. These are sick people who have to lie in the midst of one of the busiest EDs in the province. And while they continue to wait, new patients arriving to the ED, who also require urgent care, are forced to wait long hours in the waiting room because there is no space for physicians to see and treat them.

This is not good for patients requiring surgery. They often have their surgeries cancelled at the last moment because there are no beds for them. Since September 1, 85 patients had their surgeries cancelled.

Other patients requiring care from across the Northeast may be denied access to our regional hospital if beds are short. They then need to be transferred elsewhere-not a great option when time to treatment is critical and families must travel far to provide support.

The number of ALC patients has been steadily increasing, from 49 in 2004/'05 to 80 in 2007/'08. We now consistently have over 100 ALC patients in hospital and last week we peaked at 126. These numbers are ominous when you consider that we only have 400 beds designated for the treatment of acute medical and surgical conditions.

Our ALC crisis is one of the worst in the province. But the future looks grimmer. The new hospital will have 36 less beds because it was designed to house zero ALC patients. We anticipate having up to 190 ALC patients when the new hospital opens its doors if we don't act now to solve this bed crisis.

We contemplate a future where surgical cancellations will be routine, a future where our regional programs will dwindle. We cannot perform open-heart, thoracic, vascular, hip and knee replacement, or neurosurgery without access to hospital beds. We cannot be a trauma centre or a critical-care referral centre for the Northeast's most vulnerable patients without sufficient beds. We risk losing physicians who provide highly specialized care to our community and region.

We are looking to our Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) and the Ministry of Health for solutions. We love Sudbury. We do not want to leave. We just want to care for our patients.

Drs. John Fenton, Brent Kennedy, Fidel Ishak, Jason Prpic, Rayudu Koka, Jean-Pierre Champagne, Jori Cisa,

Lionel Marks de Chabris, and Peter Zalan

Sudbury

Canadian system is failing children of low-income families

School programs in the US do more to help, feed kids

To the Expositor:

I am a single mother who is on disability, who struggles on a month-to-month basis to make sure my children are fed and have school lunches. We just moved from Buffalo, New York to a country that prides itself on being unlike the US, and to put it bluntly, it sucks! The US has many more programs for kids with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), and other learning disabilities. And even with the economy the way it is, somehow the US feeds our children breakfast-as it is a proven fact children learn better eating breakfast, not to mention is one of the most important meals to start off your day. Also they have a lunch program where low-income children are fed hot nutritious meals. Others can also pay minimal fees to have their kids eat lunch.

Since coming back to my home Sudbury, I am really disappointed to discover that in the 10 years I have been gone, our schools and system remain out of date and poorly run. We're losing schools and so many children are slipping through the cracks. Especially the ones who need the most guidance. I don't understand why they don't reach out to the community. I am positive the parents would agree with me and help or donate materials, food, and the time to assist with our children's education, so they may overcome the obstacles that face us as a community. Like the saying goes, it takes a whole community to raise a child. So why is no one doing anything? I am sure if the Rainbow District School Board would pull its weight with the community, they would be warmly welcomed, as it is a benefit not only for them, but mainly for our children. For a country that has free health care and claims so much, we are truly in a state of chaos, and the only people losing here are our children, especially those whose parents are of a low income.

Tina Pangowish

Sudbury