The TV News

Watching the CBC News at Six the other night, I was reminded of the days when we first had cable television. We tuned in to the Buffalo stations and were shocked to watch the nightly news programs. It seemed all they had was shootings, stabbings, robberies and houses burning in Buffalo. Fast forward about thirty years and watch the CBC Toronto news and it seems all so déjà vu. I suppose when you have at most is ten minutes of coverage of wars and atrocities around the world, a few international political stories that are of interest and endless whining about the stock markets going up and down like a toilet seat, you have to fill up the hour with social problems.

I was thinking that a little analysis of the events around the world might be helpful in understanding the problems plaguing the world when Ontario Minister of Finance, Dwight Duncan came on the program to give me just what I wanted. Our minister has a degree in economics so I was hopeful that he could explain why, as the former engine of the Canadian economy, Ontario was now looking at massive job losses and a deficit budget. Alas, all the honourable member gave me was more cause for worry.

Duncan reported that we were headed for a deficit this year but the Liberal government was talking steps to reduce the deficit. The first things the government was cutting back on were education and health. Bombarded with looks of incredulity and questions about broken promises, Duncan said they were not cancelling any current projects in health and education, just deferring plans for a while. He quickly moved on to say that no infrastructure projects, i.e. road improvements, would be cancelled. This was in an effort to keep people working.

Being a closet Liberal, I was amazed to hear that the social programs were the first to be targeted when things got a little tight at the bank. If any nation, province or even city is to make progress, it must have the basics – education, health care and security. A little confidence in the public service sector also helps. A strong, progressive society needs to seek change and improvements. It must be willing to lead the way into new areas of technology and supply the venture capital to create new jobs.

If we can believe the reports that we are heading for a deficit in skilled workers and that we already have a shortfall in healthcare workers, why would we be cutting back on education? Why would we slow the very programs we need to get our healthcare system back on its feet? I thought one of the basic tenets of the liberal ideology was a strong social conscience. Duncan’s prescription for holding the deficit line has echoes of the old hated Common Sense revolution.

Perhaps I ought not to have been surprised. It was the federal Liberals who gutted healthcare funding under Chrétien and Martin, all done in the name of balancing the books so we could face any worldwide financial turmoil in the future. That Duncan would follow the same path should not surprise. This movement to the right of the political spectrum seems to be a hallmark of the Liberal parties in recent years. This month’s federal election might have been a sign to the party that they are losing support, not to the right, but to the left of the political spectrum. Cutting health and education is not going to gain any support in Ontario.

But back to the evening TV news. The problems in our largest city can be assuaged with statistics saying it is still one of the safest cities (of its size) in the world. We can be persuaded that the stabbings in the high schools are nothing to be concerned over – we are just getting ‘better’ reporting of these events. However, look beyond the TV studio and you might find that a lack of education and the resulting lack of job opportunities has much to do with the situations that make news coverage. Without education, we will never have the nurses and doctors promised us, election after election. Without funding for modern medical equipment, we will never hold the skilled specialists we train, as they move to more progressive countries where they can apply their learning and skills.

Yes, we need to keep working on our infrastructure, but if something must be sacrificed to meet the budget aspirations of the Liberals, let it not be education and healthcare. It is time for some innovation in government as well as in businesses that look for products to meet the needs of a changing world. We might even have to rethink how we deliver education and healthcare, but let us not simply cut the funding for projects we need to keep the system working while we apply some innovations.