Per capita, or per need?
When news got around that Guelph was vaccinating its residents over the age of 80 — well ahead of other regions in Ontario — there were equal measures of envy and confusion. Why Guelph?
This week, York and Peel regions are starting their community vaccination programs for their oldest residents and yet Toronto, Canada’s largest city, is not.
While vaccine envy may be growing, at least the reasons for the regional disparities are finally becoming clearer.
Ontario sets the vaccination priority list of the most vulnerable people that local public health units need to get through before moving on to providing community shots by age-group, but the province hands out the supply of vaccines to regions on a per-capita basis. Those are two very different things.
And, according to city officials, Toronto has a disproportionately high number of people in the Phase 1 priority framework, which means it will be slower in getting to the general population.
The priority list includes many health-care workers, longterm-care and retirement home residents, essential caregivers, adults receiving chronic home care, Indigenous adults and people experiencing homelessness. All those people, along with firefighters and front-line police officers, who the province just added to that priority list, add up.
If Ontario distributes vaccines to health regions on a strictly per-capita basis, then Mr. and Mrs. Smith, aged 80-something hunkered down in their Toronto home, will have to wait longer than their counterparts in other regions. And because it’s Toronto, which has had some of the toughest lockdown measures in the country, it also means that the people who have been most affected by pandemic restrictions will have to wait the longest for the relief that comes with a shot in the arm. How does any of that make sense? If the point of a priority list is to vaccinate those who need it the most to save lives, stop the spread of COVID-19 and help end the pandemic, then shouldn’t supplies be handed out to make that happen?
Quebec has already implemented its version of that very philosophy by making hard-hit Montreal and Laval a priority for vaccinations. In those cities shots are being offered to people aged 70 and over while it’s still 85 and up in much of the rest of the province.
The scenario playing out right now in Toronto is likely to repeat itself in Phase 2 when the province wants those over 75 to start receiving vaccinations (going down to 60 in five-year increments) along with a series of other priority populations, including the still to be defined category of “essential workers” and “populations/communities facing barriers related to the determinants of health who are at greater COVID-19 risk.”
Those rightly should include large swaths of Toronto and neighbouring Peel Region, home to neighbourhoods full of crowded housing and racialized populations disproportionately involved in low-income work that can’t be done from home. And, thanks to the Ford government’s refusal to do what’s right, far too many of them have no workplace paid sick days, which makes things even worse.
The province’s own science table has released a report that says a vaccine strategy giving priority to the hardest-hit postal codes, in addition to age, would save more lives and curb the spread of the virus.
How will the province address this? No idea. In fact, it’s just one of the many question marks hanging over Ontario’s vaccine rollout that has, so far, been slow, uneven and uncertain.
Some public health units are already vaccinating their eldest residents while others are forging ahead with their own appointment booking systems, rather than wait for the provincial one to go live on March 15. In Toronto some individual hospitals have even taken on the registration job themselves.
It’s patchwork and slapdash — and inexcusable given that the pandemic started a year ago.
If the Ford government takes its prioritization of high risk populations seriously and wants to the end the pandemic sooner rather than later, it would do well to take another look at how it’s doling out vaccines.
Distributing vaccines not just according to population, but according to the greatest need, makes good sense.
If the point of a priority list is to vaccinate those who need it most, shouldn’t supplies be handed out to make that happen?
Another Indigenous person was murdered by the RCMP last weekend. The heartbroken sister of Julian Jones, 28, of the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation in Vancouver Island, confirmed his death with me on Saturday. He is one of several Indigenous people in Canada to fall victim to police violence in less than a year.
Julian was from the same First Nation as Chantel Moore. Chantal was a 26year-old mother who was gunned down by police in Edmundston, N.B., during a wellness check on June 4, 2020.
According to reports, Tofino RCMP responding to a call for help from a female individual, went to the Opitsaht reserve, one of three Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation communities, which is only accessible by boat on Feb. 27. Julian was shot dead upon answering the door. According to Grace Frank, grandmother of Chantel Moore, who lives in Opitsaht, Julian’s distraught mother held her son in her arms as he lay dying. The shooting happened not far from where Grace, who is still grieving the loss of Chantel, lives.
“It brings me back to when my granddaughter Chantel was shot and killed by police … I was full of rage; hearing police have done it again,” Grace wrote me via Facebook messenger. She believes the police are lying — word gets out fast in a small community. She wrote no female was in danger when Julian was shot. She thinks it was just an excuse for RCMP to kill another Indian.
“My thought was ‘I wonder what kind of story will be used this time?’ My heart hurts for this mother, laying there with her dead son weeping and screaming saying ‘no, no, no, not my son!’ People are so traumatized by this. I am numb and in shock. It’s exactly like how I felt when my granddaughter Chantel was shot and killed. I keep asking myself when is it going to stop? Enough is enough. Julian did not deserve to be killed.”
A 2020 CTV News analysis found that Indigenous peoples are 10 times more likely than a white person in Canada to have been shot and killed by a police officer since 2017. That same analysis found that 1.5 out of every 100,000 Indigenous peoples have been shot by police since 2017, compared to 0.13 out of every 100,000 white Canadians.
Why are Indigenous peoples targeted for violence more than others? The answer is simple: racism; the free roaming, long-standing, systemic, racist ideological culture and violence of apartheid. The justice system still operates on the foundations of colonialism, which was established to profit, preserve and protect the rights of the dominant European race in Canada.
Other systemic impacts that enforce poverty, poorer health outcomes, addictions, lack of education/employment and more contribute to Indigenous peoples being in vulnerable situations, such as violent encounters with law enforcement.
The RCMP and police forces operate just like they have for nearly 150 years — to serve and protect — if you’re white. Yet RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki’s mandate letter from Ralph Goodale, minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness reads in part:
“I know you will continue to act and lead the RCMP in a manner that supports our continued efforts for a renewed, nation-to-nation relationship with Indigenous Peoples, based on recognition of rights, respect, co-operation, and partnership given the current and historical experiences of Indigenous Canadians with policing and the justice system.”
Lucki’s three years in now, but it looks like the RCMP is missing the mark in a big way. The Independent Investigations Office of British Columbia has launched an investigation into Jones’s death.
The Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council, Pacheedaht First Nation and the First Nations Leadership Council are demanding the RCMP look at implementing recommendations they gave when Chantal Moore was shot dead, such as wearing body cameras:
“We are devastated and angered that the RCMP did not and have not listened. The use of deadly force by Canadian police forces against Indigenous Peoples is an epidemic in this country. There have been numerous inquiries, studies, reports, and a First Nations Justice Strategy in B.C. created to address the need for justice reform. Despite this, our citizens continue to die as a result of police shootings,” they wrote.
So, who keeps the RCMP accountable? Are police free to continue killing Indigenous peoples without consequence? Will transformative change ever happen? Well, at least Commissioner Lucki admitted to systemic racism within the RCMP last year after denying she even knew what it was.