Vaccination, school breakfast programs should be priority: Elliott
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Toronto Public Health has enough funding to focus on priorities like child vaccines and school breakfast programs, if it doesn’t take on “advocacy” projects like its Yonge Street Renewal report, Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott says.
“I understand that the department of public health in Toronto, in addition to running surpluses for a number of years, also had an entire department just for advocacy, and also did a study on the health and safety ramifications of reinventing Yonge Street,” Elliott said. “I think most people in Ontario would realize … that vaccinations for children are a priority, community breakfast programs are a priority, testing water is a priority and making sure students with special needs are supported.”
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Elliott has said the province will take on some of the work such as anti-smoking messages.
In the past, Toronto Public Health has launched campaigns around cannabis use, anti-HIV and drug use stigma, condom use, including a condom wrapper design contest, breastfeeding and physical activity.
Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said advocacy is an important part of the work a public health unit undertakes.
“We need to invest in the kind of upstream investments to prevent people from ending up ill in the first place,” Horwath said. “So it that’s what she believes as the Minister of Health, that advocacy work or education work or health promotion work is not important, then I’m pretty worried about the direction this province is headed.”
The provincial government and Toronto politicians are locked in a dispute over funding.
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The Ontario government says it’s cutting $33.7 million this year, rising to $50.5 million annually by 2021-22 million, while the city counters the actual cut is about $64.9 million this year and $1 billion over 10 years.
Mayor John Tory is calling on the Doug Ford government to reconsider its funding decisions.
“Children that are hungry and children who need their teeth checked, and restaurants that need to be inspected for food safety need to be funded,” Tory said. “And I think it’s properly a provincial responsibility.”
Toronto Health Board Chair Joe Cressy, who initiated the request for a public health assessment of Reimagining Yonge, a planned redesign of the street, will hold a media conference with school board and community representatives Tuesday to discuss school breakfast programs.
According to the Toronto Foundation for Student Success (TFSS), its student nutrition program receives $8.4 million from the provincial Children, Community and Social Services Ministry, funding Minister Lisa MacLeod confirmed Monday continues to flow.
“The rhetoric, the fear mongering that has been engaged upon by the left is unhelpful and it has riled people up, when the facts were not true,” MacLeod said.
TFSS says it also gets $14.6 million through a City of Toronto grant, and a city spokesperson said that funding flows from the public health budget.
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