Ontario Health Minister Eric Hoskins announces Monday $3 million in Ebola relief as Premier Kathleen Wynne looks on. Photo: Frank Gunn/ Canadian Press Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne kicked off the fall sitting of the legislature not with a big-spending provincial announcement, but a pledge to add $3 million to the fight against Ebola.
The commitment builds on the $30 million the federal government has coughed up, and it is nothing compared to the $1 billion the United Nations says is required to contain and combat the deadly virus. But it’s something.
And that something is, classically, under the jurisdiction of the federal government.
It is the moral and correct and humanitarian and compassionate thing to do
Health Minister Eric Hoskins, a medical doctor who has volunteered in the developing world, called it the “compassionate thing to do” and the cash will be split, $2 million to the Red Cross and $1 million to Medecins Sans Frontieres, both organizations worthy of provincial monies and both past recipients.
“I think it’s fair to say that this is an unusual occurrence and situation,” Hoskins said, pointing to past donations to Haiti and Pakistan as examples. “It is the moral and correct and humanitarian and compassionate thing to do in its own right to be part of ending the epidemic in West Africa. But it certainly is consistent with past practice of this government.”
A quick search of the Ontario government’s news release archives shows this isn’t new:
- In 2004, then premier Dalton McGuinty pledged $5 million for the Red Cross efforts to rebuild South Asia after a massive earthquake and series of tsunamis all but destroyed parts of Sri Lanka, Indonesia, parts of India and other countries around the Indian Ocean.
- Two years later, McGuinty announced a $200,000 “donation” to the Red Cross after an earth quake in Indonesia
- That same year, the province offered $1 million to rebuild schools in Pakistan
- In 2010, it was $1 million for Haiti, after it was shattered by a massive earthquake
- That same year, Ontario also pledged $1 million to help flood-ravaged Pakistan
- In 2011, McGuitny pledged $1 million to fight famine in the Horn of Africa
- In November 2013, Wynne announced $1 million for relief efforts after a typhoon ravaged the Philippines
- In May of this year, Wynne pledged $100,000 for the people of Ukraine, when that crisis was a daily front-page headline
There was a time in this province, say when Bill Davis or even Mike Harris were premiers, that it would have been highly irregular for a province to wade into what’s so clearly federal jurisdiction, according to Peter Woolstencroft, a political science professor at the University of Waterloo.
The modern response to politics is, ‘we have a problem. Who is going to address it?’ And it doesn’t matter who is responsible in a legal sense
But that was a time before Toronto mayoral candidates were talking about low-income access to dental care (predominantly provincial jurisdiction, though cities can help with delivery) or pledging to make the city a renminbi trading hub (definitely federal jurisdiction).
“The modern response to politics is, ‘we have a problem. Who is going to address it?’ And it doesn’t matter who is responsible in a legal sense,” Woolstecroft said in an interview. “The idea of a government having limited jurisdictions … is not something that is dominating people’s political thinking.”
Whether or not Ontario can actually afford the donation is another question. The province is struggling to reduce a projected deficit of about $12.5 billion. The entire provincial budget is about $130 billion, and healthcare eats up around $50 billion of that. So, to put $3 million in context, it’s a new MRI machine or two, the annual salary of dozens of doctors and nurses.
But Hoskins also suggested the donation was a down payment on piece of mind that officials are tackling Ebola before it gets here — but is that insurance practical or political?
“No government wants to be seen as as asleep at the switch” if Ebola does arrive, Woolstencroft said. It would “rather be seen as doing the good thing than nothing at all.”
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