To the Editors,
Last week’s Press reported that Haldimand Council declined to support a letter originating from Niagara Region to our provincial government, urging it to implement paid sick days for all workers. The letter was circulated in an information package to municipalities throughout the province for their consideration and endorsement, so as to speak with one strong, unified voice. A great many municipalities, from small to the largest, joined the cause. Haldimand County Council rejected it.
Thanks to an amazing Niagara Regional Councillor, I was able to read the document package circulated to municipalities. A key element was a report by the Decent Work and Health Network (DWHN), a network of health providers based in Ontario. Their coordinator is Carolina Jimenez, RN, MPH (Master of Public Health, Queen’s University). The network advocates for better health by addressing employment conditions, in this case the public health case for paid sick leave. The report is titled, Before it’s too late: How to close the sick pay gap during COVID-19 and beyond.
The 40 page report clearly contributed to Niagara Region’s initiative to petition our provincial lawmakers to legislate paid sick leave.
After reading the report, and then rereading the Press article describing Haldimand Council’s decision not to support the petition, I first was puzzled, then highly annoyed.
I do not understand how anyone could read the non-partisan report and come away unpersuaded. It includes extensive national and international data and objective analyses, combined with recent surveys, interviews, and buttressed by over 150 relevant academic references.
There is no indication our councillors even were aware of the report, let alone read it. Council focused solely on the letter to the Province. The annoying part for me was one councillor and the mayor each stating they would not support the letter because they did not like the way it was written. The mayor further suggested that he also was resisting undefined public, political, or union pressure. There is an old saying that I saw played out, “When you don’t want to do something, any excuse will do.”
To these members of Council, I would suggest: first, universal paid sick leave is not a political issue. It is a public health issue, and arguably a human rights issue. Second, I’ve never known a politician to be at a loss for words. So, if you take exception to the wording of Niagara Region’s letter, while murmuring faint support for the cause, then sit down and write your own letter in support of paid sick leave, and replace words that offend you. You cannot have it both ways.
If paid sick leave for all workers has become just another political issue, it is because our politicians have deliberately made it so. In the political arena they attack to discredit it, misrepresent it, then dismiss it as harmful and unnecessary, while assuring us they acted in our own good.
Bob Gaunt,
Hagersville
