{"id":23746,"date":"2019-05-09T16:59:31","date_gmt":"2019-05-09T20:59:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23746"},"modified":"2019-05-09T16:59:40","modified_gmt":"2019-05-09T20:59:40","slug":"brocks-banter-beyond-the-frontlines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/brocks-banter-beyond-the-frontlines\/","title":{"rendered":"BROCK’S BANTER: Beyond the frontlines"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are some weeks\nwhen the stress simply gets the better of me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have to admit, now\nand then I can be a little bit snappish, although that is rarely my intention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We all have days when\nour respective wells of patience start to run a little bit dry and, quite\noften, a drought will ensue until there\u2019s a good night\u2019s sleep to be had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was very much in\nthis boat last week; so much so that I began to think how much my own life\ncould be simplified by answering just about any question I got with a question\nof my own: \u201cWhat\u2019s the answer you\u2019re looking for?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It seemed like an\nefficient way to cut the bull and get straight to the point because, as we all\nknow, sometimes we\u2019re asked questions that aren\u2019t really questions; that is,\nsomeone who has an answer in mind comes to you looking for assurances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re not on the\nsame page right at the outset, you can find yourself in an endless loop of\nbrainstorming only to arrive back at your respective starting points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It seems more and\nmore these days people are looking for answers they either already know or\nseeking out the answers they are hoping to hear, ones that will satisfy\npreconceived notions in their head that are there just for the hell of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe you\u2019ve\nexperienced this while out shopping with your spouse or partner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you have any\namount of living under your belt, you know the answer to the time-honoured\nquestion, \u201cDoes this make me look fat?\u201d is an immediate and unhesitating \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo you like my new\nhairdo?\u201d Well, if you say no, what good will that do? The deed is done. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWasn\u2019t this tattoo a\ngreat idea?\u201d Well, if that\u2019s the kind of tattoo you wanted, you sure picked a\ngood one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where things get a\nbit of dicey, however, is when this creeps into our politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This concept of\nsetting out to prove a hypothesis and ignoring facts that might pose a problem\nto said hypothesis has been front of mind recently when considering moves made\nby governments at home and abroad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Ottawa, we still\nhave lingering questions over the SNC-Lavalin affair, for instance, which has\nbeen counterintuitive to basic common sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Queen\u2019s Park and\nMPPs offices across the Province, we have a seemingly endless loop of demonstrations\nfrom people who believe they have been \u2013 or will be \u2013 adversely effected by the\nGovernment\u2019s decisions; not to mention a government providing answers to\nquestions that haven\u2019t even been asked \u2013 like Buck-a-Beer, tailgating and\nsnappy new licence plates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South of the Border \u2013\nwell, there isn\u2019t enough column space to get into that, but if you have any\nconnection to the outside world you should have no trouble filling in the\nblanks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the sake of\nbrevity, let\u2019s stick to matters close to home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the past few\nweeks, I have been thinking about the second event at which I covered Premier\nFord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first took place\na few months before he became leader of Ontario\u2019s Progressive Conservatives\nwhen he threw his support behind an area resident seeking a PC nomination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This second instance\ntook place after he had thrown his hat in the ring to replace Patrick Brown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was the final heat\nof a hotly contested leadership race and he set out his vision for the\nProvince.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou look at our\nhealthcare system [and it is] absolutely broken,\u201d the then-candidate Ford told\nthe packed crowd of supporters. \u201cWe have the greatest doctors in the entire\nworld right here in Ontario. We have the greatest nurses right here in Ontario\nand the greatest healthcare givers, the frontline workers here, but they are\nfrustrated\u2026 and I believe in letting the doctors tell us how they can find\nefficiencies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Ford went on to\noutline his plan for reducing wait times in hospitals, getting more nurses to\ntake over from EMS, thereby allowing them to get back out on the road, and give\ndoctors incentives to go into outlying areas of the province, particularly the\nnorth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUntil you talk to\nthese people, you don\u2019t realise how desperate they are for healthcare,\u201d he\ncontinued, referring to a large swath of residents near Peterborough he said\ndid not have a GP. \u201cWhatever it takes to get doctors up there, reducing their\ntaxes, putting in a little medical building or where people need the help \u2013\nnothing is more important for our health. If we don\u2019t have our health, we\u2019re\ndone. We shouldn\u2019t be in that position in the greatest province in the country.\nHelp is on the way, resources are on its way, and most importantly we are going\nto listen to the people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to some\nfacets of the complex health care system, they have indeed listened to the\npeople. But, in many other cases both falling under and outside the healthcare\numbrella, the same can\u2019t be said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One needs to only\nlook as far as the fierce reaction from parents and assistance providers when\nchanges to autism care were proposed. Needless to say, the same can be said\nabout the equally passionate reactions from teachers and students regarding\ncuts and changes to the education system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These care providers\nand teachers are, in the context framed by the Premier, the frontline workers\nin these cases and yet the very real concerns of these frontline workers are\neither being ignored or, in the case of teachers, dismissed out of hand or even\nmocked by those in positions of power. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And what of students?\nThey are the direct beneficiaries of these frontline workers much in the way\npatients are directly impacted by the frontline workers of doctors and nurses.\nStill, their concerns appear to be quickly set aside or reframed as the callow\nfolly of youth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And this is a shame. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I found some\ndegree of optimism last week attending an event with Deputy Premier Christine\nElliott, who told a group of business professionals concerned with a dearth of\nstudents pursuing skilled trades across the province, that consultations are\ncontinuing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou need to sit down\nand discuss all the issues that are important to teachers; it is salary, but\nthere are many other issues too that perhaps have not been fully dealt with in\nthe past,\u201d she said. \u201cI think we need to sit down and talk about it and see if\nthere\u2019s a solution that can be found.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s hope so; the future, in my view, depends\non it.<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir There are some weeks when the stress simply gets the better of me. I have to admit, now and then I can be a little bit snappish, although that is rarely my intention. We all have days when our respective wells of patience start to run a little bit dry and, quite […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6b0","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-01 14:16:02","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23746\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}