Canadian Review of Social Policy (CRSP) / Revue canadienne de politique sociale (RCSP)

Kitchen, Brigitte

Ontario

Yan, Miu Chung

English

Towards a Complete View of the Social Policy Process: An Integration of Policy Formulation and Implementation

Groulx, Lionel-H.

Entre-nous, rebâtir nos communautés, de Marcia Nozick

Silver, Jim

Manitoba

Round- UplTour dlHorizon 
Child Care calculated that as many as 3,700 spaces may be lost at a time 
when 15,000 children are already waiting for a subsidized space and another 
21,000 children of workfare participants have been added to the waiting lists. 
There is considerable concern that because many of the schools to be closed 
are in the downtown area, parents may move into the suburbs. The result 
could be a hollowing out of the city core as has happened in many cities in 
the United States. 
The Ontario government has maintained that the boards have enough 
money and flexibility to work within the formula without having to close any 
schools. In a bizarre twist of events the premier has pleaded with Ontarians 
"to join him in a crusade to fight the school closing." With a provincial elec- 
tion expected in the coming year, the Ontario government is clearly worried 
about the fall-out of the school closures on its chances for re-election. In a 
surprise move, the premier announced on Nov. 6, 1998, that his government 
will make additional money available to the school boards in order to keep the 
schools from closing. The funding formula is to be amended to take account 
of the space problems of older schools and schools are no longer expected to 
have a 100% occupancy rate to receive funding. The Ontario government still 
insists that school boards can find savings in their non-class room operations. 
It has support from the provincial auditor, who found in his annual report 
that school boards lacked "satisfactory systems and procedures for the acqui- 
sition and management of school facilities." At the request of school boards, 
the province will also make available a private sector management team to 
advise them on finding savings in overhead and administration costs. 
The battle over the funding of education is far from over. It will continue 
in the media. Over the summer and fall, the government spent already $5.2 
million on an advertising campaign to sell its education changes. Further ad- 
vertising is planned to counter the opposition and other critics, who, according 
to the premier, insist that the government is cutting funding, when it is spend- 
ing more in the classroom and improving education quality. If Ontarians are 
to believe the premier, they first have to accept the new, now amended stu- 
dent funding formula. So far it appears to be yet another unacceptable social 
cost of the government's Common Sense Revolution. 
Manitoba Jim Silver 
University of Winnipeg 
In civic elections across Manitoba in October, video lottery terminals (VLTs) 
were scarcely an issue. Unlike Alberta, where seven communities voted to 
remove VLTs and where votes in other centres, including Edmonton, were 
No. 42,1998 
extremely close, in Manitoba only one jurisdiction- the southern Manitoba 
town of Winkler - voted to eliminate VLTs. 
Yet VLTs are a public health menace in Manitoba. That is the conclusion 
of a Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Manitoba (CCPA-Mb.) study 
by Brandon University Economics Professor Err01 Black, which was released 
during the province's civic election campaigns. Called The VLT Controversy: 
Economic Boon or Public Health Menace? A Primer on Vzdeo Lottery Ter- 
minals, the CCPA-Mb. study calls for the elimination of VLTs, and urges 
that VLTs be made an issue in the next provincial election, expected within 
the year. 
Professor Black finds that the economic benefits purported to accrue from 
the presence in the province of VLTs are much exaggerated. Indeed, when an- 
alyzed on a net benefits basis, VLTs produce very little if any net economic 
benefit to  the province. The $124 million which poured into the provincial 
government's coffers in 1997 as a result of VLT gambling, and the jobs asso- 
ciated with VLT gambling, would have been created in the absence of VLTs. 
Says Black: 
if there were no VLTs, money now spent on VLTs would be spent on some- 
thing else, generating a roughly equivalent arnount of economic activity. 
Thus, on a net basis, VLTs do not generate economic activity and jobs for 
Manitobans. (p. 6) 
Worse, VLT gambling has significant harmful effects. The evidence is 
strong that the redistributive impact of VLT gambling is akin to a regressive 
tax-i.e., lower income individuals pay a higher proportion of the costs than 
higher income individuals. In addition, the presence of VLTs in a community 
cannabalizes local businesses: 
The diversion of spending to VLTs is . . . at the expense of spending on 
other goods and services provided by businesses in the local economy. The 
proprietors of VLT establishments gain; other businesses lose. (p. 8) 
Most importantly, the ready availability of VLTs in a community appears 
to increase the incidence of addictions, and the social and economic costs 
of gambling addictions are high. Black refers to recent studies which suggest 
that more than 35,000 Manitobans are problem or pathological gamblers. And 
since the literature on this subject suggests that each problem gambler affects 
the lives of four others, Black estimates that the lives of as many as one in 
six Manitobans may be adversely affected by the problems associated with 
gambling. 
These problems are serious. They include financial distress including 
bankruptcy, job loss, physical and mental health problems, family breakdown, 
even suicide - there have been at  least five suicides linked to VLT gambling 
since its introduction in Manitoba in 1991. In strict financial terms, it has 
130 No. 42, 1998 
Round- Up/Tour d'Horizon 
been estimated that the annual cost to society per problem gambler ranges 
from $18,600 to $56,000. 
The problem with VLTs in particular is their ubiquity. They are easily 
accessible, located in bars and restaurants throughout the province, and their 
accessibility contributes significantly to increasing the incidence of problem 
and pathological gambling. Black quotes L.L. Desjardins, Chairperson of the 
1996 Manitoba Lottery Policy Review Working Group, as follows: 
I believe that VLTs are responsible for the majority of gambling problems 
in this province. They are referred to as the "crack cocaine of gambling." 
( P  10) 
This crack cocaine of gambling, Black argues, is no economic boon for Man- 
itoba, despite the claims of the provincial Conservative government. On the 
contrary, it is a costly public health menace, adversely affecting the lives 
of tens of thousands of Manitobans - and disproportionately lower-income 
Manitobans - while producing no net economic benefit for the province as a 
whole. The CCPA-Mb. study concludes by calling for the elimination of VLT 
gambling in Manitoba. 
NOTE 
1. The study by Err01 Black, The VLT Controversy: Economic Boon or Pub- 
lic Health Menace? A Primer on Vadeo Lottery Terminals, is available from 
the CCPA-Mb. office. Phone: (204) 943-9962; fax (204) 943-9978; e-mail cc- 
pambQpolicya1ternatives.ca. 
Alberta Richard W. Nutter 
University of Calgary 
The most pressing social policy issue in Alberta today is a bill to give the 
Alberta Minister of Health the power to approve private, for-profit hospitals. 
Bill 37 was introduced in the Spring session but died on the Order Paper. 
However, the Klein Government appears set to reintroduce and pass this bill, 
thereby paving the way for private, for-profit hospitals. This is a national 
issue because, under NAFTA, approving one private, for-profit hospital in 
Alberta means that private, for-profit hospitals must be approved everywhere 
in Canada. 
Three arguments are made to support private, for-profit hospitals. These 
arguments appear reasonable and are believed by some on purely ideological 
grounds, but systematic data do not support them. 
1. It is falsely claimed that private, for-profit hospitals are more eficient and 
more cost effective. Two sets of data are relevant to this false claim: 
No. 42,1998 131 


Shragge, Eric

"Civil Society: Reclaiming our Humanity" — A Debate — Eric Shragge, Civil Society: Civility or Resilience

Hicks, David C.

Petrunik, Michael G.

The Best Intentions Are Not Enough: Drug Prohibition as a Failed Intervention Strategy

Girard, Claude

Québec

Nutter, Butch

Alberta

Not a member yet

Ontario

Towards a Complete View of the Social Policy Process: An Integration of Policy Formulation and Implementation

Entre-nous, rebâtir nos communautés, de Marcia Nozick

Manitoba

Ontario

Manitoba

"Civil Society: Reclaiming our Humanity" — A Debate — Eric Shragge, Civil Society: Civility or Resilience

The Best Intentions Are Not Enough: Drug Prohibition as a Failed Intervention Strategy

Québec

Alberta

143

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