Welcome back to the Inside Ontario blog, where every Monday we recap the top stories from around Ontario.
This week’s top stories: the government proposes generic prescription drug pricing reforms; a protest at Queen’s Park over mercury poisoning in Northern Ontario; the University of Ottawa could face sanctions for giving too many athletic scholarships to women; funding for infrastructure upgrades announced; and Facebook is coming to Waterloo’s classrooms.
On Wednesday, Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews discussed reforms that could cut the province’s spending on generic prescription drugs. Matthews suggested that pharmacies should be able to charge no more than 25 per cent of the brand name price for generic drugs. Currently, pharmacies can charge a maximum of 50 per cent of the brand name price for generic prescription drugs.
Matthews also wants to eliminate “professional allowances” on prescriptions claimed under the Ontario Drug Benefit Plan (which covers the cost of most prescription drugs for senior citizens and some people with disabilities). The health minister characterized professional allowances as incentives given to pharmacists by generic drug manufacturers, so their products will be stocked in the pharmacy. The government argues that this practice raises the cost of generic drugs. In return for dropping the professional allowance, the government will provide pharmacies with an extra $1 per prescription filed and $100-million to provide new services in pharmacies.
The government says these reforms will save about $535-million annually once they are fully implemented in 2013.
In response to this news, shares of Shoppers Drug Mart (Ontario’s largest prescription drug retail chain) fell by almost 10 per cent on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Thursday. Shoppers Drug Mart warned that it would close stores, layoff staff, and cut hours if the government’s proposed reforms are enacted. However, some market analysts argue that independent pharmacists are much more reliant on prescription subsidies than the chain stores. Thus, the proposed reforms could lead to greater consolidation of the retail pharmacy industry.
Protestors from the Grassy Narrows First Nation in Northern Ontario (about an hour drive northeast of Kenora) demonstrated outside of the Ontario legislature last Wednesday. They called on the provincial government to acknowledge the long-term effects that mercury poisoning is having on their community. Between 1962 and 1970, Dryden Pulp & Paper Co. dumped 9,000 kilograms of mercury into the Wabigoon River near the Grassy Narrows.
Health Canada says that mercury levels have fallen below the maximum amount allowed in their regulatory guidelines. However, in 2004, Japanese mercury specialist, Dr. Masazumi Harada, studied 160 Grassy Narrows residents who had never before been tested for mercury poisoning and found that 70 per cent of those people showed signs of the disease. Harada also confirmed that all of the Grassy Narrows residents who were identified in 1975 as having mercury levels in their bodies above Health Canada guidelines were dead by 2004.
The University of Ottawa (U of O) may face sanctions from Ontario University Athletics (OUA) for awarding 70 per cent of their athletic scholarships to women. According to OUA guidelines, each gender must receive at least 45 per cent of a university’s athletic scholarships.
The U of O contends that more female students qualify for athletic scholarships, because receiving these awards is contingent upon academic success. U of O’s athletics director Luc Gelineau says that fewer male athletes have the grades required to obtain entrance athletic scholarships, or to have their scholarships renewed in their upper years at the university.
There are 19 member universities of the OUA and 13 of those universities awarded less than 45 per cent of their athletic scholarships to a single gender (in eight of those 13 cases, more funding was given to male athletes).
Last week, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty announced that their governments would fund $138.7-million worth of infrastructure improvement projects in Ontario over the next two years. The funding will be spent on 43 projects that will upgrade bridges, highways, and roads. Harper claims that these projects will create 1,100 jobs.
The National Post reports that of the $69-million in federal funding: $52 million will be spent in Conservative ridings; about $10 million will be spent in NDP ridings; and about $1 million will be spend in Liberal ridings.
After blocking Facebook for years, the Waterloo Region District School Board will allow students over the age of 13 to use the website in the classroom in September. The school board hopes that students will use Facebook to discuss issues raised in the curriculum and that quiet students will be more willing to participate in online conversations.
Waterloo’s Catholic school board says that it supports social media use in schools, but it will not introduce Facebook in its classrooms yet. Educators in the Catholic school board say they want more time to learn how social media can best advance education.
To learn more about Ontario provincial politics, visit TVO’s Civics 101 microsite. The Ontario legislature was on an Easter break last week, but you can always watch previous episodes of Queen’s Park This Week, a 30-minute digest of a week’s worth of question period sessions. You can also view previous sessions of question period in full at the Question Period Archive.
