Offering a solution
While the world is focused on the stock market, trends in spending and what it all means that a “global economy” is not just inevitable but desirable, let me re-iterate the concept I have shared so many times before. It is without question the “think globally, act locally” will be the mantra for the future. Actually the future is now, we are just resistant enough to think that there are other options or that activism and protests will potentially shrink our world back to levels of comfort we thought we had just a few short years ago.
If you look at history, recognize that there were market forces that brought folks across an expansive sea (ocean actually, and probably not on the straightest course) in the quest for wealth acquirement…some (the small minority) came for freedoms that they did not have in their land of origin. The story of the pilgrims is a pleasant one to share as a family around a “thanksgiving” dinner, while we know it became the fish, the forests, the furs,…the wild game and the “land claim”, the gold, the coal eventually the oil…and now the clean pure fresh water…are all commodities that everyone, everywhere would like to claim…or to profit from…as much as hope to live out lives in simplicity, freedom and peace. Yes Peace, and freedom (security fits into both of these “life enrichment” concepts) are two of the most valued treasures, that now can be considered the most sought after commodity.
It will be the sense of security, safety, freedoms and to have peace in our immediate world that will keep Canada on the top of the list of desired countries for immigration. The largest immigration wave is yet to be realized…and it will happen in a much different fashion that what we have typically seen. It will come from south to north, rather than from Asia, Africa and the Middle East as we have seen in recent years. We have a HUGE retirement wave sweeping across our land, and we will desperately need replacement workers in all fields…literally we will need many to work in the many literal “fields” as farmers in the US… as is the reality here in Canada… represent a very large group who are in (and beyond) retirement age. Years ago, the children of farmers, simply carried on with the family farm…often dividing bigger farms into smaller ones, divided amongst many offspring. That has not been the trend in recent times, rather, the “new reality” is, the amalgamation of massive swaths of land, into an “industrial farming” complex. ( We will be importing massive numbers of Labourers from the Carribean, Mexico, Central and South America, you see this in any Agricultural centre…I have Leamington Ontario as a good example)…There is a HUGE pull toward the growing of crops not for food…but for the intent for BIO-fuels. That does not account for the growing number of crops now used to feed the beef, pork and poultry industries…these are quite “consumptuous”, more than we realize…as we see the worlds people adopt a diet we now refer to as “western” or “North American”. McD’s continues to spread rapidly world-wide…as are the many other franchised “fast-food” offerings. (if there is to be a Walmart spring up…there will be yet another McDonald’s). The partnership of Wendy’s and the buy-out and build program that is spreading more Tim Horton’s…stateside and worldwide…an “investors dream come true”.
We now have silent epidemics that are evolving with direct association to our ways of living, inclusive of food choices. High Blood Pressure, Diabesity (Metabolic Syndrome) becoming a house-hold word not to mention those consequences of aging such as osteoporosis and dementia…that will make increasing activity dangerous for some…we will see sedentary living as a preffered lifestyle of literally “billions”. Health Care will no doubt be the top priority…will sin back the headlines from the environment…will force governments to re-think their health care strategies and necessitate the accomadation of more and more who are “differently abled”. Literally Handi-capped parking… in states like Florida…may end up being 50% of the space dedication in most shopping wall parking lot.
Shall we wait for all of this to unfold- or should we plan. It is difficult to convince governments to invest beyond their expectant time in office. For Canada this has been a historical problem to get past…to see investment in the future of Health Care. This too is changing…as the introduction of the Health Council…and subsequent evolution of district Health Authorities. In Ontario…the newly re-vised and newly empowered Local Health Integration Networks…have the potential for dramatic change. Long-range planning can and will be their mandate and their mantra. The question remains…have they the “vision” of the future that I lay out here…or are there going to be the competing interests of social services, education and now environmental strategies that will cloud the thinking of the “directorship” of the Health Care Agenda?
I emphasis strongly here: There needs to be complete integration, period. There should not be anything that suggests that “Separate Silo thinking” will persist. The Social Determinants of Health needs to be the orientation of the new model of social service delivery….yes Health Care and Education and Environmental Protection and Ecological Enhancement should be understood as “Social Service” offerings…they all remain under governmental administration…if Health Care gets its day as “acting locally” while “thinking Globally” why not make these LHIN’s (The Local Health Integration Networks) also the engineers and administration of a greater “integration” of the separate silo’s….much like the Industrial Farm Complex we are now seeing as the New reality….think of the Analogy of …all Silo’s should be attached to the same barn.
Surely with the evolution of communication through enhanced technology we can envision such a HUGE concept…being shrunk down into the context of what is stored in “cyberspace”. Electronic Medical REcords…Education perfromance…the context of the “social issues” that individuals and/or families might have. The surveillance of family lines for coping, education acquirement, ecological orientation and of course their health care needs can be projected and addressed, Pro-actively…Health Promotion, Illness and Injury Prevention can become the “new reality”, not just the rhetoric that we hear as a political platform or from yet another “Commission on Health Care Reform”. The Romanow Report represents “the mother-load” of natural resources in which we have yet to mine, beyond a few nuggets of wisdom. The direction is not new…the message dates back to the “Ottawa Charter”(1984)…even farther back to Alma Ata (1979)…just visit the World Health Organization (WHO)…historically the answers have been there all along.
“IT takes a Village”…capture the essence of the “Village Well Analogy”, reflect on what it all means in terms of Social Services, Education, Ecological Enhancement, and Health Care…and you begin to open up to what is possible…what is needed,…period.
Let’s get on with the needed transformation…let’s do this before the “new wave” of immigration demands we re-visit this discussion yet again.
Truly, BE wise, BE well, BE willing…to “be the change you wish to see in the world”
-Ghandi
Do take care, give your neighbour, your child, your co-worker that all important HUG,
Dave
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