The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Is Ontario Missing a Golden Opportunity?

Episode Date: October 19, 2024

The Agenda's week in review looked at what the record high price of gold means for Ontario, the misconceptions about ADHD, Sharon, Lois & Bram's legacy, and the nursing shortage in the province.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sheldon, if you would, bring this graphic up because, and for those listening on podcast, I'll just read the chart that we've got going here. We're tracking the price of gold since 2020 to today, and it is currently trading at record levels north of $2,600 an ounce, and that's in American funds. So it's up there. Sean, starting with you, what factors are pushing the price of gold so high these days? There's been a lot of central bank buying over the last two to three years, largely from China.

So gold's reacting to that. So good demand, supply is constrained. It's not growing dramatically even at these high prices. As you mentioned in the top, it's tough. It's a tough business it's tough to find quantities of gold in economic quantities where you can actually build a mine so supply-demand fundamentals are really strong and it's likely going to continue to go higher. Well I'm going to follow up with Bruce on that it's 2,600 US an ounce right now can it sustain

that in your view? Well yes because the very interesting thing about gold right now Sean was absolutely correct that central banks around the world, particularly non-G7 countries, have been accumulating it a lot. But a lot of consumers in China, retail people, have been a big reason for this as well. There's been a lot of trouble in the Chinese economy. There's been a lot of trouble in the Chinese economy, there's been a lack of faith in the real estate with some of their major

real estate companies collapsing, and there's not been a lot of faith in the Qi government and in some of the policies, and so they've been reaching out for gold for safety. We're going to look at another chart now. This is the production of gold in Canada, province by province. And we're looking at a pie chart again for those listening on podcasts and who can't see this chart. 2% in Manitoba, 2% in the Yukon, 10% in BC, 26% in Quebec, a good chunk. 14% elsewhere, 46% of Canadian gold production is done in the province of

Ontario, almost half. And here's another chart we're going to show as well. This is Ontario's producing gold mines and there are 17 of them and they are, as you might suspect, primarily in northern Ontario around Timmins, Kirkland Lake, and Red Lake, which is north of Thunder Bay. That is way up there north of Thunder Bay. And Sean, let me go back to you here. How many gold mines does Agnico Eagle operate in Ontario?

We operate the Kirkland Lake Macassa Mine, which the mayor would be familiar with, and the Detour Lake Mine. And the Detour Lake is a sizable mine. It's in the top 10 in the world. And we also have the Canadian Malartic Mine across the border in Quebec, which is also top 10. I'm sure the mayor is well aware of it which is why I'm going to ask her how important it is to her economy in Kirkland Lake. Well absolutely we've always been a gold-based

economy over the last century and we are very very fortunate not only do we have that Macassam mine site within our borders of course we have Al Alamos Gold over in Metatch and the Promise of Upper Beaver as well just down the highway on the other side. And how important is it to you that gold continues to trade at $2,600 an ounce US and more? Absolutely so we definitely are keenly aware that that is good news for the local economy and the surrounding areas. Michael, let's go to you. How many First Nations residents work in this sector, in the province or country? Well, that's a good question. It's probably the highest proportionally hired by the mining

industry compared to other sectors. I think those areas you mentioned, there's a high percentage of indigenous communities involved in the mining operations, either in the training or in the operations as employment or in the business. And if they're not working actually in the business itself, maybe in spin-off industries, what are they doing? So they could be trucking, they could be providing supplies, janitorial materials. There's a whole supply chain that these mining operations provide opportunities for the indigenous communities.

Is it working? It's totally working. I would argue that over time, there's been an evolution of indigenous participation to indigenous partnerships, to indigenous proponents within the sector. How old were you when you were diagnosed? Yeah, that's a funny question because I was diagnosed as a kid, very young age, which as a girl, that's a little bit less usual,

but I was first diagnosed with anxiety. So you mentioned that a lot of women are diagnosed with another mental health condition first, and that was absolutely my experience. I exhibited a lot of women are diagnosed with another mental health condition first and that was absolutely my experience. I exhibited a lot of the symptoms that you see with the self-regulation, not just with my attention, but also emotions, impulse control, with that combined presentation of ADHD.

So I had the tantrums, the meltdowns, the irritability if I was having a sensory overload that day and that presented as a lot of just conflict with the people around me, conflict at home, and reactiveness. And so that- How early in the game? Age six or seven.

Six or seven, yeah. And so then that ended up with me accessing some mental health resources, getting a diagnosis with anxiety. And it wasn't until a few months after that where I was doing some follow up on that with the anxiety meds when my doctor said, you're bouncing off the walls. Do you think maybe there's something else happening here?

And so then I got the diagnosis closer to age eight, but still seven. Did you think there was something off about you? As a kid? Yeah. Absolutely. You did. You could feel that you were different from the other kids.

Yeah. And I think some of that might have been my own anxiety. But I definitely internalized this feeling that I was a bad kid. It was really hard to regulate my emotions. So I would say things that I didn't mean. I would make decisions that I didn't want to make. And no amount of telling myself not to do that again

would change it. And as a kid, that's really frustrating. But you don't have the language at age seven, eight, nine to articulate that. So I think a lot of the therapy that I went through as a kid was just unlearning that. Before I was able to manage the ADHD, I had to just be able to regulate enough

and change my narrative about myself. This has surely got to be one of the worst aspects of ADHD, is that a young child thinks of themselves as being bad, not as being, you know, having some issues to deal with, but being bad. What's the consequence of feeling that way? I think that's one of the myths that we see around ADHD, is that the kid is just being bad.

And that's one of the reasons sometimes people don't seek out a diagnosis. They feel, oh, that'll label my kid. But I think the labeling, you know, being called it's ADHD, actually gives people a roadmap. It gives them something to do. It tells them, hey, the kid isn't bad. They have a condition. It can be treated.

There's something you can do about it. So I think not knowing what it is, just seeing the behavior, often gets people labeled as being bad. Teachers will often say, hey, your kid is bad. They're disrupting the class. While getting help, you know, helps that quite a bit. How many kids you got? Three boys.

Three boys. Any of them have this? All three. All three. And my husband. And your husband. Yes. So do you assume the boys got it from the husband? Yes, although, you know, I can probably

see traces of it in some sides of, you know, my background as well, you know, from different people in the family. So these stories of kids going to school and being called bad kids. You experienced with that? Yes and no. More so with my grandson. My three boys were all gifted, so they

weren't failing school. So they were doing OK. But the interesting thing was they had enough inhibitory qualities that they saved it all for us at home. So they would be okay at school and then they'd come home and I'll have a break loose. Like you can imagine three boys with ADHD in a household with one of the parents with ADHD. So when I

present to parents I always say I really really wish I knew then what I know now. Life would have been so much easier for for everybody and so much better for the kids. Tell us what that means. If you know then what you know now, how would things have been different? It would have been advocating in the school system to get them the help they needed.

They weren't failing, but they also weren't diagnosed and got the support as being gifted, right? So they did fine until they got the post-secondary, and then it was kind of like a two-by-four between the eyes, right? So they did fine until they got the post-secondary and then it was kind of like a two-by-four between the eyes, right? Because all the organizational difficulties, the time management, all of that stuff really hit them hard because they didn't have to do a whole lot of studying until then, right? So, and yeah, the emotional dysregulation that Caitlin talked about. And that was, yeah, a lot of our family life's experience,

different kids dysregulating and a lot of fighting. I'm going to direct your eyes to the screens over there. According to the government of Canada Job Bank in 2023, the median wage for a registered nurse in Ontario was $38.05 per hour. In December 2023, the Auditor General released a report on emergency departments that found agency nurses in hospitals were paid more than $75 per hour, with some higher rates in Northern Ontario. And in July of last year, the Ontario Nurses Association asked hospitals to submit data from 2022, and it shared it with the Globe and Mail to show that there were more than 1 million total reported hours

worked by agencies and hospitals. And they charged on average, not median, wage of $140 per hour, the total bill of more than 168 million in the reported time. All right, on one hand, nurses and staffing agencies are getting paid more. That's a good thing. People are getting paid for the work they do. On the other hand, it seems to be costing hospitals much more. So I'm going to start Lomo. What are we supposed to do here? So I think the problem is much deeper than just a cost reimbursement for agency nurses

in work settings because we have to look at the agencies have always been there for decades. Having said that, the price, the steep price hike that we see has been because of the nursing shortage crisis that has been more highlighted more so since COVID. On top of that, Bill 124 was another damper where it did have a significant negative impact on the nursing morale and of course the work plus the workload and morale and of course the work plus the workload and the high burnout rates was enough for nurses to think about exiting the profession in total which led us to a huge nursing shortage crisis. That also gave rise to a lot of agency nurses being utilized and hence the steep costs. So if you are going to look at agency nurses were charging $75 an hour and now you have $142, $250

if you can see some of the reports up north, $250 an hour, which is in general a huge health care cost because this is our taxpayer money that we are paying to these private agencies to deliver care and these nurses are one of our own. So it's a bigger problem. The cost is just the tip of the iceberg. All right.

Rosalie, I'm going to get you to respond as well. Yeah. Well, I've got maybe a bit of a different perspective, because it certainly is true that we do have a shortage of nurses, particularly in some care settings. However, when you actually look at the overall labor stats, employment in healthcare has actually grown more

than the rest of the economy, even when wages in Ontario particularly weren't growing at the same rate and keeping up with inflation. So it's actually a bit more complex than just not having enough, because we're actually adding more nurses than we are and more people to work in health care than we are in other areas of the economy.

And though the prices for agency nurses might be high, fully 63.3% of hospital spending is already directed towards compensation. So one of my concerns is about how filling staffing gaps might be crowding out other areas of care or limiting hospitals in how much they might be able to invest in things that could make work better or improve outcomes for patients. So overall, I think it does put hospitals in a bit of a budget crunch, but I don't see it as strictly a shortage issue. I see it as a much more complex change in what we actually consider to be the health

sector. Okay. Charlene, I'm curious, it's not just the province of Ontario, a report last month projected that $1.5 billion will be spent nationwide on agencies, a six-fold increase from pandemic levels. Will this trend, is this a trend that's gonna be moving forward?

Oh, thank you. Well, it appears that it is. And I would argue that the staffing crisis is real. I mean yes there's been a lot of hiring over the past year, a lot of incentives to attract nurses into the sector and I represent primarily registered practical nurses across the country so the crisis is the same and the agencies are being relied upon to fill those jobs as well. And there is different levels of dependency. I mean hospitals is one but also in long-term care they're being utilized as well where you know the funding is different but we don't have

the extra resources to be spending on agencies and this is a critical thing that the that the country needs to deal with.