August 19,2010

Hon. Dalton McGuinty, Premier Room 281, Main Legislative Building, Queen's Park Toronto, Ontario M7A 1A1

Dear Hon. McGuinty:

Re: Removal of unconstitutional "Media Clause" from CCAC contracts I am writing to you directly in your capacity as a sitting member of the Ontario parliament, and hope you will take a few minutes out of your busy schedule to personally read this letter of concem. I am not interested in a general response from your constituency office, or forwarding this on to another "more suitable" department. The issue that I am presenting should be of
interest to you.

I was deeply disturbed to read about the lack of transparency and "illegal" secretive meetings of the Hamilton Niagara Haldimand Brant LHIN, as reported by the Ontario Ombudsman, Andre Marin. This struck a raw chord as we have seen a similar lack of transparency exhibited by our local Waterloo Wellington Community Care Access Centre. In the fall of 2009 our CCAC suddenly and dramatically cut frontline therapy services in our community and reduced the availability of essential equipment items to all clients, including the terminally ill. There was no advanced public consultation regarding these cutbacks, and an absolute failure by the CCAC to adequately communicate these significant changes which
negatively impacted both service providers and clients alike.

It is crystal-clear our government health organizations in these cases have failed to act with transparency. I suggest that this attitude of secrecy is not limited to the one LHN in Mr. Marin's report, or to our CCAC. I believe these issues are systemic across the province and it is the responsibility of our government and Health Ministry to take corrective action.
To that end, I am specifically very concerned regarding a media clause that exists in CCAC contracts with service provider agencies. The existence of this clause was confirmed directly to me in an email dated May 14,2010 from the interim CEO of the Waterloo Wellington CCAC. This email was copied by the interim CEO to Liz Sandals, our local MPP, and I forwarded the message to Deb Matthews, our Health Minister. In this message, the interim CEO explained that the media clause has been part of the language contained in CCAC contracts with service
providers since 2007, and suggested this is a province-wide template. The media clause prohibits service providers working through CCAC contracted agencies from contacting the media regarding any CCAC action without the written permission of the CCAC. At the same time, CCACs are not restricted with respect to media contact. Clearly this is an imbalance of power. In our area, this power has been abused.

Our local CCAC provided erroneous and misleading information in our local media in the fall of 2009 and again in the spring of 2010. I have first-hand knowledge that many healthcare service providers were extremely disturbed by this published misinformation, wished to set the record straight, but were effectively muzzled by the media clause from doing so. The media clause is an effective and obviously inappropriate gag order restricting legitimate public discussion. The existence of this media clause in CCAC contracts points to an attitude of secrecy and lack of transparency, the very concerns highlighted in Mr. Marin's report regarding the behaviour of the Hamilton Niagara Haldimand Brant LHIN. It is my strong opinion this media clause is unconstitutional. And, frankly, if the CCACs are using due diligence and acting honestly, with transparency, there is no need for this clause. Since learning of this clause, I have been expressing my concems repeatedly in writing to Liz Sandals and to Deb Matthews. To date I have received two deflective responses from Liz Sandals, both indicating weak excuses why she cannot help. I have received no response from Deb Matthews or her office despite many follow-up requests. The silence from the Health Ministry is deafening.

Therefore, I am now broadening my appeal to all individual MPPs. I would appreciate your consideration of my concems regarding the media clause. I hope you will discuss this with your colleagues, and that some of you will see the need to take actioh to remove this clause from CCAC contracts. Making this change would be easy and cost-free. It would signal the government's belief in its own guiding principles, and would be welcomed by the public. My guess is, if these clauses were removed, there would be no negative consequences to any CCAC who is carrying out their responsibilities with due diligence. In the interest of the public, with the stated guiding principles of transparency and accountability put forward by our Health Minister, this media clause should be removed from CCAC contracts.
Sincerely,

David R. Williams