The Perfect Enemy | ‘Social murder’ is still a reality | TheSpec.com - Hamilton Spectator
March 28, 2024

‘Social murder’ is still a reality | TheSpec.com – Hamilton Spectator

‘Social murder’ is still a reality | TheSpec.com  Hamilton Spectator

I argued in an October, 2018 Torstar column that the austerity policies of the Ford government, by worsening the living and working conditions of Ontario’s most vulnerable, would lead to “social murder.” The idea of “social murder” comes from political economist Friedrich Engels who stated in his 1845 The Condition of the Working Class in England:

“I have now to prove that society in England daily and hourly commits what the workingmen’s organs, with perfect correctness, characterize as social murder, that it has placed the workers under conditions in which they can neither retain health nor live long; that it undermines the vital force of these workers gradually, little by little, and so hurries them to the grave before their time.”

While the evidence of the health effects of the Ford government’s 2018 cancelling of minimum wage increases, reducing social assistance increases, and rescinding the Fair Workplaces and Better Jobs Act have yet to be determined, its actions during the COVID-19 pandemic forces us to revisit the social murder concept.

In a British Medical Journal editorial of Feb. 4, 2021 COVID-19: Social Murder, they Wrote — Elected, Unaccountable, and Unrepentant, Kamran Abbasi stated:

“Murder is an emotive word. In law, it requires premeditation. Death must be deemed to be unlawful. How could “murder” apply to failures of a pandemic response? Perhaps it can’t, and never will, but it is worth considering. When politicians and experts say that they are willing to allow tens of thousands of premature deaths for the sake of population immunity or in the hope of propping up the economy, is that not premeditated and reckless indifference to human life?”

Why is this relevant to the Ford government’s pandemic responses?

1. The government rescinded vaccine and mask mandates in public spaces despite skyrocketing COVID-19 spread.

2. Removed the power of local Medical Officers of Health to implement such mandates.

3. Banned local Boards of Education from instituting vaccine and mask mandates.

4. Limited PCR testing.

Does the government know the effects of these actions? Yes. Kieran Moore, the Chief Medical Officer of Health of Ontario states:

“The purpose of coming out today is to reiterate yes, we are in a sixth wave, yes, we’ll see a rise in admissions to hospital and the intensive care unit.”

Do these actions go against informed opinion? Yes.

“We should have waited to lift mask mandates.” — Dr. Peter Juni, head of Ontario’s Science Advisory Table, April 7, 2022.

“Epidemiological trends in Ontario have demonstrated signs of provincial resurgence since the end of February 2022. Close monitoring of epidemiological trends since March 21, 2022 (date of mask mandate removal) suggests a corresponding temporal association with a subsequent increase in confirmed Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases, per cent positivity, and hospitalizations.” — Public Health Ontario, April 8, 2022.

“It would be one thing if we prevented mask mandates in schools because we didn’t know what the virus does to our bodies. But we DO know. Preventing mask mandates in schools is purely a political/ideological move. I refuse to accept this.” — Dr. Colin Furness, April 11, 2022.

“I’d like to remind everyone that the Science Table, Public Health Ontario, several MOH’s, myself, and many others recommended the return of mask mandates. Dr. Moore rejected all that advice today.” — William Comeau, retired statistician.

We can therefore expect rising COVID-19 rates, hospitalizations, and deaths. And this will be especially the case for those already ill, of low income, children, and the elderly. I’ll leave the last word to the British Medical Journal:

“The “social murder” of populations is more than a relic of a bygone age. It is very real today, exposed and magnified by COVID-19. It cannot be ignored or spun away. Politicians must be held to account by legal and electoral means, indeed by any national and international constitutional means necessary.

Dennis Raphael is a professor of health policy at York University.