Dr. Eric Hoskins - fifth request for abortion information

Dear Dr. Hoskins,

It has now been two months since I first started asking you for abortion information outside of FIPPA. I've already made four requests for this information (my last request was actually number three, not two as I stated). 

And I still haven't heard back from you.

I was assured by your lawyer Dan Guttman, in front of a judge in the Superior Court of Justice of Ontario, that I only needed to ask for this information and I would receive it:

"today we are saying publicly both in our factum and in court here today before you that if we are asked, our position will if we are asked, we will give generalized abortion statistics out."

Yet I still find myself having to ask you for information that the judge was assured would be provided for the asking. And still I haven't heard back from you.

Remember your Open Government initiative?

"Ontario’s Open Government Initiative is about creating a more open and transparent government for the people of Ontario. We are aiming to make Ontario the most open and transparent jurisdiction in Canada by creating increased opportunities for civic dialogue, sharing government data, and providing citizens with the information they need to better understand how their government works." 

Were these just empty words?

Will you please let me know when I can expect to receive this information? 

Sincerely,

Patricia Maloney

Abortion information - ask and you shall receive?

I have now asked the Ontario Minister of Health and Long Term care for abortion information starting back on Feb 2, 2017 (that's over 10 weeks ago) and my fourth request was yesterday.

Dr. Hoskins doesn't respond to my requests.

I was in court on February 1, 2017 and was told by the Government's lawyer Dan Guttman, that all I had to do was ask for this information, and I would receive it. Mr. Guttman said this to judge Marc Labrosse who was listening to my charter challenge case against the Ontario government for hiding abortion information.

Contrary to Mr. Guttman's statement though, this is not a case of ask and you shall receive. 

Was Mr. Guttman speaking falsehoods to judge Labrosse? Was Mr. Guttman misinformed by Kathleen and Eric? Was Mr. Guttman hoping to dupe the judge into ruling against my case because, hey we'll just tell that Maloney person she can get this abortion information outside of FIPPA and maybe if we just tell her this she'll just shut up already?

I can't answer these questions, but they are pretty darn good ones even if I do say so myself.

In the meantime, I wait. And I wait. Hopefully the cows will come home soon.

The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth

Dear Dr. Eric Hoskins, Minister of Health and Long Term Care of Ontario

On Feb 1 2017 in a court of law (Ontario Superior Court of Justice), on behalf of your government (Ontario), in front of a judge (Judge Marc Labrosse), your lawyer (Dan Guttman) said: 

"  ...if there is an exclusion [as there currently is with abortion information] you are entitled to ask government and when you ask government for that information, the government has to weigh the decision just like in any other decision...you make the request and if the request is denied you have the decision by the court. And we are saying we are going to give out this information."

On Feb 2, 2017, I asked you for abortion information as described by your lawyer above. Not only have I still not heard back from you, but I haven't even received an acknowledgement letter.

Surely you intend to honour your lawyer's commitment to send me this information, right? Surely we can trust that what he said was the truth? 

You know when I was cross examined by this same lawyer, a representative of your government, I had to swear to tell the truth. On a Bible. I took that oath very seriously.

I don't know, but surely I can expect the same kind of truth from your very own representative Dr. Hoskins? In a court of law? In front of a judge? Don't you think?

I look forward  hearing back from you soon, along with the abortion information I requested from you.

Sincerely,
Patricia Maloney

Government wrong when it says "large body of scholarly works on abortion policy"

Another argument that the government's lawyer, Dan Guttman made as to why I don't need access to abortion statistics through FOI requests, is that there is already data publicly available:

"There is a large body of scholarly works on abortion policy."

He identifies two public documents written by abortion doctor Wendy Norman along with some other doctors. 

Guttman also brings up CIHI as a source of data. We already know that CIHI's data is grossly under reported (not all clinics report and no doctor's offices report abortions at all). Now we learn that the two additional reports by Dr. Wendy Norman (Abortion Health Services in Canada and First-trimester medical abortion practices in Canada) also under report abortion data, one of them actually reports less abortions than CIHI does.

1) Abortion health services in Canada (Objective: To determine the location of Canadian abortion services relative to where reproductive-age women reside and the characteristics of abortion facilities and providers.)

This paper is based on a national survey of abortion providers. It reports that 75,650 abortions were done in 2012. CIHI reported 83,708 abortions in 2012:

"We report the first detailed data on abortion facilities and providers in Canada, including data on facilities providing 90.4% of the total number of Canadian abortions (83,708) reported to the Canadian Institute for Health Information for 2012".

The report makes no mention of the fact that the 83,708 CIHI number is also an incorrect under reported number, but the statement leads the reader to believe that CIHI's numbers are accurate when they are not. My calculations based on my 2010 FOI requests show that OHIP numbers were 53.28% higher that CIHI's numbers that year. And since every year since 2010 we have not had accurate data, I've had to estimate the numbers.

And now we know, my 53.28% number is probably even higher based on what we learned from the government during our court appearance.

2) First-trimester medical abortion practices in Canada (Objective: To understand the current availability and practice of first-trimester medical abortion (MA) in Canada):

"A strength of this study was the high response rate, allowing it to capture 90.4% of the terminations reported to CIHI in 2012.1 It also presents the first picture of MA in Canada and can provide a basis for further evaluations. However, we recognize that it might not be completely representative; physicians were recruited from publicly advertised sites providing surgical abortion services, which might have introduced a lower response rate from hospital-based services and from MA providers not associated with an advertised abortion facility. Another potential limitation is the low response rate observed in Ontario (56.3%), a high-population area; thus, the results of this survey might not be generalizable to every province, especially Ontario."

Another problem is that these reports are not published annually. And there is no guarantee that they would be published every year, and most probably won't be. Since these two Wendy Norman reports are for 2012 stats, but were only published in 2016 (four years later), it's pretty certain that these reports are probably a one off. Reports that are published occasionally or only once, are not a good argument for telling someone there is already abortion information out there. And two public one-off reports that are known to under report abortion data, does not qualify as a "large body of scholarly works", wouldn't you say?