Family advocacy group
breaks through stonewalling

A Hamilton family advocacy group has broken through about three years of stonewalling by the city's public health department and the Ontario Ministry of Health to gain access to all aspects of teen pregnancy statistics in the city.

At a hearing before the Information and Privacy Commission of Ontario on Dec. 18, IPCO ruled that the Ministry of Health must provide provincial data on the matter to the Hamilton-Wentworth Family Action Council immediately, and that the Hamilton public health department must likewise give its statistics when asked to do so.

HWFAC vice-president Jim Enos said the provincial data has since been provided and a written request submitted to the Hamilton public health department for city data.

"It's positive," he said of the development. "Basically, (the information and privacy) commission is saying, 'What's the big secret? Why is it not public data?'"

Enos characterized the relationship between the Hamilton public health department and the Ontario Ministry of Health as " a secret club." He added that the suppression of data related to teen pregnancy didn't allow the public or watchdog groups such as his own to assess how well those two entities were doing with respect to battling the problem of teen pregnancy.

Teen pregnancy rates, and information related to them, were readily available to the public until 1996, when they became covered under provisions of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. That move put a roadblock in the way of efforts by organizations such as Enos's to combat what they saw as the failed "safe sex" approaches of the public health department and the Ministry of Health.

"Analyzing teen pregnancy rate trends to determine the effectiveness of sexual health programs became virtually impossible for any group outside public health and the Ministry of Health," said Enos. "Public health had free rein to experiment with our youths and spin tales about their great success, while concealing the truth about the disastrous results."

During the Dec. 18 hearing, the HWFAC presented evidence of "questionable behaviour" by the Ministry of Health over the three years that teen pregnancy data was suppressed. The commission accepted the arguments.

"It is our position that this data should be readily available and with a time lag not exceeding two years, which was the case prior to 1996, in order that the effectiveness of sex education programs be determined as soon as possible," said Enos.

He added that the next step is a presentation before Hamilton's social services committee this month, in which he again plans to drive home the inefficacy, and downright danger, of "safe sex" approaches to teen pregnancy.

"Although the situation in public health clinics is not great, it's a lot cleaner than it was," he said, referring to years past when explicit posters and promotion of condoms were the norm in city facilities.

Although a new administration has taken control in Hamilton following municipal elections last November, Enos is not overly enchanted with some of the new politicians on city council.

He noted that although new mayor Larry DiIanni is a former Catholic high school principal, the new city chief told Enos in a phone conversation several years ago - while DiIanni was a city councillor - that, "I may have been a Catholic school principal, but I don't necessarily adhere to all the doctrines of the church."

However, DiIanni seemed to come around somewhat after subsequent approaches by the HWFAC and agreed that he wanted "something that works" with respect to sexual health programs in the city.