I have been suffering a bit of ennui, vis à vis blogging this past week, which I suppose means that nothing was really riling me.
Certainly, the federal political front has been quiet. The new PM continues to spurn the media and has made come out of his office only a couple of times to make oral statements and let it be known he won’t be taking questions. Likewise, he has been keeping his Cabinet quiet by allowing only the most perfunctory public statements. Tony Clement emerged briefly to comment on a new Alberta health care policy proposal and the only notable thing was his long greasy hair making him look like he was going to a casting call for West Side Story.
Health care is bubbling again as one of a few issues on the table that get my interest. On health care, it is the perpetual debate over private delivery of public health care and two-tier health care. British Columbia and Québec are both re-examining the role of the private sector in delivering services which would be entirely publicly funded from the provincial system. Nothing in what they are doing would be in conflict with the Canada Health Act, but almost all New Democrats and far too many Liberals are stuck on the erroneous and dated position that private delivery equals two tier health care. They are wrong, absolutely wrong, and should be ashamed for continuing to mislead the public.
It is debatable whether the private sector can deliver services more effectively and/or less expensively over the long term. The health care unions will remain steadfastly opposed to protect their feather-bedding. But Canada needs the debate and the chance to see what options work best.
Alberta, meanwhile is proposing to allow provincial residents to buy supplementary insurance to enable them to by-pass the public system’s queues for health care. This is two tier health care and should be resisted by the federal government and all Canadians. Will the PM have the gumption to say “no” to Premier Klein.
In Ontario, mandatory organ donation has re-emerged as an issue. Peter Kormos, MPP, has reintroduced a private member’s bill in the Legislature which would remove the need for health care worker to obtain consent before harvesting organs for transplant. His proposal is based on the assumption that organ transplantation is universally good for Ontarians and should be rigorously encouraged. Again, it’s a popular misconception that Kormos and his colleagues should be ashamed of pursuing. With the exception of kidney transplantation – where the results are generally effective and long term – most organ transplantation is merely a short-term patch for a problem which cannot be cured. Moreover, transplantation frequently leads to new and m ore devastating morbidity resulting in the patients’ greater suffering before premature death. Moreover, an major increase in the organ transplant rate would be extremely costly and would siphon funds that could be used more effectively for other health promotion and disease prevention services. The government is quite right to do as little as possible to promote organ donation.
Ontario witnessed an interesting showdown last week between CUPE and the Liberal government that the government won with relative ease. Taxpayers and the consumers of provincial services should be delighted. The issue was reform of municipal workers’ pension provided through OMERS. The changes has been discussed and debated for years and the pertinent legislation was at 3rd reading when Syd Ryan and CUPE decided to oppose it and threaten a province wide municipal and school strike. The government mishandled the issue – caught off guard one presumes because all parties had been working on and supporting the new procedures for many months – and failed to get media attention for the legislation’s supporters. It looked bad for the government for about a week while Ryan threatened an illegal strike (no doubt enhancing his support for re-election as union boss) but the government refused to amend the bill. As a few CUPE locals began to understand the consequences of an illegal strike and indicated they would not support Ryan’s call-out, he began to wilt and eventually accepted a face-saving promise from the government to re-examine the affects of the legislation in 2011 – or after at least two more provincial elections. A politician’s promise to look at something in 5 years is all it took to buy Syd Ryan. Now we know the true measure of his power and influence. And we can sleep more soundly at night.
