"Canary call from the coal mine!" on Health Care in Canada

From the S.E.I.U. website, August 31, 2010.
Third-Party Delivery of Medical Services touches Down in Saskatchewan

Medicare's hallowed ground, Saskatchewan, has started using a private surgical clinic for orthopedic day surgeries normally provided through the public system.
The province announced their intention back in March, but has now started booking surgeries through the Omni Surgical Centre in Saskatoon. The centre will provide knee and dental surgeries referred from the province. Omni currently provides orthopaedic surgery as well as lap-band weight loss, breast augmentation and other cosmetic procedures for a fee.
Saskatchewan's Health Minister was quick to point out that contracting out the medical services will not lead to greater privatization of care. "We're looking at all options: Expanding the public system as well as looking at third-party delivery," said Don McMorris, as reported in the Leader-Post.
This was all foreshadowed last October when B.C.'s chatty Health Minister Kevin Falcon offered fast tracking Saskatchewan patients for orthopedic surgeries in B.C. - what he termed "medical tourism". "If people have been waiting for 15 months, do they care if [their surgery] happens in Saskatoon, Regina or Surrey? I'm not sure they do," Saskatchewan's premier Brad Wall said at the time, according to the Canadian Press.
The uproar this caused - partly from Falcon's ill-considered choice of the phrase "medical tourism" to describe the deal (that he then turned around and offered to Americans) - led to Regina backpedalling on the idea, but clearly they were in the market.
No matter how independent the provinces feel they are in the provision of health care they are still obligated to uphold the Canada Health Act - ultimate the responsibility of the federal government, who also hold the purse strings. But what can Canadians expect with the free market favouring, social program adverse Harper government at the gates?
Not much when the federal Health Minister won't even address the recent Canadian Medical Association conference and the minister they do send doesn't mention Medicare even once, according to a recent Picard column in the Globe. Reminding us that Harper, while the head of the National Citizen's Coalition, once said, "It's past time the feds scrapped the Canada Health Act."
If Mr. Ignatieff needs some policy substance on which to hang the Liberal Party's electoral changes of success, here is one issue that simply will not go away. What position is the Liberal Party going to take on the future of the Canada Health Act, in the wake of rapidly rising health care costs, enhanced technological and pharmaceutical developments, a growing and aging population, and a very skittish electorate?
While there are certainly other pressing issues, Health Care is an icon of the country. It represents what Canadians consider "fair" and "just" and worthy of the people and their governments and while the S.E.I.U. speaks primarily as advocate for the jobs of its members in the health care sector (in this release), this is another "canary-call from the coal mine" of the behind-the-scenes goings on between and among the provinces, while the federal government turns aside, in order not to see, and thereby not to have to answer questions to which it may not have answers. Or, even more likely, it has those answers about their real intentions and  it knows Canadians do not want to hear them, especially if there is a election bird-song flowing down Wellington Street in Ottawa, past the Parliament Buildings.
Canadians will have some very troubling choices over the next few years, and we might wish to have a government in place that we trust to preserve the "best" our courty has achieved in this field, rather than one that openly seeks to scrap the promise of living in dignity, with access to full health care, even if that includes a reduced budget for "dramatic interventions" if and when one loses consciousness for what appears to be the last time. That is not a death panel, as the Teapartyers were and are wont to say; that is merely spreading the resources where they are most needed, and I, for one, will be happy to sign a document as part of my Living Will, to permit the doctors to proceed on a DNR (Do Not Resusitate!) basis. Will you? And will your next of kin be prepared to follow your instructions?
In the U.S., for example, some 30-40% of all health care costs are spent during the last three months of the lives of those preparing to die. While Canada is less "death-denying" than the U.S. generally, there is still a considered resistance to open discussion about the issues facing both the individual and his/her family when the end of life looms near.
Many Canadians have already signed "organ donor" cards, indicating our willingness to agree to the removal of healthy organs, should the appropriate situation present itself, where such a donation is feasible. The future of stem-cell research looks somewhat promising for the reduction, and perhaps elimination of certain diseases which now require costly care. However, we are all "in this" together and that means there will be sacrifices for each of us, provided we trust that the system is fair, balanced and administered by individuals whose compassion and ethics are, or would have been a match for Tommy Douglas's standards.
After all, it is his legacy that we are honouring in our attempt to preserve and protect his accomplishment.

A lone voice cheering on the S.E.I.U. in Ontario

By Rob Ferguson,  Toronto Star, August 31, 2010
It’s unfair that hospital and health executives keep juicy salaries while nurses and other staff get squeezed in a two-year public sector pay freeze, the Service Employees International Union says.
The union representing health workers took fresh aim at six-figure paycheques as a second phase of freeze talks continued. The freeze is part of Premier Dalton McGuinty’s plan to fight the $19.3-billion deficit.“If the province were serious about fairness, it would be asking the executives getting paid the most to do their part, not squeezing the nurses who are earning the least,” SEIU president Sharleen Stewart said Tuesday.
Everyone knows that unions, per se, have suffered nearly mortal wounds, some of them self-inflicted, in the last decade or two, in both Canada and the U.S. However, the words, thought and push-back from this specific union president, Sharleen Stewart, represents another attempt to draw a line in the sand against the gross unfairness that pervades the economy, as executives literally bully employees, their own workers, in an increasingly abusive war to cut costs on the backs of those same workers who have played a significant part in the company's, organization's effectiveness in the past.
Ordinary people, on both sides of the 49th parallel, are not stupid. And regardless of the level of formal education achieved by each individual, we all know injustice, unfairness and abuse, even sophisticated, structural and philosophical abuse when we see it, and feel it and feel powerless to make a difference in the public debate.
Just yesterday we learned that the Wall Street bullies, who have set the model for a kind of arrogance, intolerance and injustice, providing cover for their millions of "friends" (the have's), will update their bonuses for their executives this year, because they fear a pending termination of the Bush tax cuts for the very rich, thereby making it possible for those same executives to receive their bonuses without being subject to the higher taxes.
We have become slaves to the cabal, both in government and in the private sector who provide the funds for the election of their political friends, and in many ways we are watching an inevitable, and possibly unstoppable slide into the elimination of the middle class in both countries.
And one little skirmish, like the one waged by the SEIU in Ontario, in the health care sector, an arena in which all Ontarians have access and a demonstrable need for quality services, is and could become a larger line in the sand, giving a warning shot to those politicians in bed with Wall Street, corporate power and the laws, regulations and social attitudes that come with that "affiliation," that we have had enough of your one-sided selfishness, your arrogance and your sublime self-righteousness.
As Dr. David Suzuki once put it many years ago, in an argument for sustainable development, "The economy must work for us, and not the other way round." And that means there will have to be a lot of basic changes to the way we conduct our public debate, shape our public policy, and set the guidelines for our citizens, if all citizens are to be included, as "of fair value."
And only such a society where "fair value" is a fact, and not a phony cover-up, can and will be able to be termed "just."

Obama takes high road, again!

After The Speech...
And there he was again, President Obama honouring the commitment to the nation's security of his predecessor, George W. Bush, and not reminding his audience of the misleading propaganda dished out by the Bush-Cheney cabal, to "justify" the war in the first place.
And while acknowledging his own "difference of opinion with the former president" about the war itself, Obama thanked the troops for their service, including 4400+ lives sacrificed, and over 32,000 wounded, and asked for a commitment similar to that of the troops, in the home front war on the economy.
It was the analogy to the level of service of the troops that Obama tried to use as his model for the transition to the strength and security of the homeland...and the question remains, "Will the people (including especially the Republicans and the Teapartyers) join in anything that looks like a national initiative to generate more support for small business, and thereby reduce the claims on the government funds for the unemployed?"
I, along with thousands of others, seriously doubt that.
They believe that constant opposition, constant stone-walling, and constant rejection of even entering into the substance of a debate about the various measures available to the congress will serve them in the mid-term elections in November. And the goal of re-capturing both the Senate and the House of Representatives is the motive for their internal resistance movement.
And in the climate for Republican resistance, supported surreptitiously at least, and overtly at least in part by their own sources of campaign funds, is the campaign of fear that underlies the assassination of the president's character. And for that the media pays huge truckloads of money to various voices like Limbaugh and Beck not to mention Sarah Palin.
Here was a president being eminently presidential, who, in the private corridors where Republicans smoke their cigars and drink their scotch, will be heralded in guffaws of derisive laughter...for such a naive premise of inviting them to join a national effort of similar urgency as the war in Iraq, to which he was clearly and presciently opposed.
They will not join such an urgent national effort, in spite of the demonstrated and even desperate need of millions who have lost their jobs, their homes, their health care and most importantly their hope for the future.

Citizenship in a non-literate culture

By Arianna Huffington, The Huffington Post, august 31, 2010 referenceing the address to college freshmen by Rick Levin, President of Yale
He really struck a chord in me when he spoke of the "emerging burden of citizenship," and of responsibilities beyond "self-gratification and personal advancement." He urged the next generation to "raise the level of public discourse." And, lamenting how "oversimplified ideology and appeal to narrow interest groups have triumphed over intelligence and moderation in civic discussion," Levin said that by demanding "serious discussion instead of slogans that mask narrow partisan interests," the new students -- and, by extension, the rest of us -- will be able to "help to make our democracy more effective."
Raising the level of public discourse is a task for all citizens, and that means saying "No" to the reductionism imposed by such social media as Twitter, and the electronicmedia's demand to crush all public discourse into 30-second sound bites, and conversation, for example conversations on MSNBC that are curtainled within three-to-four minutes, even though the quality of the guests merits longer time frames, and the media producers' perceptions of the public's "gnat-like" concentration span dumbs those guests down.
And of course the advertisers, who want to put their money into shows that have "high ratings" means that the whole process of public discourse is really governed by the need for cash...except on National Public Radio, or Public Broadcasting System (TV) in the U.S. and in Canada, the CBC, the public broadcaster. NPR, PBS and CBC are somewhat dependent on dollars from the public, in paid advertising and in donations, and in the case of the CBC government subsidy.
And it is those public broadcast outlets that bear the lion's share of the responsibility for extended discourse. Another "No" the public will have to utter, both individually and collectively, is a loud, resonant "No" to the demand of the internet communication to shorten sentences, and shorten paragraphs, and dumb down the level of the discourse permitted in that ubiquitous medium.
Literacy, the subject many boys in school resist, because it is not "hands on" as they want everything to be, is a subject never more in jeopardy than in today's electronic culture, complete with its own variation on the theme of radiation.
Only a literate public can be a responsible public, because only literate citizens have the insight, and the imagination and the necessary vocabulary to push back against the glib, simplistic and seductive talking points of the political leaders...
Tonight, Obama speaks to the nation, about the end of combat mission in Iraq, and while he must thank and legitimize the sacrifice of the hundreds of thousands of troops, many of whom gave their lives in this fight, he must also draw a line in the sand about American "preemptive strikes" in the minds and hearts of the whole world, not an easy or simple task.
And his capacity to draw on the examples from history and from literature will serve him well, because those are really the only "wells" from which appropriate water can be drawn for such task, in this case of national and internation leadership...when the whole world is quiverring in our boots about the next shoe to drop.

Leadership needs educated followers

Steve Paikin, host of The Agenda on TVO, hosted a panel on leadership last evening. Some important insights were shared by Janice Stein, Jeffery Simpson, Allan Bonner, Andrew Cohen, and a couple of politics professors whose names I did not write down.
In Canada, we talk a lot about leadership and yet, one has to wonder if we are serious about developing leaders, especially when, as Allan Bonner says, we do nothing about teaching followers and followership.
Bravo, also last evening, carried the story of Celia Franca, who founded the National Ballet School, and the National Ballet Company of Canada, after having served an apprenticeship with Saddler's Wells in Great Britain. "All my years with the National Ballet were years of fighting," was her summary of her history in creating the company and the supporting school.
Being prepared to fight for something worthwhile, and having a clear head about what that is, seems so obviously integral to leadership. And yet, there are those who come to people like Bonner, for example, seeking to establish their "street-cred" and want to talk about how to dress and have no idea what they believe, what they stand for, and what change they seek to implement in any leadership capacity.
Of course, in Canada, no conversation about leadership ever occurs without considerable time being devoted to Pierre Trudeau, who not only practiced effective leadership, but changed the country forever, with both the Official Languages Act and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Another mark of leadership is the legacy left after the curtain closes on the life of the leader.
And yet, no one on the panel talked about what it was like to live in the Trudeau era, when the arts, and the globe and the FLQ and the public mind was literally transfixed on his next "scene" in the drama. To say Trudeau was charismatic is an understatement. He captivated our hearts and our imaginations and made us pay attention to our own country's state of affairs. A civil liberties advocate, a constitutional scholar, a world traveller (verging on the bohemian) a date for Streisand and Leona Boyd et al, an articulate and curious appreciator of the arts and of his own physical regimen and conditioning, Trudeau was a role model for every Canadian.
It may sound a little trite, in such company, to speak of his impact on the individual lives of Canadians; and yet, his flashing ice blue eyes, his instant and generous and unambiguous smile, his celebration of life with risk and without compromise, his intellectual preparation by consuming the details of all files coming from his cabinet ministers, his stature on the world stage...all of these features made him a citizen of the world, in a country that shyly fashions itself as a middle but competent, and useful if not revolutionary country. Trudeau gave a face, a name a voice and a physical presence to Canada, in his own iconic and inimitable manner.
His mastery of both languages made those of us who mastered only one a little hesitant to move into the second, given the example he set, and yet he would be most distressed to learn that his excellence was a little intimidating to anyone. "Go ahead and try!" he would undoubtedly exclaim when confronted by such timidity.
It is not that we all agreed with everything he proposed or brought to the table; it is more that we were and still are proud and even a little smug and grateful that we were alive when he showed us that Canadians were, and are the equals of all others around the globe and need take a backseat to none.
So amid the ruthlessness the panel discussed, and the charisma, and the intellectual rigour...there is also the whole person and the impact of that person on the minds, hearts and perceptions of those s/he is seeking to lead that matters. And would we be honoured to have him/her to dinner in our home?
And do we trust that the leader will do what s/he says s/he will do? And does the evidence bear that out?
And do we have confidence, that illusive but essential sine qua non of all  significant relationships? And if we don't have confidence, is that lack of confidence the result of the leader's inadequacies, or our own?
And we don't want to talk about our own failure to examine our own inadequacies. Sometimes a leader will overpower through the sheer brilliance of his/her mind, or the capacity to communicate, or the capacity to inspire...and when all of those capacities are present and fully developed, watch out...because changes are on the way...provided that same leader understands his/her place in the longer history of the culture of the country, or the organization.
And does the leader work alone or with other equally competent, or perhaps even more competent colleagues? As Doris Kearns Goodwin writes in "A Team of Rivals," Lincoln provides us with an excellent example of the leader without fear of outstanding cabinet colleagues.
And then there is that thing called ambition...which can be both gift and sword...depending on the manner in which the leader uses it. If too overt, it smacks of American brashness; if too understated, it smacks of Canadian false modesty. Hemingway's heroes demonstrated "grace under fire," a quality that leaders, especially in the kind of political vortex that Obama finds himself as president, must have in significant reserve. Whether or not the electorate appreciates his capacity for "grace under fire" is still a moot point. The next few months and years will tell that story. I'm betting his success has barely been glimpsed yet...another quality of great leaders...to keep us on the edge of our seats while continuing to play out the unwritten script of the drama that will become his/her legacy.
Is is not more than a little ironic that a college like RMC, Royal Military College, in Canada, does not believe in teaching "leadership" but rather prefers to teach psychology in its place? As if our military leaders of tomorrow will not have to have leadership skills that they have learned in their training and development...or perhaps they believe that the subject cannot be taught, that it must be integral to the person....not exclusively!

Obama: presidential, not "mud-slinging" like Republicans

By E.J.Dionne, Washington Post, in Toronto Star, August 30, 2010
There was a revealing moment in early August when Obama told an audience at a Texas fundraiser: “We have spent the last 20 months governing. They spent the last 20 months politicking.” Referring to the impending elections, he added: “Well, we can politick for three months. They’ve forgotten I know how to politick pretty good.”

Obama’s mistake is captured by that disdainful reference to “politicking.” In a democracy, separating governing from “politicking” is impossible. “Politicking” is nothing less than the ongoing effort to persuade free citizens of the merits of a set of ideas, policies and decisions. Voters feel better about politicians who put what they are doing in a compelling context. Citizens can endure setbacks as long as they believe the overall direction of the government’s approach is right.
At little different take on the Obama derision to politicking...
It is not that he is averse to "politicking;" I believe he has a stron aversion to the kind of character assassination and refusal to debate, except by using a few "bald" and negative talking points, that merely dumb down the debate and insult the intelligence of the electorate that has been practiced by the Republicans over the last two years. Slogans about "too much government" can be and have been mouthed by the most intellectually challenged of the Republican representatives in Congress and in the Senate. Others about "take over" of GM and Chrysler and "death panels" in the Health Reform bill, and "no jobs" have resulted from the stimulus packages...all simplistic talking points that do not address the nuanced, complicated, complex and almost frightening situation about both the deficit and the national debt.
While he has been so busy, ( is has often seemed as if the government was passing and he was signing a "bill-a-day" into law) and while he has been venturing into the heartland of small towns and small factories, trying to encourage, support and raise the spirit of those suffering most profoundly, as a consequence of the disaster, both in foreign and in domestic policy, that is the George W. Bush and the Republican Party's legacy, the Republicans have grown more shrill in attacking his "person" and not so much his policies.
It is the debate about policy, about legislation, about balanced and mature and responsible governance that Mr. Obama is more than ready to engage with his opponents. He is not, and should never stoop to, lowering his ideals, his rhetoric, and his view of the 'big' picture by slugging it out with his intellectually bankrupt, and morally vaccuous oponents over character assassinations...and that is what would result from his engagememnt in the "politicking" that Mr. Dionne speaks about.
At the same time, however, the media is far more interested in character assassination, because of its capacity to sell papers, and to raise ratings, in a culture in which both information and the messengers (media) are struggling for survival. And a tour of the editorial board rooms by the President between now and November is the least the Democratic candidates, and the President's party, can expect from the President, in an all-out initiative to sell the accomplishments of the last twenty months, and not merely explain how bad it would have been under the Republicans...a non-starter in an intellectually challenged culture.

Home-grown terrorists...of course!

By Haroon Siddiqui, Toronto Star, August 29, 2010
Baroness Manningham-Buller, former head of M15, the British security agency, said last month that Britain’s “involvement in Iraq radicalized a whole generation of young people . . . who saw our involvement in Iraq, on top of our involvement in Afghanistan, as an attack on Islam.” It led to an “almost overwhelming” increase in homegrown terrorism.

Leon Panetta, director of the CIA, said in June that American authorities are alarmed at the flurry of terrorist plots, by those directed by Al Qaeda and by “self-radicalized” militants.
(Canadian Minister of Public Safety, Vic )Towes, too, talked about the threat posed by “homegrown” and “self-radicalized” terrorists in Canada.
So while Al Qaeda and its offshoots are weaker than they’ve ever been since 2001, says Panetta, the threat of the terrorist next door has increased.
Of course, war provokes retaliation. And, of course, little frightened people, mostly male, forget that when they declare war on behalf of their people, as Bush-Cheney did in 2003 against Saddam Hussein's Iraq. And, yes, Hussein was an evil dictator whose use of poison gas against the Turks living in the Northern part of Iraq was, and is, both heinous and inexcusable. And that's why we have the International Court at the Hague, to try people whose leadership includes crimes against humanity. However,  a country like the U.S. with the largest inventory of military hardware, and the attitude, philosophy and mind-set to maintain its world hegemony, no matter the expense, and no matter the dubious consequences (after all it is a matter of national pride that young men and women who seek national honour and respectability through wearing the uniform, enlisting, going through bootcamp, and rising through the ranks, and also fulfilling their commitment to the constitution to "take up arms" when called upon by the country) refuses to sign on to the World Court in the Hague. Their argument has been that to do so might mean that American military personnel might be charged and tried in that venue, for crimes committed in the act of war, under orders from the leaders of the country (which really means that those same leaders would also be subject to the judicial processes of the World Court). And to their argument, the world says, "Nonsense!"
In fact, there are many around the world and in the U.S. itself, (excluding President Obama) who would like to see George W. Bush and Dick Cheney brought before the World Court in the Hague, for having committed war crimes against the humanity in Iraq for their unsupportable war against Hussein. Obama has, apparently, enough on his political plate, without adding the spectre of bring charges against a former president and vice-president within the U.S. judicial system, and the U.S. is not "subject" to the jurisdiction of The Court in the Hague.
And so, unwanted, home-grown insurrectionists, in league with, if not formally trained by radical Islamist jihadists, spring up in many liberal democracies prompting the expenditure of millions, if not billions, "to protect national security" through quasi-military measures like new "border security forces" in uniforms with vehicles, and carrying weapons "to protect against foreign as well as home-grown terrorists." And that group likely includes those trafficking in illicit drugs, also an international marketing underground. So, not only do we grow more terrorists through unprovoked wars, we also significantly expand, and justify, more and more "security forces" feeding on the public purse either directly as employees of government or as contractors, another 'growth industry' justified solely by the cover of a war, making everyone less safe and less secure.
It is little wonder that ordinary people wonder just how much fear, and how many lies we can tolerate, as part of a gigantic political thrust to move the western world to the Right, to increase our dependence on "force" as a principal, if not sole, protection, when a reversal of the official policy of governments to wage unholy wars in the name of God, freedom and security would reduce our need for such security, if not actually eliminate the need entirely.
And the Right calls their form of addressing the situation, "common sense!"  That is one of the better examples of Orwell's newspeak, when words mean the precise opposite of their intended meaning. And that same Right has both public purses and private donors to supply their "message war chest" for centuries, while the rest of us watch the tragic drama play out on the lives, families and future generations of innocent children.
We are not seduced by this game, and our grand children need to know, that there were voices protesting this suicidal self-sabotage even if those voices were never listened to. All we can do is hope that eventually our voices will rise to such a chorus that we will have to be heard because we will have drowned out the fear and the manipulation by the terrorist-provocateurs in elected offices in our own coutries.