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Ottawa’s offer and the provinces’ health challenge
Thursday, December 22nd, 2011
Dec. 21, 2011
When people rightly ask: Why didn’t all that federal money indexed at 6 per cent bring about more change?, part of the answer lies right there. Federal transfers indexed at 6 per cent don’t provide any new resources for a system with 7-per-cent yearly spending increases… The biggest challenge all governments will face is to bring health-care spending down to the growth in the economy, something none of them have done. That challenge will be even tougher because the Canadian economy will not grow as fast in the next decade as it did in the past one, and the population is aging.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology
Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »
Shrewd tactics not the same as good health policy
Tuesday, December 20th, 2011
Dec. 20, 2011
… the deal offered by Mr. Harper’s government is reasonable. It is fiscally responsible, tying spending increases to inflation… [but] federal funds be used to exercise leadership and foster innovation (or to “buy change”… there are areas, such as catastrophic drug coverage and homecare, where there are gross regional disparities… Federal dollars should be used to level the playing field, to ensure there is a semblance of a national medicare program. That should be a goal even for a government that, philosophically, believes in decentralization, as the current one does.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »
Charities working hard for your money
Tuesday, December 20th, 2011
Dec. 20, 2011
Social services come in all shapes and sizes. Some are remarkably effective, and some are not. Some are nimble and creative, and some are not. The best ones change people’s lives. But too many of them mistake activity for results… Good social-service agencies are incredibly important, because the government can’t possibly do what they do. Governments aren’t flexible, efficient or smart enough. But social-service agencies, like everybody else, will have to get much better at what they do. They’ve got to compete harder than ever for donor money.
Tags: budget, ideology, philanthropy
Posted in Inclusion Delivery System | No Comments »
Telling the naked truth is good politics
Tuesday, December 20th, 2011
Dec. 19, 2011
Most Canadians no longer believe their leaders speak the truth; they expect little of government and feel disengaged from the whole political process… Yet, it’s the truth and authenticity we crave, more than anything… Consider the explosion of technologies and the freedom and control they provide… Feeling more knowledgeable, connected and in control of our personal lives has also directly reduced our reliance on authority… Our political leaders have not only failed to adjust to this new reality, they also avoid honestly and directly engaging on our most pressing issues. And that’s what we desperately need.
Tags: featured, participation
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Health-care talks aren’t just about money, Saskatchewan Premier says
Monday, December 19th, 2011
Dec. 13, 2011
Mr. Wall… doesn’t want to make upcoming negotiations all about money, percentages and escalator clauses. Rather, the Premier believes Canadians want the provinces to have a “discussion around results and better health care.” … his province is successfully using private clinics to help reduce wait times for certain surgeries. They operate under the Canada Health Act but allow patients to have certain day surgeries outside of a hospital… Given the choice between timely surgery and having to wait, Mr. Wall said, people will choose surgery over ideology.
Tags: budget, Health, standard of living
Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »
Canada needs a more-efficient health care system
Monday, December 19th, 2011
Dec. 19, 2011
The number of doctors – there are nearly 70,000 – and their salaries are both at all-time highs. More Canadians have a family doctor than in years past, proof that progress has been made. But access to them is among the worst in the world… Canadians shouldn’t fool themselves into thinking poor access is the inevitable consequence of a publicly-funded health care system. Patients in the Netherlands and Germany have rapid access to specialists, much like Americans where private care prevails. Our system is simply not efficient.
Tags: budget, Health, standard of living
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
How first nations can own their future
Saturday, December 17th, 2011
Dec. 17, 2011
Truly progressive governments recognize individual property rights and enforce the rule of law, thus allowing people to reap the rewards of their initiatives. Individual property, voluntary yet enforceable contracts, open markets – these have been the holy trinity of economic progress in the Western world since the Industrial Revolution, and they are transforming China, India, Brazil and many other previously impoverished countries. The formula for progress is no different for first nations…
Tags: economy, ideology, Indigenous, participation, privatization, rights, standard of living
Posted in Equality Policy Context | No Comments »
Even with a majority, the bullying goes on
Saturday, December 17th, 2011
Dec. 16, 2011
If anything, the Harper government is more bullying, scornful of dissent, intent on controlling every utterance, contemptuous of the media and determined to carry on political war at all times and by all means… In the Commons, the government is using closure repeatedly. Faced with an adverse decision from the Federal Court against its legislation to end the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly, the government waved the ruling aside and said it would proceed… Information is as tightly controlled as ever. Everything runs through the central information machine in the Prime Minister’s Office.
Tags: participation, rights
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Ottawa proposes first nations property ownership
Thursday, December 15th, 2011
Dec. 15, 2011
Conservative MPs are proposing… legislation that would allow natives to own private property within the communal land of reserves. The change… would mark a dramatic shift for individuals living on reserve. It would make it easier to accumulate wealth and to use homes as collateral when seeking bank loans to start businesses… about 10 communities out of the more than 600 first nation reserves in Canada that are ready to move in this direction… But Mr. Atleo of the Assembly of First Nations has previously… noted that AFN chiefs had rejected the concept of private property.
Tags: economy, ideology, Indigenous, privatization, rights
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Harper government misguided in its tough-on-crime approach
Tuesday, December 13th, 2011
Dec. 12, 2011
Canada is heading to that awful place that the United States has just inhabited for 20 years – a place of longer and longer prison sentences, of a futile “war on drugs,” of mandatory minimum sentences for nearly everything (including six months for growing as few as five marijuana plants) that remove judges’ discretion. The financial and social costs in the U.S. were incalculable, and just as the U.S. is coming to its senses, Canada is losing its own.
Tags: budget, corrections, crime prevention, ideology
Posted in Child & Family Debates | No Comments »
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