Riverwind

More money IS the cure, Martin has been stealth-nerfing healthcare funding all along. He'd announce extra money for healthcare then either not deliver OR deliver publically and remove money through other (unreported) cuts for a net decrease in funding. You miss the point entirely, Universal health cannot possibly meet the needs of 100% of the people 100% of the time since there is not an infinite amount of money. This problem comes from the nature of any large bureaucratic system. The best way to ensure that people do not slip through the cracks is to allow them to make their own decisions regarding healthcare: even if that means paying for a service themselves. Healthcare spending is a beast that is growing faster than inflation and the economy. This speading is already squeezing out spending on important programs such as education and the environment. If you draw a line on a graph you would see that healthcare will eat up 100% of government revenue in a few decades. In other words no amount of taxation will provide the system with enough money so we must rethink how we deliver and pay for care.

Whenever a government must manage a complex system to meet the needs of a large number of people, the government must conduct a 'cost benefit analysis' to determine whether any specific expenditure will deliver a benefit to the group as a whole that outweighes its cost. What this means is that the needs of some individuals will ALWAYS fall though the gaps in the system since sacrificing the lives of a 10% of the indviduals in the system is acceptable in the name of preserving the system for the 90%. The 'sacrifice' that the 10% is caused in many ways including restructions on new drugs and treatments, limits on access to diagnostic equipment, and waiting lists. However, those people who falling into this 10% obviously would put a much higher price on the value of their own lives even if the government decides that society would not benefit enough to justify the expense. This is why it is absolutely necessary to allow participation of the private sector in healthcare because it allows individuals to make thier own choices about healthcare. This why the supreme court ruled the way it did. Futhermore, I have read some human resources studies that show that the effect of money on the moral of workers is short term because within a few years the workers feel they 'deserve' the new pay levels and start complaining about the same things again and demand even higher pay. This is another reason why 'throwing money at the system' will not fix it in the long term.

Pot calling the kettle black? Or does cut & pasting articles from other sites count as substance?

If one really did a scientific anlysis you would likely find that the media in the country is quite balanced and the perception of 'bias' comes entirely from people with extreme views at either end of the spectrum. For example, you think that everything that comes out of Jack Layton's mouth is the word of God, as a result, you assume that there must be some right wing media conspirasy to explain why the media does not treat Layton's opinions with the respect that you think a diety like Jack deserves. In other words, what you think are 'kid gloves' is actually a balanced views that treats the opinion of opposition politicians as 'opinion' and not fact.

Such a change would make the wheeling and dealing of the last few weeks look tame in comparision. The party system has flaws but it is necessary to have a stable gov't.

Because he looks good compared to the competition.

NAFTA only requires equal treatment of US and Mexican companies. In other words, NAFTA does not prevent Canada from having rules that are completely different from the US which llimit the participation of private insurers in the market place. The only caveat is gov't must be sure the rules are clear and should go slowly because it will be near impossible to change the rules after the fact. That said, the gov't probably could require any US company that wishes to enter the marketplace sign an agreement of understanding that warns them in advance that gov't regulations will change constantly over the next decade or so as Canadians figure out what they want to do. Companies that are not prepared to accept that should stay out of the marketplace.

I suspect we will agree that the supreme court ruling is the best thing that has happened to system in a long time. Martin will have to be judged by how he handles this ruling. I am very glad to hear the media repeating the message that European countries have a private/public health care mix which should help people get over their fear of the US system (which really should be feared - it is probably the worse system in the world).

The vast majority of people get decent and timely care. The waiting list issue is being delt with, however, pefection is impossible on the health file since costs are rising faster than GDP and tax revenue. See this story: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/Art...ent/TopStories/ Chretian dithered way too long on this file but this is just one of many issues. The Liberals have negotiated an agreement with the automakers in lieu of regulation that will dramatically reduce the C02 emmisions from the major source. Increased the amount of scholarships available to students everywhere in the country. Got the deficit under control and reduced taxes while increasing program spending. The fact that Canadian interest rates are now lower than the US interest rates is in a large part due to the sound managment on the part of the Liberals. The mistakes made in some ill-conceived programs are small in comparison to over all spending.

This is from a trademark FAQ in the US (laws are similar in Canada). 4. How are trademark rights acquired? Trademark rights are not acquired through the registration process. Common law ownership rights are acquired through actual use of the mark in commerce. Generally, the first person to use a trademark is the first person to acquire rights to the mark.

I believe it depends on who has the tradmark on the term 'Bob Clothing'. Here is a link with more info: http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/sc_mrksv/cipo/tm/tm_main-e.html

I have had first hand experience with the Japanese system and it does have flaws but, on the whole, provides better healthcare to more people than the Canadian system. The most important difference is competetion: hospitals and doctors must compete for patients and, as a result, are motivated to invest in equipment and provide better care.

You must be kidding. People are suffering and dying on waiting lists because the gov't is forced to prioritize how the limited amount of public funding get spent. The supreme court says this violates a person's rights and your solution is to make this suffering and dying constitutional? Our system cannot be fixed without changing the way it works. It is a monster that WILL consume every tax dollar that we spend on it because the cost of healthcare increases as the amount of money available to spend on it increases. A leader with vision and imagination could re-structure the system to allow a private system to supplement the public without undermining the public system. For example, rules could be put in place that only allow private care only if the public system is not able to provide care in a timely fashion (i.e. any surgury within a few weeks). You could add a special 'luxery' tax to private health care fees that are used to fund the public system. The next few months will show which of our leaders has vision. Layton will likely spout the usual 'money will solve everything' garbage so the vision contest will between Martin and Harper. I bet both parties are going to be polling like mad for the next couple weeks before they say anything concrete. My guess is the polls will be mixed depending on the question. I think that the majority of Canadians will agree with the supreme court ruling once they realize that it does not mean that the US system is coming to Canada.

This is a red herring. The gov't health plan hires the neurosurgeon as a contractor and negotiates a lower rate as 'bulk' buyer. If the neurosurgeon is truely the only one around then the gov't will just have to pay his/her asking price. Most likely, the gov't an doctor will come to an agreement that will ensure that all suguries that the gov't is willing to pay for are done as they are today for the same cost.

What a rediculous statement. None of our elected leaders are thieves except in the imagination of conservative supporters. This is a perfect example of why the conservatives are down in the polls - Canadians are getting tired of these kinds of exagerations and outright deceptions coming from the conservative party supporters.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...Story/National/ The court ruled that the ban on private care violates the Quebec Charter of Rights but not the Canadian Charter of Rights. This seems to imply that the Canadian government cannot pass laws that force the provinces to violate their own constitutions. This may have huge implications we it comes to federal provincial powers that go way beyond healthcare. Thought?

Polls go up, polls go down. Another round of negative coverage following Gomery issuing his report will send the numbers down again. What these numbers do show is the CPC needs to drastically rethink its strategy. I have seen signs that this is happening. The CPC appears to backing off on SSM - it is only an issue because of the Liberal back benchers now.

This is a false dichotomy. The only people who like inflation are labour leaders because they don't have to settle for 0% wage increases year after year. Inflation allows labour leaders to sound like they are getting wage increases for their members when they actually are a wage cut after inflation. Inflation puts a financial strain on everyone who does not have the ability to negotiate price increases. This includes everyone from the small business people exporting product around the world to a pensioner with annuities or non-indexed pension plans.

Useless scare mongering. Why haven't feminists sued the Catholic church for discrimination? Answer: it is easier to find a church that accepts woman clergy. Same thing will be true for gays. There are more than enough churches that are willing to marry gays that it would not be worth the effort.

Which is an absolute nightmare. The US house of representatives does not have the power to force an election of the president which puts a limit on the power of free agent representatives. We really need to rethink the parlimentary rules on confidence votes if we are really in a situation of perpetual minority. I am not surprised O'Brian bolted - he was not exactly quiet about the SSM issue. PM PM should have delt with it before he went public. That said, I don't understand why O'Brian would stake his political career on a battle that is already lost - SSM marriage is a fact in 7 provinces and 2 terroritories and nothing the feds may do can change it (except for the nothwithstanding clause). Even if O'brian forces an election the new minority parliment would likely have enough votes to get the bill passed anyways.

I was raised in a Catholic family so I know many devoted Catholics quite well. I have noticed there are three distinct groups within the church: 1) The Reglious: people who are focused entirely on the dogma and the pronouncements of the Pope. These people constantly judge everyone else's moral character based on how the other people follow the 'word of god'. 2) The Socialites: people who don't care much for God but see the church as a community club. 3) The Spiritual: people who are focused entirely on their relationship with god and their faith. These people rarely talk about church dogma and generally have only a passing interest in what the Pope says. Only people in group 1) are concerned about issues like birth control, SSM and abortion. People in group 3) may profess opposition to these thing but do not feel that they have to join a crusade to get rid of them. Being around people in group 3) is inspiring even to someone that does not share their faith because you can see their faith gives them a sense of strength and inner peace. Being around people in group 1) is like listening to someone scrap their nails on the chalkboard because they have no real faith: just a belief that if they follow the church rules they will go to heaven. So, my point it. People who are religious should never assume: 1) They speak for all church going people. 2) That people who do not go church do not have any belief in God

I wondering if giving money away classifies as making laws? Joking aside, I am pretty sure transportation is a federal or joint juristiction so supporting cities in narrowly defined areas is likley constitutional. I share the sketicism of other posters regarding PM ability to deliver.

You are correct to say that it is impossible under the current constitution. If Quebec separates Canada will have to rewrite its constitution which means the provisions regarding citizenship could be radically altered. The new constitution could even have a provision that prohibits dual citizenships between Quebec and Canada but preserves dual citizenships with every other country. You cannot launch a charter challenge against something that is written into the constitution and it is also unlikely that an appeal to the UN would criticize Canada from making such a move since many other countries have much tighter citizenship rules. Obviously, the question becomes: what are the chances that Canada would do such a thing after a yes vote? I would say very likely because: 1) A democratic country cannot function if 25% of its citizens live and pay taxes in another country. The fact that all of those citizens would be entitled to vote and to claim social benefits without returning anything back to the country is extremely problematic. So for purely pragmatic reasons the citizenship issue must be addressed. (aside: about 3-4% Canadians live abroad today - this percentage is not enough to disrupt the institutions of the county so the benefits of having citizens abroad outweigh the disadvantages). 2) People in English Canada get particularly outraged whenever a separatist suggests that Quebequers could keep their Canadian citizenship after a yes vote. It would be very difficult for any politician in Canada to agree to a deal that allowed Quebequers to keep their citizenships. In short citizenship will be a very emotional and symbolic issue after a yes vote. Separatists can ignore it only at their peril. I suspect a likely compromise would include something equivalent to the Hong Kong British passport as a short term solution that would require any Quebequer to relocate to Canada within a few years if they wished to regain full citizenship. The citizenship is just one of many issues. I think separatists are doing Quebequers a huge disservice by dismissing many of the negative consequences of separations as scare tactics. Many of the negative consequences will come to pass because Canada will have to look after its own interest and those interests are very different than what the separatists would like Quebequers to believe.

I found this on another blog:

Offering someone a cabinet position and a chance to be in the seante to defect from their party is also illegal isn't it? It depends on whether a position was actually offered (which it wasn't). I would expect the same slippery logic could be applied to the fraud issue because I think there has to be some prospect for personal gain in order for there to be fraud. I think we can give Harper the benefit of the doubt on whether he was personally involved in the edits - given how unprofessional the job was I suspect it was Grewal acting alone. A civil suit is another question. I suspect Grewal will find him subject to a civil suit in the near future. Whether or not the Conservatives get dragged into the civil suit will depend on how much longer Harper continues to back Grewal.