Canuckistani

It they get a share, let 'em pay their own way and pay taxes on what they get. I don't agree with one race being given an extra share vs the rest of Canada, but if so, at least let em quit sucking off the govt tit.

Makes no sense to me to combine in one post quotes and responses to a number of people. Just creates a dog's breakfast as people try to respond to a multiquote post.

I've been hearing that song and dance forever. This isn't a new situation We don't have skilled Canadians, we have to import them. How long are we going to continue that bs, instead of knuckling down and training Canadians? It's not until there are trained Canadians, because we're not training them. Govt and industry has dropped the ball, because it's initially cheaper to import people instead of train them here. But that deprives Canadians at a chance of a good job. Canadians first.

I agree. One law for all. Creating Bantustans is not the way to run Canada. If natives need help with training and transitional funding to join our society, let's provide that. But having little villages in the middle of nowhere with no economic justification, and then expecting them to have a nice middle class life is just insane.

Amazing how Canadians would rather work at Starbucks than take good jobs. We seem to have shortages in skills right across the board, yet Canadians "don't want those jobs." BS. We're not training Canadians for those jobs, lots of unemployed would love to have those jobs, but there's a skills mismatch. We find it cheaper to import people from 3rd world countries than train our own people. This deprives that poor country of a skilled person, and fills a job here that a Canadian could do to better themselves. We should have a much more effective system of skills training in place in Canada. Look at the debacle with the coal miners. Supposedly there were no Canadians who had experience with this particular type of mining. We've had 5 years lead time on this project - plenty of time to train Canadians. And what, Chinese are born knowing how to do long wall mining? Or is it that the Chinese are willing to train their people? These miners have undercut wages in Canada, and have to pay a huge chunk of money to the facilitators who got them these jobs. Meanwhile Canadians miss out of a chance at a good job. And don't tell me that Canadians don't want those jobs - plenty of Canadians mining coal in Canada.

According to the hospital, the nurse who put the call thru and killed herself was not reprimanded.

No, the station was happy with what they were doing. How could they know somebody of that fragile an emotional state would kill herself. This woman must have have mental problems before this.

In January 2011 unemployment was 7.7. Did you make a post how terrible Harper is doing? In October 2011 and April the rate was 7.2 - did you cheer then? In October and Novmember it was 7.4. Did you rag on Harper for that? The forecast is for the rate to rise again in the new year. Guess we won't hear boo from you then.

So if in December the rate rises again, will you give a big boo? If you're going to cheer or boo every month as the rate rises or falls, you're going to be mighty busy. And, as somebody here posted, did you do an analysis of what kind of jobs were created? Mcjobs? I mean we import Chinese to be coal miners now, because we can't be bothered training our own, even with 5 years lead time. That's something that deserves a big raspberry. What's Harper doing to bring back the middle class is this country?

It's not hard. (no pun intended). It's called prison.

Never could figure out how that multiquote thing worked. Thanks to Merlin, now I do.

They did, they voted for statehood.

See what she's doing there? Minimizing the continued taking of Palestinian land. It may only be a barren hill, but when that's all there is, it's everything. Talk to Hamas first - how does that work? Hamas stops the rockets, but Israel just keeps on taking land? What people in their right mind would agree to such a deal. The world does condemn Syria. But what are they supposed to do? The world condemns Israel, but it's not as if the world is doing anything there either. And the world condemns attacks on Israel as well, but again, what should the world do if Israel is not willing to give back the land and keeps stealing more? Again, it's in Israel's best interest to leave a viable piece of land for the Palestinians to create their own state. The jews already won when Palestine was first divided (ie got the biggest piece) then won more territory in the subsequent wars. The lesson learned after WWI is you don't take everything from your enemy, because otherwise he will come back to fight again - ie WWII. The Allies were smarter with Germany then, Israel needs to be smarter with Palestine now.

Just stealing a little land here. No biggie, just something minor. Land doesn't really matter. Ignore the man behind the curtain, ignore the man behind the curtain.

The wait time horrors I hear about are in major centers, not the fact that somebody in Armpit has to travel some distance to an ER in the first place. http://www.theglobea...article1462015/ As I've said, I'm leery of anything the brings in more for profit health insurance. I have no problem with for profit health providers (as our doctors are).

I posted per capita costs some time back. France is significantly lower than ours, but very similar as percentage of GDP. France has been held up as the top system in the world, including in many outcome measures. I don't believe that the pop/area piece is the driver for our higher costs/lower service. Remember Frances costs include prescription and dental coverage, etc. I think we just don't use our healthcare dollars in the most effective manner, and part of that is likely that we have healthcare a provincial responsibility instead of federal, the way it should be. Equal coverage for every Canadian, right across the land.

I believe most European MD's are paid a salary, not fee for service. Have you got a link for GP earnings of canada vs the countries you mentioned? So if France has 50% more docs per capita than we do, better outcomes and spends significantly less per capita than we do, then the Fraser Institute is right, we should be copying their system. As long as we keep out the American for profit insurers, I'd be all for it. Wonder how that would fly under NAFTA.

What's the wait time for an uninsured person? Yep, most of us huddle near the border. But Canadian healthcare costs are based on the total population - ie all those remote reserves, etc. See what I added to my previous post re coverage in the US. We don't want to go down that road - not ever.

Now there's an understatement. Healthcare costs at 150% of ours, yet the manage to not even cover 15% of the population. And their population density is 10 times what our is. Also, I've had HMO coverage. You can't choose your doctor - must be on their list. You have huge co-pays, yet still get a good whack deducted off your check to pay your portion of the coverage. You have to go to an approved hospital, so if your little girl dies because the hospital won't treat her but sends her to an approved hospital, too bad. To get coverage, a high school educated person looks up your ailment in a manual and makes the decision whether to fund you or not. And, like the Blue Cross coverage, if you have a pre-existing condition, you are SOFL. Or if they decide you lied by not telling them about the acne you had as a kid or something. US medical insurance is a nightmare. We should do everything we can to stay away from it.

I bet the MDs in France are paid a lot less than ours are. They make a good income, but nothing compared to the US. And our physicians compare themselves with the US. That's the overall problem. I agree with the Fraser Institute that we should try to emulate the European countries more, with a mix of public and private insurance. What the Fraser Institute won't tell you, is that the private insurance in Europe is almost all non-profit. The Fraser Institute are just shills for the private, for profit, insurance companies in the US. And that's the problem. We're close to the US. As soon as we open the market (more than it already is) to private insurance, the big boys in the US will swoop in and try to create the same costly mess as they have down there. And ideologues like Harper would be all for it. I think we can make intelligent reforms within our single payer system. We'd have to break the monopoly power of the doctors tho. One way is to use Nurse Practitioners, as I've said. Also, pay the docs less and don't use the fee for service model. In return for paying them less, we would forgive any student loans they have, but only if they've established a long term practice in Canada. If they move to the states, hound them for every last dollar.

France has twice the population that Canada does, so I would expect them to have at least 100% more MDs. If they really only have 50% more, then those MDs are doing yeoman service and we should copy what they do. Or did you mean per capita?

Why? Ontario isn't a country. Why not country to country?

On what basis are you comparing Ont. with France and Germany? Certainly not population per area, I hope.

health care expenditure per GDP/per capita: Germany: 11.6 4218 Canada: 11.4 4363 Holland: 12.0 4914 France: 11.8 3978 But we could and should be able to get more for our money.

We should be using Nurse Practitioners as front line people anyway. That would reduce the need for GPs. And if we need more, open spaces for them. Our medical schools spaces are very restricted, we could and should be training a lot more people. If we have plenty of specialists, don't open more spaces for them, but do so for GPs. What we also need to be training more of are gerontologists.