Liberal MP wants to delay new hospital

Welland Liberal federal incumbent MP John Maloney ran the above ad in Niagara This Week, Sept.19, 2008.

Is this guy running in a provincial election?!

The Niagara Health System and its HIP are a provincial responsibility - and during the last election, Dalton McGuinty and his Niagara MPP's, Kim Craitor and Jim Bradley, pretended there were no problems whatsoever with Ontario's government-run health monopoly.

Since the Ontario Liberals took office in 2003, has Maloney ever contacted McGuinty, Bradley, Craitor, former health minister George Smitherman, or current health minister David Caplan on the issue of the Niagara Health System's governance and funding model? If so, what was their answer?? And if not, why not? Was this not of any concern to Maloney - for the last five years - until just now?!

Has Liberal MP Maloney bothered to send any letters to St. Catharines Liberal MPP Jim Bradley asking Bradley to call for an immediate investigation into the NHS's mortality-rate, revealed in Nov. 2007 as being the third-highest in Canada? No Liberal has yet explained the reasons for this. Jim Bradley has refused to answer questions or publicly explain why this occurred in the hospital in his own riding. Has Maloney ever sent any letters to any Liberal provincial MPP raising his concerns about the NHS?

McGuinty's Liberals are responsible for running Ontario's health care monopoly - these are their policies, their facilities, and their LHINS coming up with the ideas which Maloney finds are "unacceptable": so then, has Maloney contacted them? Did any provincial Liberal answer? What was their reply?

Does federal Liberal Maloney now want to stall the provincial Liberals proposed new hospital even further? What will the impact of that delay be, in terms of money and patient detriment? Will John Maloney be answering that question, or will Jim Bradley be hiding from answering that question?

And in any event, does Maloney think that simply moving the new hospital to a central location will magically solve the systemic problems brought about by institutionalized monopoly health care?

When Liberal Stephane Dion recently showed up right in Niagara, for his St. Catharines town hall green shaft announcement, he never once even mentioned the words 'health care'. Of course, both Jim Bradley and John Maloney know that - they were there.