Liberal MPP Kim Craitor: too dumb to see that his Liberals are part of the problem, not part of the solution

Ray Spiteri wrote in Hudak 'won't give up' on ER in Fort Erie, (Niagara Falls Review, Apr.30, 2010):

"If elected premier in 2011, Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak says he would restore emergency room services in Fort Erie "if the community was still asking for it."

"I just fundamentally disagree with (Premier) Dalton McGuinty's decision to close down that ER," Hudak said Thursday during a stop in Niagara, including a speech to about 60 people on the front lawn of Douglas Memorial Hospital.

I will continue to fight to keep it open."

When asked if it's not too late - the Niagara Health System having downgraded the ER at Douglas Memorial Hospital to an urgent-care centre last year as part of its controversial system-wide restructuring plan - Hudak said: "I'm not going to give up."

Severe emergency and trauma cases in Fort Erie are now directed out of town to fully functioning emergency departments in Niagara Falls, Welland or St. Catharines.

Approved by the provincial Local Health Integration Network in early 2009, the NHS plan also calls for the maternity ward in Niagara Falls to be closed in favour of a centralized site -known as the centre of excellence -at the new St. Catharines Hospital in 2013.

Hudak wouldn't commit to reversing the maternity decision.

"I want to see us maintain our front-line health-care services - prioritize health-care dollars that will actually go to patients and that's why I've said that these LHINs, the regional health bureaucracies, are an abuse of tax dollars," Hudak said.

"We've seen some $200 million come out of front-line patient care to go into the LHINs. They've got a spanking brand new office in Grimsby. We've seen the number of staff making $100,000 a year double, while they're cutting services in our hospitals.

"I'd prioritize front-line care first." Hudak was critical of the government's recent decision to delay, for at least a year, a mandatory review of Ontario's 14 LHINs, a provincial agency created by the McGuinty Liberals in 2006 to oversee health-care funding and planning in communities across Ontario.

But he never directly answered whether the NHS, an amalgamated, regional hospital board created in 1999 by then Conservative premier Mike Harris, should also be reviewed, as has been requested by Niagara Falls MPP Kim Craitor.

"There's no doubt that we've seen more health bureaucracy from the McGuinty government," said Hudak. "Dalton McGuinty's turned the health budget into his own personal slush fund. We'd put it into front-line care."

Dr. John McAuley, regional chief of emergency medicine for the NHS, said the conversion of the ER to an urgent-care centre was done "to improve quality of care."

"This decision was based on what is considered to be the gold standard today in emergency service delivery, which includes on-site access to CT and 24-7 access to specialist physicians," McAuley said in an email to The Niagara Falls Review. "These services were not available at the Fort Erie site prior to the conversion. Future discussions about converting the (urgent-care centre) back to an ER would have to consider these requirements."

Craitor said he shares some of the same health-care concerns as Hudak. Craitor feels, however, that Hudak's recent criticisms has more to do with party politics.

"It's a little too late Tim," Craitor said. "He had his chance when Mr. Harris was premier to step up and say the NHS would create problems for Niagara-area hospitals. But he didn't. He stood there while Niagara residents were told the NHS would provide the best health care they'd ever receive."

Meanwhile, Craitor said Fort Erie Mayor Doug Martin met with Craitor and Health Minister Deb Matthews in Toronto Thursday, where the three "discussed proposals to improve health care in Fort Erie." "

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WHAT exactly was the result of this "meeting" with Martin and Matthews - Craitor didn't say! (Probably the same kind of toxic hot-air which had been spewed when Liberal-groupthinkers Smitherman, Vance Badawey and Jim Bradley had their 'meetings to improve health care' several years ago... which directly led to Liberal Smitherman closing down Port Colborne's hospital emergency room! It's a fact: ask Badawey about all that.)

Take note of Craitor's smug response to Hudak's pledge - a pledge better than anything any McGuinty Liberal - including Craitor himself! - has bothered to make; and anything the NDP has yet to make!

A wildly-spinning Craitor full well knows - but can't bring himself to admit - that the NHS DID NOT create the LHIN's. Craitor refuses to admit that Craitor's own Liberals created the LHIN's. It was Craitor's Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty who gave the LHIN's millions of our tax dollars to build their swanky new offices and institutionalize their new monopolist bureaucracy.

Yet: Craitor is spinning it that somehow the NHS and Harris are to blame! WTF, Kimmy... really? [Seriously - this f*cker is Niagara's MPP?] Craitor had a chance to accept help for his constituents - yet instead, he chose to get all political about it!

Craitor blatantly ignores the fact that George Smitherman (the Liberal hack of a former health minister) ordered the NHS to cut their spending; which led to the Kitts 'HIP' report, which led to the two subsequent Niagara ER closings!!

Kim Craitor knows this, yet Craitor keeps on spewing his false meme, his disingenuous lefty-hack narrative, pretending that the NHS somehow, out of the blue, one day just decided to carry out these cuts all on their own - in a vacuum, without LIBERAL government approval!!
The truth is, that the NHS was told to make hospital cuts - BY CRAITOR'S OWN LIBERALS!!

Furthermore, this Liberal scumbag keeps on dredging up Harris - desperately trying to divert our attention from the bald truth that CRAITOR'S OWN LIBERAL GOVERNMENT ordered the NHS cuts!

And Craitor also wants us to forget another subsequent truth: that it was Craitor himself who just "stood there" while HIS OWN LIBERALS were closing ER's in Niagara, screwing him and his riding in the process.

Craitor wants us to forget that it was Craitor's OWN squawking about the NHS's governance model which led his own Liberal colleague Smitherman to force the HIP upon the NHS, thereby forcing the closure of the two Niagara emergency rooms!
In other words, the HIP's paternity can actually be traced back to Craitor - not even remotely to Harris!!
Liberal hacks Kim Craitor - along with George Smitherman - fathered the Niagara HIP.

We know (contrary to Craitor's despicable spin) that it was NOT Harris, and it was NOT the NHS, who had ordered the HIP health care cuts: it was Liberal MPP Craitor's own Liberal government! Craitor's own Liberal government ordered that cuts be made at the NHS [by forcing the NHS to come up with a 'HIP' - 'Hospital Improvement Plan']; and Craitor's own Liberals then forced the NHS to implement those cuts!!
Not one Liberal health minister (neither Smitherman, nor David Caplan, nor Deb Matthews) bothered to stop or to reverse the HIP plan!
Craitor propagates a preposterous fantasy by blaming others for his own Liberal government's health care incompetency!
The Smitherman-created LHIN bureaucracy (which is the Liberals' new provincial overseer of the NHS) ordered the NHS to find places to cut; and then the same Liberals ordered the hospital to make the cuts!
What part of the chain of command does Craitor not understand here??!
The NHS complied with what its Liberal political masters demanded.

There were three Liberal health ministers - first Smitherman, then David Caplan, and now Deb Matthews - who were doing McGuinty's dirty work - yet now this incompetent Liberal boob Kim Craitor squawks that it's "too late"?! What a dirtbag.
Both Caplan and Matthews had plenty of time to reconsider and to reverse the Smitherman-instigated Niagara HIP - but they didn't; meanwhile, loyal Liberal partisan hack Craitor 'just stood there' and didn't make a peep about that.
(We have to openly wonder: what the hell was this reporter Spiteri actually doing, while Craitor was spouting this horseshit? Spiteri didn't challenge any of it.)

Here's a question which Spiteri chose not to ask: Why isn't Craitor calling for a review of his own Liberal-government-created LHIN's?!

Craitor's party of Liberal liars have just cancelled (see here) a review of the LHIN's - a review which had been promised by none other than Premier Liar McGuinty!!

Apparently, the daily lies coming from his own Liberal party don't bother Craitor at all!!

Why doesn't Craitor call for a review of the utter failure of single-payer health care monopolism in Dalton McGuinty's Ontario?

What patients really need is choice - and not to be trapped and beholden to the whims of an ideological, single-payer-pushing, incompetent lying government and its pandering politicians - no matter what party they're from.

And, exactly what is "too late"? Is Craitor just repeating what his Liberal bosses have already told him?

Is it "too late" to fight for the Fort Erie ER, Kim -  the same place which YOUR OWN Liberals closed?

Yet strangely (since 2003... seven years after Harris!) apparently it's never too late for Liberal Craitor to blame Harris - for what Liberal McGuinty did!

Craitor's feat of Liberal bullshitmanship is simply awe-inspiring in its audacity... simply precious... what sublime Liberal healthcare duplicity!

This greasy Grit phony, Craitor, didn't bother to quit his own party in protest; why, McGuinty's Liberals are so good that this clown Craitor is planning to run again!! Craitor's new slogan: "It's too late. I give up."
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Are McGuinty's Liberals suppressing the Ombudsman's report on Niagara's LHIN?

Where is the promised Ombudsman's report on McGuinty's Liberal-created, appointed, and funded, LHIN health network?

Back in January 2010 (see here; see here) it was reported that the Ombudsman's investigation into the Liberal's LHIN was ready, and that Ontario's ombudsman Andre Marin was supposedly close to releasing it within several weeks.

What has happened to this report? Has it disappeared?

Ray Spiteri reported in "Marin set to release report", (Welland Tribune, Jan.28, 2010):

"Ontario ombudsman Andre Marin has completed his investigation into the public consultation process followed by the agency that oversees hospitals in Niagara.

"Mr. Marin is getting ready to release his findings sometime in the next several weeks," spokeswoman Linda Williamson said of the investigation that started last March. "He will not be commenting publicly prior to the release."

The provincial government watchdog received 37 complaints about the Hamilton Niagara Haldimand Brant Local Health Integration Network from residents, community associations, health-care professionals and a Hamilton-area MPP.

Of those, 13 were about the Niagara Health System's hospital improvement plan.

The rest concerned the LHIN's consideration of Hamilton Health Sciences' proposal for changes at McMaster University Medical Centre.

In Niagara, complainants felt the LHIN did not consult enough with residents on a controversial restructuring plan for hospitals, including closing emergency departments in Fort Erie and Port Colborne.

LHIN chief executive officer Pat Mandy said she has "no idea" what to expect from Marin's report and, like everybody else, she is awaiting the ombudsman's findings.

"We certainly co-operated with the investigation. We gave the ombudsman's office all of the information that they requested, and they met with several of us," said Mandy.

"Part of the LHIN's role is community engagement and we've been involved, I think, in significant community engagement right from the inception of the LHIN (in 2005)."

Sue Salzer, head of a community group opposed to recent changes at Douglas Memorial Hospital, said she has been anticipating Marin's report for months.

"It was originally scheduled, as we were told by (the ombudsman's) office, for the end of October.

"Then it was the end of November. And now I have correspondence from them that indicates that the ombudsman himself ... will meet with the premier previous to the release of the report," said Salzer.

"Based on everything that we have heard from people who have been extensively interviewed by them, we feel that it may cast some aspersions upon the operation of the LHIN with respect to their public consultations."

Marin's findings will be all the more timely, given the recent calls for a coroner's inquest into whether Reilly Anzovino, an 18-year-old Fort Erie woman fatally injured in a car crash on Boxing Day, might still be alive if the Fort Erie emergency department had still been operating.

The collision happened on Hwy. 3 near Nigh Rd. Anzovino was just 16 kilometres from Douglas Memorial Hospital, but the ER there closed in September, forcing the ambulance to take nearly twice as long to transport the teen to the nearest hospital in Welland.

Anzovino died en route to Welland County General Hospital. But Niagara residents' health-care concerns are not limited to Fort Erie.

In December, Niagara Falls city council called for the appointment of a provincial investigator to look into concerns raised by the Ontario Medical Association's emergency medicine section about the operation of the ER at Greater Niagara General Hospital.

Williamson said the ombudsman did not assess the merits of the Hamilton and Niagara restructuring proposals during his investigation. Rather, Marin's investigation focused on the LHIN's role in the decisions made and alleged problems with the process, including complaints of insufficient consultation.

The ombudsman's role is to ensure government accountability through oversight of the administration of services. While the ombudsman does not have jurisdiction over hospitals, he does have jurisdiction over LHINs.

The LHIN in this area is the second-largest in the province, covering 1.4 million residents.

This is the first ombudsman investigation into one of the province's 14 LHINs, created five years ago as part of the McGuinty government's plan to hand over the responsibility for health-care funding and planning to local appointees."

In January 2010 the press was reporting that the Ombudsman's report was to have been released within several weeks - it's now May... so: WHERE IS THIS REPORT ?!

Why has the Ombudsman's report still not been made public?

Are McGuinty's secretive Liberals suppressing the Ombudsman's office?

Why aren't Niagara Liberal MPP's Kim Craitor and Jim Bradley saying anything about this?

Iggy's protectionist Foodcare fiasco

Here's the Tornto Star (Apr.26, 2010) crowing about Ignatieff's so-called Eat Canadian plan. It sounds so lovely, doesn't it; so bucolic, and pure and natural and generally so darned good, eh?! Why, Iggy himself's gonna 'work with farmers from the farm up, rather than from Ottawa down'... aww, gee... that's swell; so swell that writer Gail Swainson couldn't find the time to actually question any of the Liberal propaganda gushingly spouted in her column. Investigate and report all sides of the story - are you kidding?!

So let's read another side regarding Iggy's do-nothing-window-dressing of a Liberal agricultural policy, a side which the Toronto Star strangely didn't bother to dwell upon (!), such as the StarPhoenix editorial "Ignatieff failing to grasp reality of prarie farms", (Apr.27, 2010, here). Ignatieff's Toronto Liberals wouldn't want to read any of that!!!

Here's another perspective on Iggy's not-so-well-thought-out wedge-politics "Canada can't grow everything", (Apr.28, 2010, National Post, here). Hmmm... Iggy's grits will be steaming after reading that!

And here's yet another perspective on Iggy's pandering, useless, and ultimately phony, 'farm policies': William Watson's "Keep the state out of kitchens", (National Post, Apr.29, 2010, here).

Grits will have no idea of what Watson's writing about. Liberals - naturally - see nothing wrong with more subsidies and more state intervention, more market meddling, and more taxes to keep the whole thing going... they see 'victims', and by gaia, they're gonna do somethin' about it.

Iggy would have us believe that we really need a national state-run, Liberal-funded Foodcare fiasco (as if his Grit's gun-registry and daycare screw-ups weren't enough), but this is just superficial pandering to his own greenie-choir, not even worthy of being classified as manure.
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Liberal CBC pollster reveals recipe for Liberal elitism

Peter Zimonjic wrote in 'Neutral pollster' under fire, here, St.Catharines Standard, Apr.26, 2010:

"The federal Conservatives are asking their supporters to launch a letter writing campaign to the CBC to express displeasure with pollster Frank Graves.

As EKOS Research president, Frank Graves' firm provides regular polling numbers to the CBC, and he also appears on various CBC programs to comment on political issues.

But Graves sparked controversy last week when he gave an interview to the Globe and Mail in which he said Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff should start a "culture war" to win back office.

Graves apparently told the newspaper the Liberals "should invoke a culture war. Cosmopolitanism versus parochialism, secularism versus moralism, Obama versus Palin, tolerance versus racism and homophobia, democracy versus autocracy. If the cranky old men in Alberta don't like it, too bad. Go south and vote for Palin."

After coming under sustained attack from the Conservatives, Graves issued a statement retracting the remarks.

"I used incendiary language that had not been carefully enough considered," the retraction said. "I recognize now that my stark language was understandably offensive to some Canadians."

Graves also maintained that EKOS does not work for any political party.

But on Sunday Senator Doug Finley, the Tories' national campaign director, sent an e-mail to Conservative supporters alleging that Graves has made donations to the Liberal Party and further alleged Graves had provided the Liberals with "strategic advice."

"Week after week Graves expresses opinions about Canadian politics under the guise of being the CBC's neutral pollster on party politics," the e-mail from Finley states. "And just until recently viewers have been kept in the dark about his Liberal contributions and his Liberal advice."

The letter goes on to ask supporters to "write to the CBC and tell them it's unacceptable to present Frank Graves as a neutral pollster on party politics."

Liberal MP Siobhan Coady dismissed the e-mail and remarks insisting it is in fact Finley who is "promoting wedge-politics" by targeting the pollster.

We live in a free country and you can express your opinion," said Coady.

"Mr. Graves was not representing the Liberal Party, was not hired by the Liberal Party, does not give advice to the Liberal Party ... he has an opinion and expressed his opinion on CBC ... there is a freedom of speech in our country last time I checked."
*
Coady's "we live in a free country and you can express your opinion" comment regarding Graves is just so much posturing: we all know this isn't true!! With all the recent phony human-rights-commission witch hunts and this laughable 'black and blue' incident, how can this Grit even pretend to believe it? Speech is only "free" to the point where a Liberal disagrees...

[btw, see Brian MacLeod's strange editorial Defending free speech, but not to the death (Apr.26, 2010, St.Catharines Standard) recommending that free speech be limited in Canada! I wonder how Coady would comment on that editorial?! She'd agree!!]

...and besides, although Coady tries to spin it this way, this isn't about "free speech" at all: it's about the CBC trying to suppress the optics of an incestuous CBC-Liberal relationship. If anything, it's about the LACK of free speech, Siobhan: it's about the CBC and Graves NOT freely revealing the possible conflict of interest to the viewers, each and every time Graves was trotted out on air. Graves claims he's not a Liberal, but is a supporter, and has given them advice - so, was the CBC exhibiting the high standards of journalism expected of them when Graves was used as a commentator? Is this an acceptable example of journalistic integrity from our tax-subsidized CBC? Coady doesn't even mention that.

Coady's partisan-toady defense of Grave's faked-out CBC neutrality is disgusting: 'who...? oh... Graves? ...well, you know... he was minding his own business, just happened to walk by the front door of the CBC one day, and someone just happened to bring him into the studio [on countless occasions!] to ask him, on national, tax-subsidized television, about his opinions' !!!

Really Sioban?!

That's your position? ' No conflict here, folks... run along, now...'

Come on: so how many pollsters OTHER THAN the supposedly 'neutral' Graves did the CBC regularly employ to "express their opinion" [propagandize?] on the CBC?! It's like the CBC asking for neutral information on global warming from David Suzuki for unbiased...oh, wait...yeah...

Why isn't Michael Ignatieff asking the CBC to fire Graves?

Why isn't Iggy outraged about this abuse (proof) of the CBC's neutrality (bias) ?!

Well, simply because to the Liberal perspective, this is all suitable and normal: as Coady amply shows, the Liberals actually cannot see anything wrong with any of this: it's just natural that one their own supporters would be the CBC's resident, supposedly 'unbiased', pollster!! (After all - it is the CBC, right, whaddaya expect! This is yet another reason to get rid of this tax-drain of a phony network. And let's hear Iggy talk about his new divisive role instigating and inflaming 'Canada's culture wars', and let's examine this in context with all the books which the Count has written, where his attitudes on culture were found to be not so flattering.)

And who but Ignatieff himself has been playing "wedge issue" politics - whether promoting abortion or the gun registry, Iggy the Culture Warrior looks like he's already been taking Graves' advice!

And Siobhan Coady should look closely at Graves' advice to her Liberal party (bolded in red above): those recommendations are NOTHING BUT "wedge issue" politics !!

Clearly, it is Coady's Liberal party, and Coady's Liberal party-supporting CBC pollster-boy, who are actually "promoting wedge issues"! What sickening smugness from Siobhan to spin it otherwise!

Graves actually did all Canadians a great public service in his Globe remarks, bluntly revealing for all to see the duplicitous, elitist ethos of Canadian Liberalism: that underlying assumptive smugness of superiority; that 'we're better than you dumb parochial hillbillies' mentality; that 'we are concerned secular humanitarians, you are rural scum' attitude; that 'we know the earth is round and you don't' derision; that 'we are caring, cosmopolitan urban intellectuals, green and clean and as white and pure as the quickly-melting snow, while you are dirty polluters too stupid to care for the planet' arrogance - Graves' advice encapsulates EXACTLY the inherently elitist calculated disdain which is the defining hallmark of Canadian Liberalism.

Just look at Dalton McGuinty or Jim Bradley.
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Tax-happy McGuinty, the sneaky lying Green Grit Grifter

There was a great story on Dalton McGuinty's 'illegal green energy tax' (National Post, Apr.23, 2010). Here we go again with the Liberals' duplicitous 'is it a tax; is it a regulation/premium/fee' political double-speak, with Liberal hack Brad Duguid's smarmy rhetoric in the above story reminding me of McGuinty's old 'is it a Health Tax or a Health Premium' fiasco back in 2004: remember that MASSIVE tax increase, which McGuinty's sneaky Liberal liars sprung on us?
(It is still good to know (isn't it?) that we taxpayers ended up being forced to pay not only for our own 'health premium/tax', but pay it for the elites over at the TTC as well!)

Now Duguid spews out this Gritty Liberal vomit: "You can do it out of general revenue or energy rates, either way it's coming from the same people, paying for a very important program," he said. "People can call things what they want, but when have we ever called our utilities charges taxes? If someone wants to start calling it that now, they're fine to do that. But these are investments."

The Liberals are always umm... 'investing', eh, Brad - which why Ontario is now broke.
'People can call things what they want', eh, Brad... that's so cute... but what are YOU - Ontario's McGuinty Liberal Liars - calling your own thinly-disguised tax grabs?!

Why are McGuinty's Lying Liberal Scumbags sneaking around Ontario's Taxpayer Protection Act? Is it because McGuinty's Liberals fundamentally disagree with the law's premise that taxpayers should even need protection; and instead, believe that as elite Liberals, they are naturally entitled to take as much as they want, however they want, whenever they can, for whatever pet whim which pleases their fancy? A Liberal's got to eat somehow, right?!

Why are McGuinty's shysters resorting to any possible trick in the book to satisfy their insatiable need for money, under-mining the TPA, and all the while pretending that their extra fees to support all their grandiose schemes are something other than TAXES?!

Dalton's Grits are nothing but a gang of grifters perpetrating a long con!

Remember, the McGuinty/Smitherman/Sorbara health tax WAS NOT a dedicated tax: McGuinty's smarmbag Liberal pick-pockets purposefully made sure that their so-called 'Health Tax/Premium' did NOT go into a specific health fund. McGuinty's new health "tax" was that in name only - pretending to be 'earmarked' for health - but, BY DESIGN, these newly-pick-pocketed billions went into McGuinty's general revenue fund, not to a dedicated health fund. This way, McGuinty's Liberals suddenly 'found' themselves with billions of 'extra' dollars, allowing Liberal hacks such as George Smitherman to carelessly carry out unprecedented disasters such as eHealth, while McGuinty, Sorbara, and Dwight Duncan played a crooked shell-game with our cash.

Another article, "Ontario's quiet taxes through regulation" (Apr.23, 2010, National Post), looks at some of the constitutional aspects, options, and consequences of McGuinty's calculated-to-be-sneaky 'direct/indirect tax' con job, noting: "Governments’ temptation to quietly impose taxes is clear enough — so too is the need to resist such attempts as they arise. If provincial residents acquiesce to taxation by regulation, all Canadians will ultimately have less protection from arbitrary government action."

Sneaky Liberals, trying to get away with imposing as many taxes as they can, by calling them something else - as with healthcare, this is typical Liberal duplicity.

In light of the above articles, let's not forget this smugly insufferable little observation from the Toronto Star (Dec.4, 1995): “As Liberal MPP Jim Bradley observed rather profoundly in the legislature, governments can be judged best by what they do in private. Put another way, it is what governments try to do covertly that speaks to us about their integrity and respect for voters.”

Yeah: that was Smug Ole Bullshit Bradley, being oh-so-sanctimoniously "profound" (well, to his asslicks at the Star, anyway...)

But where's Good Ole Jim Bradley today, ruminating with sly innuendo about what his Liberal government actually has "covertly" done "in private"; about the utter lack of "integrity" and "respect" which his smarmy Liberal regime of compulsive serial liars has for the tax-paying electorate?

Don't bother expecting a follow-up story from the Star or the St.Catharines Standard... to distract us, the Liberals have conjured up a new enemy which Ontarians didn't even know we had - following in the I-hate-doctors footsteps of Jim Bradley and the optometrists are terrorists hysteria of Smitherman, Deb Matthews has now demonized Ontario's pharmacists!

McGuinty's disgusting Liberal shell-game continues.

Another Ontario patient exported to the U.S. for emergency treatment

Tony Ricciuto wrote a frankly shocking and dire article, "A frustrating wait for surgery to repair his skull", see here, in the St.Catharines Standard, Apr.21, 2010:

"Carl Coombs has a piece of his skull being kept alive inside his abdomen.

It has been there since Oct. 10, 2009, when doctors in Buffalo performed emergency surgery to relieve a buildup of pressure caused by blood leaking inside his brain.

The procedure saved his life.

Now, Coombs is waiting to have a second operation, this time in Canada at the Hamilton General Hospital as soon as a bed becomes available in the Acquired Brain Injury program.

The second surgery involves removing his skull section from his abdomen and implanting it back inside his head.

For Carl, his wife, Monique, and other family members, the sooner that operation can take place the better. All their lives have been hanging in limbo.

Until that piece of skull is replaced, Monique has to keep a constant watch on her husband because there's nothing to protect his brain on the right side of his head.

If Carl fell and banged his head, it could result in additional brain damage or cost him his life. As a precaution, he must wear a helmet to protect his head.

The 44-year-old Stevensville man doesn't recall much of what happened to him just two days before his accident. But little bits of his memory are slowly starting to come back.

On Oct. 8, Carl, who is employed in construction landscaping, was working on a job in Newmarket, not far from the hospital.

"I fell to the ground and that was it," he recalls.

At first, doctors thought he might have suffered a stroke. But they discovered there was some bleeding coming from the middle part of his brain. And his condition was worsening.

Doctors in Canada decided higher-level care was needed and had Carl airlifted to the Millard Fillmore hospital in Buffalo, where a doctor was available to perform the emergency surgery.

It's an acute-care medical centre with specialized programs that include world-class neurological and stroke care services.

Monique drove to the hospital in Buffalo to be with her husband. The couple has four children, three of whom are still living at home.

Monique recalled how worried she was having to give permission over the phone for doctors to do the operation.

"I had to answer the same questions over and over again so that there was no misunderstanding," she said.

Since being released, Carl has spent time at the Greater Niagara General Hospital and the Hotel Dieu Shaver Health & Rehabilitation Centre in St. Catharines.

The medical bill for Carl's operation in Buffalo came to about $87,000 - covered by OHIP because it was an emergency.

But the second operation is not considered an emergency and has to be performed in Ontario or it will not be covered by OHIP, said Monique.

"This needs to be done. He's been waiting since Feb. 24, and I'm concerned it might be getting dangerous because the longer his skull cap stays in there's a chance his body will start to attack it or there might be a risk of infection."

Monique said Carl is impatient and depressed because of the delay. When he's not in bed, he can sit in a chair or use his walker, but he needs to be watched and must keep his helmet on.

Carl is provided only one hour per week of physiotherapy.

"It's been very frustrating," said Carl's brother, Gary.

He says most people have never had to deal with this type of a situation before and can't understand the stress of dealing with different government offices, doctors and hospitals.

"This accident happened at work and now we are trying to deal with workmen's compensation," he said.

"The whole process has been very stressful and I don't know how they expect a family to try and survive, especially if they don't have anyone to help them."

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Where to even start in this Ontario patient's health-care nightmare?

It is astounding that this somehow IS NOT an emergency, or at least a top priority... WHY is this patient left in limbo, waiting and suffering in McGuinty's Liberal healthcare nirvana? What are McGuinty's health care promises and assurances and edicts really worth?

Has anyone bothered to ask Niagara's Liberal health-care monopolists MPP Jim Bradley or Kim Craitor for their comments on this situation? Oh... yeah... it wouldn't look good...

Liberal ideologues such as Bradley and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty for years smugly denigrated the American health system; Buffalo was a derisive punching bag for them. Yet, have these duplicitous Liberals bothered to thank the folks in Buffalo over at Millard Fillmore for ONCE AGAIN helping save a Canadian patient who was failed by McGuinty's own health monopoly?

"But look" our leftists will squawk (as they did in Alberta's Jepp quads case) "glorious medicare has 'worked' again"! Really? How did it work - by paying for this patient's initial emergency care OUT OF THE COUNTRY - and then, dumping the patient on a waiting list at home?!

Is this the only kind of future similarly in store for all other Ontarians now held captive in McGuinty's Liberal no-patient-choice government-run health monopoly?

Why can't our Glorious Liberal Leader, Dalton McGuinty, or his pharamacist-demonizing health minister, Deb Matthews, explain HOW IT IS POSSIBLE that this kind of specialized emergency medical care WAS NOT AVAILABLE ANYWHERE IN ONTARIO, at ANY PRICE?!

Why was this patient deprived of obtaining the necessary treatment in Ontario?

How is it possible that this patient's accident occurred just north of Canada's largest city, Toronto, a region heavily populated with millions of people - and yet, the ONLY AVAILABLE MEDICAL EXPERTISE WAS IN THE UNITED STATES?? [Ironically, in the same hospitals that would be deemed ILLEGAL by McGuinty if they were on the Canadian side of the Niagara River.]

This is disgusting - and this patient is only the latest in a long line of McGuinty health care victims: read this, and the 'Liberal Healthcare Duplicity' links below, for a sickening overview.

"Look, we paid those greedy Yanks 87 grand", our Tommy Douglas-infected medicaristas will say, thereby "proving" in their minds that McGuinty's health monopoly 'works'!! Yet, you never hear about the 'cost and cause analysis' associated with NOT having the available specialists in Ontario, and the associated patient danger and suffering.

McGuinty's shameless regime of monopolist healthcare thugs has mastered this game of populist illusion: taking liberty of the U.S. system's strengths by using it as a safety-valve, outsourcing Ontario patients - victims of failed Liberal single-payer health monopolism - to the States; and then conveniently demonizing and denouncing that same American system which was there to help those Ontarians when McGuinty's own bankrupt ideology failed.

Apparently, it's not only victimized residents of Niagara and Fort Erie area who are better served by being in the proximity of Buffalo health facilities; the Coombs case shows the sphere of Liberal health-care deception now affects pretty much all of Ontario.

And... NOT A PEEP on this from Ontario's sadistic Liberal masters of deception.

Earth day sanctimony

Peter Foster wrote yet another great global-warming-scam article today, "Earth Day's kick in the ash" (here, National Post, Apr.21, 2010). It's the kinda stuff you never see our local supposed "enviro reporters" in Niagara ever writing about; they're too busy spreading Al Gore's populist Gospel of GreenFear.

Foster touches on Paul Ehrlich's doomsday fear-mongering on the first Earth Day in 1970, to Barry Commoner's baseless "civilization will end" hysteria to the Club of Rome's Malthusianism.
When Foster wrote "The 1970s and 1980s were marked by a slew of costly environmental legislation, and yet somehow the climate of eco hysteria never abated. Indeed, the more industry was forced to spend, the shriller the cries became," I'm reminded of Ontario's Grand Poobah Environment Minister in the 1980's - yeah: none other than Good Ole Jim Bradley, our imported-from-Sudbury great environmental fear-mongering Liberal Kyodiot. Jimmy and his McGuintyites believe that global warming is the Mother of all environmental issues, and slurp up Al Gore's kool-aid that global warming - man made global warming, that is! - is “the most serious manifestation of a larger problem: the collision course between industrial civilization and the ecological system that supports life as we know it.”

And if Liberals can stop industrial civilization (and, well... while they're at it, also stop the climate from changing, LOL!) and remain in power forever, then, by gaia, that's what they'll do, lying all the way!! Bradley fear-mongered his Greenshevik GreenieGarbage about population control in 1991, here, and continued his ideological, fear-based Kyoto agitation in the early 2000's, here, here .

When Foster wrote "The environmental movement has done enormous damage to the poor. One of the founding documents of the Earth Day movement was Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, which raised hysterical concerns about pesticides and led to the banning of DDT, at the cost of millions of lives," I was reminded of today's Apr.21, 2010 'American Idol Gives Back' broadcast [btw, Smiley Guy was kicked off today] where the melodrama went on and on about providing malaria nets for Africans - NO MENTION ABOUT the millions needlessly sacrificed, killed due to the anti-DDT fallout in the wake of Rachel Carson's book! So sure, by all means, assuage your inner guilt; be smug and pat yourself on the back for helping buy a malaria net; meanwhile DDT (or by now, an improvement thereof) would have saved millions of lives in the first place!!

But then, there'd be nothing to be smug about...

It's a perversion of common sense.

Another perversion on American Idol today was - get this - super-star enviro-fear-monger Ban Ki-Moon came on screen blathering incoherently about freakin climate change. What a desperate act - they might as well have had Al Gore and David Suzuki there, singing back up vocals with world-GreenFear spreader Ban KaBoom. It's a good thing Cowell's leaving - none too soon - American Idol has jumped the shark with its pretentious, half-the-story eco-treacle.

Anyway, on a much more serious note, also check out Foster's article, "Climategate whitewash" (National, Post, Apr.16, 2010) where he deals with the cooked CRU "investigation" results. The science was never "settled" as the global warming despots kept on claiming - nevertheless, as Foster points out: "Draconian global policies have been made on the basis of dodgy data handled by those who are less than expert". It's no wonder then that Ontario's Sir Kyodiot, Liberal MPP Jim Bradley, has continually refused to reveal what his ahem "scientific sources" were which prompted him to agitate for Kyoto, and to continue supporting his Liberal government's greenwashed eco-havoc !

As a sitting member of Ontario's legislature, secretive Sir Kyodiot Bradley still hides from transparency; as a supposedly big hockey fan, could Jim Bradley explain to us his possible love affair with a certain Mann-made hockey stick graph, which seduced him with its phony global-warming-is-proven charms? Remember the smug Bradley, that supposed man of science, to whom others were global warming deniers, just ignorant neanderthals who knew no better? Now, post-Climategate, Good Ole Jimmy's got NOTHIN' TO SAY!!

And gaia forbid that any local reporter should dare ask. The illusion of Bradley's Great Heroic Environmental Struggle must be propagated.
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More McGuinty Tax Lies; Deb Matthews should resign

Premier Liar of Ontario, Liberal Dalton McGuinty, and his Grit Gang of Scumbags have done it again: pretending that Dalton's HST Sales Tax Money Grab will somehow be a benefit to businesses - but look at the rental housing industry, for example, where the HST will have to be swallowed by the landlord on expenses such as utilities which are included in a tenant's rent - see "Dalton McGuinty's pretend Economics" here:

"... Queen's Park applied pretend economics last week when it ruled that landlords would not be allowed to raise rents to recoup extra expenses they'll face when the Harmonized Sales Tax takes effect this summer. The tax will boost costs on utilities, maintenance, property management, renovations and other normal upkeep. Landlords estimate their bills will rise by about 5%, on top of inflation at about 2%. Since they're still not allowed to print their own money, they were hoping to offset some of the added expense via rent increases above the guidelines that tie them to the consumer price index (CPI).
No way, said Premier Dalton McGuinty. Rent increases might displease the 1.3 million Ontarians who have to pay them. So the government simply refused to let landlords make back their costs. The CPI guideline for this year is about 0.5%, and property owners will have to be happy with that..."

Scumbag Liberals such as McGuinty or MPP Jim Bradley had NEVER revealed that little detail previously, the FLICKING liars - it was all supposed to be tax sunshine and lollipops!

And the unwarranted attack on Ontario's pharmacies by a phonily-"outraged" Deb Matthews is beyond the pale - see here, where reader vsolnein commented:

"Shoppers Drug Mart has done nothing other than inform the public of the very real consequences of the proposed government regulations. The company may be an easy target in the PR wars, but ultimately patients will suffer as all pharmacies make adjustments to stay afloat. I am outraged that the minister of health is actually promoting a boycott of a specific company. This is perhaps the most egregious abuse of power I have seen from the McGuinty government. This time, her rhetoric has crossed the line. It is time for Deb Matthews to resign."

To "Pretend" - this is the standard method of operation for McGuinty's Liberal scumbag government - perpetrating pretensions, illusions, diversions, and deceptions: now pretending that our pharmacists are enemies, in the same way wackjob George Smitherman (who's now scarily pretending he's capable of being mayor of Toronto) pretended back in Nov.2005 that Ontario's optometrists were terrorists; pretending AGW climate-change is real, pretending windmills are a viable source of reliable power, pretending that Smitherman's sell-out Green Energy Act scam isn't one; pretending that patients aren't leaving Ontario for health care; pretending that the hated McGuinty/Smitherman/Sorbara Health Tax has alleviated (!) the problems of statist health monopolism... anything to divert our attention from the real problem, which is the incompetent Liberal regime ensconced at Queen's Park.

McGuinty's 'pretend' solutions are the REAL problem.

Michael Ignatieff, sexist bigot

Michael Ignatieff, nee Michael Zsohar, has flip-flopped on his stand regarding Quebec's $25 health-care-user fee (see here). Typical Liberal, typical anti-healthcare-reform obstructionism: it's just a repeat of the old Pierre Pettigrew tempest-in-a-teapot (here, pg.17) from back in 2004!! Nothing has changed - the Liberals just can't seem to understand that the ideological Canada Health Act is not sacred - it sucks; as does anyone who thinks (here) that a Liberal like Iggy would - or even could - stand for anything other than our statist, failing health care status quo.
'Bold thinking', Mr. Den Tandt, from Liberal federal leader Mr. Michael Zsohar - are you kidding?!
Ignatieff is another Stephane Bumbledore Dion: a Liberal seat-warmer, not any kind of bold leader - if Iggy was intellectually honest, he would have long ago proposed positive reforms to Canada's unfathomable, slavish obsession to single-payer monopolistic health care. With Iggy, it's just the same-old, same-old Liberal status-quo crap, year after year.
Yes... yes... Iggy can also go by his street name, Michael Zsohar (here) - what, that's insulting? It's all right for Iggy to (pointlessly) call Helena Guergis by her husband's Rahim Jaffer's last name?
What a flicking toff!
Where are the Maude Barlows, whining about women's rights and gender oppression, when the condescending Liberal party leader takes it upon himself to derisively refer to a woman as her husband's property?!
Wow: Iggy's not being a male chauvinist pig here?
Mr. Michael Zsohar is not being a sexist bigot?
Iggy's not an offensive anti-feminist boor?
Nah: he's just a Liberal asshole.
While Iggy's busy shaking the family tree of others, maybe he can finally reveal to us why Suzie ain't an Ignatieff.

Arctic ice sheet growing

The size of the Arctic ice sheet is growing again; after all those fear-mongering stories of the shrinking ice sheets and drowning polar bears and imminent floods of Al Gorian proportions which have run over the last several years in the St. Catharines Standard, I'm sure the Standard will soon be reporting on this as front-page news. Sure.
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McGuinty's Liberal LHIN's are a 'political slush fund'; Iggy ignores health care

Ontario's Great Lying McGuinty is again doing what he and his Grit goons do best: lie, lie lie.... (see here) Get a load of the utter bullshit flowing out of this Grit goon: "...Liberal MPP Maria VanBommel of Lambton-Kent-Middlesex says the review has not been canceled, just postponed. "We still say there will be a review but the timeframe has been changed," she said."

Yeah, yeah, yeah.... Liberal scumbag liars, trying to kite their way through to the next election without any more of Andre Marin's uncomfortable, and very inconvenient, truths disturbing their re-election chances. It ain't cancelled folks, says McGuinty's Grit goon: it's only postponed!!!! Trust us: we're McGuinty Liberals; would we ever lie to the people of Ontario?

FLICKING BEAUTIFUL, isn't it?!!! What pure Liberal bullshitmanship: it's breathtaking!!! The timeframe has changed, dontcha know... there'll still be a review, ya know, sometime!!!!!

Sure, we know... it will be the kind of review that McGuinty's and George Smitherman's Liberal goons carried out when some 500 hundred patients died (here) in the Liberal's health care monopoly in 2008: the Sweep-It-Under-The-Rug Review, a Dalton McGuinty specialty. Lie, deny, twist, spin, postpone, and hide. Hey, Good Ole Liberal Jimmy Bradley from St.Catharines has been doing that for years, see here.

And sadly, it works.

And let's have a quick look at federal Liberal Michael Ignatieff's recent, and laughably pompous, 'Deep Thinkers' (!) retreat in Montreal, where apparently some novel ideas for health care reform were mentioned - but then, shot down; see Joan Bryden's Mar.27, 2010 Canadian Press story "Liberals urged to champion politically risky health-care overhaul", here:

"Federal Liberals received some politically unpalatable advice Saturday to champion the overhaul of one of Canada's most cherished national programs: medicare.

They were also urged to revive the idea of imposing a carbon tax, a controversial notion which helped blow the Liberal party out of the electoral waters in 2008.

Influential speakers at the party's policy renewal conference - including former Bank of Canada governor David Dodge - said soaring health-care costs are rapidly becoming unsustainable as the country's aging population requires ever more costly medical services.

They said those costs must be reined in and recommended some solutions that have proved toxic to politicians who've flirted with them in the past. Those included setting up a two-tier system of public and private health care.

The gist of discussions on the second day of the three-day conference left some advocates of the current health system worried that the party which introduced universal, publicly-funded health care may be preparing to dismantle it.

"I think it's all up for grabs," said Michael McBane, co-ordinator of the Canadian Health Coalition, who is attending the so-called thinkers conference as a delegate.

"That's partly why I'm here, to make sure they don't make a mistake and go the wrong direction and throw our heritage away."

Ironically, it was a 1960 Liberal thinkers conference in Kingston that paved the way for the introduction of a national medicare program by Lester Pearson's government.

Dodge, a former deputy finance minister, told the Montreal conference it's time to re-think the program, the cost of which is increasing at seven per cent a year - twice the rate of growth in the economy.

He told delegates there are "really only four" options to rein in health spending:

-Impose or increase dedicated health-care taxes or levies.

-Reduce the scope of medical procedures covered by public health insurance, forcing people to buy private health insurance for services not covered.

-Introduce "significant" co-payments.

-Continually reduce the quality of services provided - letting wait times increase and limiting drug coverage, for instance - and allow people to buy upgraded, private health care. In other words, "so-called two-tier medicine."

"These are stark and unpalatable choices we face with respect to health care," Dodge said.

"There is no magic solution and we absolutely must have an adult debate about how we're going to deal with this."

Dodge's advice echoed similar sentiments expressed by various speakers on the opening day of the conference, including University of Quebec economist Pierre Fortin and Linamar Corp. CEO Linda Hasenfratz.

During a subsequent panel on health care Saturday, Alan Bernstein, former president of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, said he's "skeptical" about suggestions that privatization is a "panacea" for Canada's health-care system.

Bernstein noted the United States spends 18 per cent of its gross domestic product each year on strictly private health care, compared to 12 or 13 per cent in Canada. Even so, 30-40 million Americans are uninsured.

"Their costs are immeasurably higher than ours for a much worse product."

McBane told the panel that medicare spending in Canada has actually been stable at about four per cent of the economy for 35 years. What's skyrocketed is the cost of prescription drugs, which McBane noted are controlled by the private sector.

So, rather than dismantle medicare, he said Canada should be expanding it to include longterm care, home care and pharmacare.

In an interview later, McBane said his group has met with people in Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff's office to remind them that opinion polls suggest Canadians overwhelming don't want privatized health care.

"So far, there's been no real message from Michael Ignatieff on whether he sees himself as a dreamer and builder or whether he'll preside over the continued dismantlement of the system."

Ignatieff listened to all sessions Saturday but did not offer his opinions on any of the advice given.

Toronto Liberal MP Gerard Kennedy said just because the party is listening to various opinions about how to fix the health-care system doesn't mean it must embrace them.

However, former New Brunswick premier Frank McKenna, a conference delegate, said Liberals must grasp the health-care nettle.

McKenna told reporters he "profoundly" believes in the single fee-payer health system but the Canada Health Act must be more flexible to allow provinces to experiment with things like private delivery of health care.

He said the rest of the world, court rulings, and the public, which is already opting in an "ad hoc" way for private care, are way ahead of public policy in Canada.

McKenna allowed that any notion of tinkering with medicare has proven deadly to politicians who've raised the idea in the past.

"The question is: Is there room for courage in politics?" said McKenna.

"I'm not sure that this party or any party are ready for that. But there's a tidal wave coming here that is engulfing the political parties.

McKenna said Liberals are particularly "gun shy" about proposing anything controversial since the 2008 carbon tax fiasco.

Yet during an environmental panel later Saturday, imposition of a carbon tax to reduce greenhouse gas emissions seemed to be a popular idea.

Panellist Steven Guilbeault of Equiterre said he was pleasantly surprised.

"I'm happy that there are so many people here who are willing to talk about this because at the end of the day it's one of the most efficient measures you can use if you actually want to start reducing greenhouse gas emissions," he said in an interview.

Ignatieff, who first proposed a carbon tax during the 2006 Liberal leadership, has since said he won't revive an idea that's been so decisively rejected by voters. He now advocates a cap and trade system instead.

But panellist Michael Phelps, board chairman of the GLOBE Foundation, said a carbon tax is a much simpler and more effective way to influence consumer behaviour.

"I'd be standing on a soapbox saying, 'Use less carbon, you're going to pay for it,"' he said."

 Reading Bryden's above article will put to rest Michael Den Tandt's bizarre pipedream that Iggy and his Liberals might somehow bring a new vision to the problem-plagued, socialized health-care malaise in Canada! Hmm... is there "courage in politics" when it comes to the "third-rail" issue of sacrosanct health care? Iggy certainly didn't want to deal with the "stark and unpalatable" limitations of state-controlled health-care! And what else to expect but the same leftist health-care rehash from McBane and Kennedy. And let's not forget that Frank McKenna was simply rewarming exactly what Paul Martin's health minister Pierre Pettigrew had already said, years before, in April of 2004 (see CTV report here; see Liberal healthcare Duplicity, pg.17) - and was then severely chastised for it by his own frightened Liberals! Listening to McKenna was like being in a damn time warp, these Liberals are so backward.

Den Tandt had written (see here; here) about Michael Ignatieff's lack of any grand vision:

"Every serious analyst of our health-care system says the present model is unsustainable, given the aging baby boomers. Where is the plan to move beyond our national theological devotion to the status quo on health care?"
adding:
 "Ignatieff looks like a bold thinker on paper, but so far has failed to deliver anything but generalities."

Den Tandt wrote this eight months ago, back in July of 2009; at the end of March 2010, Iggy again had a chance to show us the goods, to show us that he can offer Canadians a vision that is not tied to statist health care demagoguery; to show us that he has the fortitude to lead Canadians and show that we can (as Den Tandt well put it) "move beyond our national theological devotion to the status quo on health care".

But bland, un-bold Iggy didn't have the balls to do so; once again the vaunted Deep-Thinkin' Professor failed to deliver anything but safe generalities. All Iggy did was apparently listen to Deep Thinker "delegate" Michael McBane, and pretend that all is fine with health care, and anyway, if there is anything wrong, then some more government intervention will fix it!!

It's the same old elitist crap, being delivered to us hot'n'steamy from the mouths of Dalton McGuinty and Michael Ignatieff.
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