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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