Climate-change GreenFear: Junk-science recycled into junkier politics

It would be nice for some of Niagara's GreenFear-spreaders to provide a local rebuttal to Rex Murphy's column, "Inviting the fox into the henhouse" (National Post, Jun.18, 2011):

"One of the disturbing practices revealed by the great cache of emails out of the University of East Anglia - the so-called Climategate emails - was the attempted shortcutting or corruption of the oh-so precious peer-review process. The emails contained clear declarations of how the grand viziers of climate science would lean on journals and reporters to make sure certain critics did not get the validation, the laying on of peer-reviewed hands, so critical to full participation in the great climate debate. This was most succinctly expressed by the beautiful quote from Dr. Phil Jones of East Anglia that, "We will keep them out somehow -even if we have to redefine what peer-review literature is."

Much of what the world bizarrely allows to be called climate "science" is a closetgame, an in-group referring to and reinforcing its own members. The insiders keep out those seen as interlopers and critics, vilify dissenters and labour to maintain a proprietary hold on the entire vast subject. It has been described very precisely as a "climate-assessment oligarchy." Less examined, or certainly less known to the general public, is how this in-group loops around itself. How the outside advocates buttress the inside scientists, and even -this is particularly noxious -how the outside advocates, the non-scientists, themselves become inside authorities.

It's the perfect propaganda circle. Advocates find themselves in government offices, or on panels appointed by politicians disposed towards the hyper-alarmism of global warming. On the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) boards and panels, like seeks out like. And when the IPCC issues one of its state-of-the-global-warming-world reports, legions of environmentalists, and their maddeningly sympathetic and uninquisitive friends in most of the press, shout out the latest dire warnings as if they were coming from the very mouth of Disinterested Science itself.

An early and particularly graphic illustration of this vicious circle came when the IPCC 2007 report warned that most the great Himalayan glaciers would melt by the year 2035. Not only was the claim of a massive melt the very height of ignorant nonsense -the sun would have to drop on the Earth to provoke a melt of this proportion - it was also plucked from a seven-year-old publication of the ever busy World Wildlife Federation (WWF). As the Times of London put it, the claim itself was "inherently ludicrous" culled from a "campaigning report" rather than "an academic paper," was not "subject of any scientific review" and despite all these shortcomings became "a key source for the IPCC ... [for] the section on the Himalayas."

A scare report, seven years old, from the an environmental advocacy group, became the key document for a major report released under the authority of the IPCC, the world's best and brightest global warming minds. Sir Isaac Newton would be so proud.

Now we have an even more telling illustration of this same sad, vicious circle. It was first reported on by Steven McIntyre on his blog, Climate Audit (and was run on the FP Comment page of Friday's National Post). McIntyre revealed that the IPCC used a Greenpeace campaigner to write a key part of its report on renewable energy and to make the astonishing claim that "close to 80% of the world's energy supply could be met by renewables by mid-century if backed by the right enabling public policies." He further revealed that the claim arose from a "joint publication of Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC)." And it turns out that while working for the IPCC, the Greenpeace campaigner approvingly cited a Greenpeace report that he himself was the lead author of. He peer-reviewed himself.

A report on renewables, by the Renewable Energy Council of Europe, and Greenpeace, peer-reviewd by the man who wrote it. All they need add is a citation from the Suzuki Foundation and an endorsement from Elizabeth May and "the science will be settled" forever.

This is not just letting the fox into the hen house. This is giving him the keys, passing him the barbeque sauce and pointing his way to the broiler. Or, as McIntyre put it in plainer terms: "A lead author of the IPCC report, and of the hyped 80% scenario, is Sven Teske of Greenpeace International, whose official contribution is essentially based on a Greenpeace report cooked up with Europe's renewable energy industry."

Kind people may put this down to pure sloppiness on the part of the IPCC. Coming after its disastrous handling of the Himalayan glacier melt, however, it looks to me more like deliberate mischief. The IPCC cannot be that stupid by chance. Why these stories, and others of comparable magnitude, have not worked their way into the consciousness of the world's politicians despite such clear demonstrations of the IPCC's ramshackle processes is a mystery. But thanks to Steve McIntyre and others of nearequal courage, standing firm against the rage and mockery of the alarmist warming establishment, at least some of the IPCC's dubious and chillingly erroneous practices are revealed."
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Let's ask Liberal MPP Jim Bradley - Ontario's chief climate-change / global-warming bullshit artist - to comment on Murphy's story.
C'mon there, Jimmy, Ole Feller - spill your secrets! Tell Ontarians the ACTUAL SCIENTIFIC BASIS for your Kyoto agitation, and your green bolshevik climate lies!!
Yep - Liberal Jim Bradley has never publicly revealed  his basis, his sources, his influences, his... um... "reasoning" - for pulling his green climate fraud onto the province of Ontario.
Jimmy's had plenty of chances to provide a detailed explanation - and, we're still waiting!! [For decades, Niagara's media has been loathe to question Liberal MPP Jim Bradley's GreenFear-based climatalarmism.]
Jim Bradley is not the only climate-change-global-warming fear-mongering greenshevik in Niagara - let's get St.Catharines joke of a mayor Brian McMullan's response to Murphy's story!
McMullan doesn't think he has to provide any answers either for his deluded climate fear-spreading - McMullan partnered the City of St.Catharines up WITH the WWF for all those earth-day-turn-out-the-lights propaganda efforts for the last several years - has anybody asked Mayor McFullofit to actually prove that sitting in the dark for a symbolic hour is anything more than symbolic - and fraudulently symbolic, at that?
What a green-con-artist. [...and, year after year, Niagara's complicit press runs the earth day hokum WWF/McMullan propaganda, NO QUESTIONS ASKED!!]
It's sheer lunacy: GreenFear TM paranoia manifested in duplicitous publicly-funded policy.
How about that other local climate-change-fear-monger, Liberal mayor of Niagara Falls, Jim Diodati - ditto for him, as well - let's ask Diodati to offically explain the "causes" of  "global-warming" - and then let's ask Diodati to explain the role of water vapour and the sun in creating GHG; then let's also ask Diodati about Niagara Falls' role in contributing to "climate-change", and why he's not stopping the creation of Niagara's dangerous, vaporous planet-killing mists!
These green-pandering political hacks are perpetrating a massive fraud, using junk-science from Al Gore's ass to scare citizens into adopting green socialism - former Liberal MP Walter Lastewka did it, Liberal joke Stephane 'Bumbledore' Dion did it, Michael Ignatieff did it, now the Conservatives are even getting into it... all based on a 'consensus' mirage, recycling junk-science into junkier politics.
Then we had a report by Kristy Kirkup in the Jun.16, 2011 St.Catharines Standard telling us about more climate-change fear being spread by Jack - off MassageBoy Layton's NDP environment critic Megan Leslie.
Perhaps while the above-mentioned GreenFear-spreading kyodiots ignore responding to Murphy, they can also hide from and refuse to comment on these columns as well:

- Tom Harris'  No climate debate" (National Post,Jun.8, 2011)

-  Vivian Krause's  "Tarred by science: How green groups pursued oil sands agenda" (National Post, Jun.14, 2011)

- Terence Corcoran's  "Lipstick, Apples, & sperm count" (National Post, Jun.14, 2011)

- Terence Corcoran's "Greens 'lost' as growth prevails" (National Post, May 6, 2011)

- Terence Corcoran's  "No climate death in Venice"  (National Post, Jun.16, 2011)

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So, let's fast forward to Howard Fischer's Dec. 8, 2017 Tuscon.com report "UA ordered to surrender emails to skeptics of human-caused climate change" which - all these GreenFear-propaganda-packed years later - is nevertheless still DIRECTLY linked to the phony 'hockey-stick' issue behind the initial Climategate scandal:

"The University of Arizona has been ordered to surrender emails by two UA scientists that a group claims will help prove that theories about human-caused climate change are false and part of a conspiracy.
Pima County Superior Court Judge James Marner rejected arguments by the Board of Regents that disclosure of the documents would be “contrary to the best interests of the state.”
Marner said it may be true that some of the documents sought by Energy & Environment Legal Institute might be classified as unpublished research, manuscripts, preliminary analyses, drafts of scientific papers and plans for future research.
But the judge said the subject matter of the documents has become available to the general public. And that, Marner said, does not allow the university to withhold disclosure under a separate section of the law governing university records.
There was no immediate response from the university.
The ruling is a turnabout for Marner, who had previously ruled that some emails were properly withheld because they contained things like confidential information or attorney work product. He said at the time that the university did not act arbitrarily or capriciously in withholding other documents, including unpublished data, research, drafts and commentary.
But last year the state Court of Appeals told Marner to take another look.
Appellate Judge Joseph Howard, writing for the unanimous court, said it’s legally irrelevant what university officials thought was appropriate to disclose.
He said everyone involved in the case acknowledges that the emails from Malcolm Hughes, who is still with the UA, and Jonathan Overpeck, who left earlier this year, are public records. Howard said state law carries a presumption that all public records are subject to disclosure, with certain exceptions.
That, Howard said, required Marner to examine the records to determine whether making them public would harm “the best interests of the state,” as the university has claimed.
Craig Richardson, president of E & E, said the request relates to so-called “hockey stick” research. It drew its name from graphs that climate scientists say show a long-term decline in global temperatures over most of the last 150 years followed by a sharp rise.
“It’s the foundational argument for really this whole climate change industry and their focus,” he said.
In 2009, some computer servers at the University of East Anglia in Britain were hacked and emails stolen, with the names of the two UA scientists found in the mix. Some of what was found was labeled “climategate” and is being used by groups to show that global warming is a conspiracy.
“They showed there were a lot of games being played with the data,” Richardson said.
He said that getting all the emails, including from the two scientists, will reveal “an unvarnished view of how the process works ... and how climate scientists on the other side of this have been shut out.”

I'm sure that , as usual, no one at the St. Catharines Standard will dare approach local Liberal GreenFear propagandists such as MPP Jim Bradley or MP Chris Bittle or the hack Diodati for their comment on this development regarding the "foundational argument" of their own GreenFear-based climate delusions - -  or to even ask them to provide 'evidence' of the scientific basis for the GreenFear which they constantly spout ('Dis ain't got nuttin' ta do wit Chrissy and da Jimmies..!). 
The local Niagara press allows these climate change hoaxters to peddle their climate fear policies without context or scrutiny.  

McGuinty and Chretien-era Liberals did nothing to "control" gas prices

It was grrrreat to read Don Fraser's front-page story in the May 12, 2011 St.Catharines Standard "Squeezed by record pump prices", where absolutely no mention was made of the local Liberal MPP Jim Bradley, nor of Bradley's personal role in helping extenuate today's "record pump prices"! Yep: it's as if Good Ole Jimmy never had anything to do with any of this!!!
Now, it's as if Ole Jimbo had never written any price-control bills in the past - and then conveniently forgot about them for the last eight years!!
Now, it's as if Jim Bradley and Dalton McGuinty had never said that they could - and would, if elected - bring in laws to... umm... stop all the "gouging", all the "ripping-off", all the "price-fixing", all the "collusion" that was supposedly going on.
Yep: read the Standard today and it's as if the Liberals had never fraudulently presented themselves as 'controllers of gasoline prices' !!
[The St. Catharines Standard sure doesn't want you to remember any of that!! After all, why would the St.Catharines Standard - whose motto oughtta be " Happily doing Jim's political laundry since '77 " - want to remind the proletariat about Jim Bradley's Liberal lies and deceptions about controlling the price of gasoline?!?]
There's no need to remind loyal Liberal voters about JimBoyBradley's track record of smarmy lies and hypocrisy!!
Yeah: Jim Bradley - the Liberal liar from St.Catharines - along with that other gas-hole scumbag McGuinty - outright conned voters into believing that the Liberals would "control" gas prices. The St.Catharines Standard merrily went along with that narrative back then; yet today, there's not a damn word about the Liberals' past deceit on this very issue.
Today, there's nothin' from the St.Catharines Standard about how a sanctimonious Jim Bradley, at Queen's Park on May 4, 1999, had goaded the Conservatives to "pass my bill" about helping control gas prices.
Today, no-one from the St.Catharines Standard has bothered to recall for readers what specifically was in Bradley's private-member's bill.
Today, no-one from the Standard has asked Jim Bradley why his bill was never reintroduced and passed during the last eight years of McGuinty's Liberal majority.
What bias.
And of course, when real investigative reporting fails in this Standard report, who else do they turn to for gassy filler than Dan McTeague, the Liberal MP who was thankfully finally booted out of office when that disgusting Liberal Ignatieff was walloped in the May 2 election.
Reporter Fraser didn't explain to readers - and didn't bother to actually contact and ask McTeague to explain - why McTeague, for all his years in a Liberal majority federal government - also DID NOTHING to "control" oil prices!
Didn't McTeague also try to pass some kind of gas price control bill at the federal level?
OOPS! Why would the Standard want people to know about that, eh?!!! hee hee!
Yet: here's McTeague, like a bad penny, unquestioningly now being used as a source!
The St.Catharines Standard  - mysteriously (ha ha !) - also fails to mention, or to ask McTeague about, the role which former St.Catharines federal Liberal MP Walt Lastewka played in quashing his own Liberal colleague McTeague's gas price control bill!!
Say what??!!
Why should the local Liberal-lovin' proletariat wanna know 'bout that?!? The St.Catharines Standard really doesn't want to mention any of this! The locals don't need to know the direct roles which Liberals such as Jim Bradley, Walt Lastewka, and Dalton McGuinty played in creating today's "record pump prices"!
Then, in a May 13 St.Catharines Standard story ("Ottawa to investigate high gasoline prices" by Jonathan Jenkins) that same old Liberal, Gas-Tank McTeague, blames in particular the federal GST for higher gas prices, telling us it 'goes up lockstep with the price'.
No challenge was made by the reporter, who should have asked: say, there, Danny Boy, what "GST" is there in Ontario? Isn't it specifically the "HST" which you should be talking about? In particular - McGUINTY'S newly-implemented Liberal 8% tax-gouge on gasoline????????????!!!!!!!?!
Doesn't McGuinty's new 8% tax-grab on gas 'go up in lockstep with the price' ?!!
Astoundingly, Jenkins didn't bother to ask Liberal McTeague whether his Liberal buddy McGUINTY'S taxes had anything to do with the high price of gas!!!
And - of course - no one from the St.Catharines Standard will bother to recall for readers that Lastewka's Liberals also had called for 'investigations' into gas-price fixing by the Competition Bureau. Back then this was seen as a brave and heroic deed! Now, when Clement does the same, massageboy Jackoff Layton's dippers deride that as "inadequate" - without quite saying what exactly they would do!
And finally, let's not forget: when Chretien-era Liberal Lastewka was telling us that there was no evidence of any price fixing, Liberal MP Dan McTeague was also Lastewka's Liberal colleague at the time.
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Fast forward to Oct.16, 2014, to a strange St.Catharines Standard editorial headed "Let's relish this rare drop in fuel prices", written by Peter Epp.
Reading this weirdo editorial, it's like Epp doesn't know any of the previous gasoline-price-voodoo which Ontario's Liberals were practicing!
Epp whines on about how gas prices are falling in Canada, and are "at five-year lows" (eg "as low as $1.14 in some parts of Ontario" on Wed. Oct. 15, 2014)
Epp calls it "a classic picture of supply and demand".
Hmm - yet, Epp for some strange reason never mentions what the Ontario Liberal's role was in this "classic picture of supply and demand"!!
Furthermore, there was NOT A WORD IN THIS PATHETIC ARTICLE about local Liberal MPP hack Jim Bradley!!
Funny, eh - seeing that Jim Bradley and his Liberals were the ones who were screwing up and attempting to interfere with the "supply and demand", by price fixing gasoline THEMSELVES!! That's classic LIBERAL MARKET INTERFERENCE.
"Editorialist" Epp just plain 'forgot' (hahaha) to mention Jim Bradley's decades-long attempt to score votes by promising to regulate gas prices!
Yep: suddenly, when gas prices are dropping, Jim Bradley is nowhere to be found on the pages of the St.Catharines Standard - the same paper which for years had loyally trumpeted Bradley's phony gas-price-control antics!!
Now - nothing.
In his editorial, Epp doesn't dare bother to link or context the Ontario Liberal's paranoia and hatred for everything oil, nor their phony global-warming / climate-change Green-Fearmongering.
Epp says "more oil is being produced globally" and that "the U.S.is pumping out more oil than Saudi Arabia"  - yet Epp doesn't link any of that to Jim Bradley and his oil-hating Ontario Liberals.
Jim Bradley was fear mongering about "peak oil" decades ago - yet now, that there's more oil, Epp doesn't bother to ask Niagara's chief peak oil propagandist about this??!
By purposefully excluding Jim Bradley from this editorial, Epp is just continuing the St.Catharines Standard's pathetic propensity for swathing their hero Jimmy in convenient Cones of Silence.
Epp spews out lines such as "After years of getting hosed at the pumps" - without specifying WHICH years, and by which standard he was measuring what "getting hosed" meant. That kind of line is just what Jim Bradley would have spewed in the past.
Peter Epp should specifically explain what he meant here; it is crap journalism for the St.Catharines Standard to write half-baked articles such as this.
Does Epp have evidence of gasoline price-fixing, or something?? Why didn't Epp ask Jim Bradley about it, then?
What the hell is Epp actually talking about? This just blowhard rhetoric.
Epp is the one hosing readers with his garbage.
Epp didn't bother to get Liberal Jim Bradley - the chief gas-price-fear-spreader in Niagara - to confirm or deny that we have been 'getting hosed at the pumps for years'.
Were these the years under Bradley and his Liberals, which Epp refers to??
Is that why Peter Epp purposefully neglected to interview Jim Bradley about falling gas prices - because this incongruity didn't jive with Bradley's (and the Standard's) GreenFear-mongering agenda?
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Talk about ignorant clowns  - - fast forward to June 16 2021, around 3 pm when CHML Hamilton, Ontario Corus radio show host Scott Thompson was 'interviewing' the same old Dan Gas-Tank McTeague, this time about all the havoc created in Canada by the cancellation of various pipeline projects in Canada (thanks in part to dementia-laden Biden's demotards).

For years it was McTeague and his OWN Liberals who were pushing the same global warming lies which ended up with these current cancellations in 2021!!

They nowget what they craved - the destruction of Canada's economy. They were told; they didn't care to listen.

McTeague was PART of the PROBLEM - he helped CAUSE IT!! It's as if the ignorant show host knows nothing about it, pretending he doesn't even know what lines 3 and 5 are...  it beggars belief the level of idiocy common  in Canadian broadcasting. McTeague's role as a SOURCE in spreading massive amounts of  global warming fear - which led to the situation we are in today - wasn't dare mentioned in this weirdo interview.

Monopoly health care is not the only option

Matt Gurney wrote a column in the Mar.3, 2011 National Post about a Tim Hortons outlet in a Vancouver hospital  being temporarily appropriated in order to house patients from the overcrowded ER.

Steven Grossman responded to the story with this letter, "Private health care not the only option", in the Mar.4, 2011 Post:

   "Re: Double-Double Land Shouldn't Double As ER, Matt Gurney, March 3.
Matt Gurney does an excellent job depicting the scene at Vancouver's Royal Columbian Hospital (due to overcrowding, the hospital took over the building's Tim Hortons to accommodate patients) and he is validated in his claim that the hospital should be better equipped to handle a "busy day." However, he makes no effort to defend his proposal to fix the problem - allowing for private enterprise to enter the Canadian health-care system.
   There are many reasons why hospitals run out of space, the most popular of which is the number of beds being taken up by patients who are awaiting a transfer to another facility, be it a long-term care home or a rehab facility. While he may be correct that our system needs help, the answer is not always to privatize just because it is the fashionable phrase of the day. Perhaps if we fix inefficiencies in our hospitals and use the resources already pumped into our system in a more appropriate way, we can avoid problems such as that of Royal Columbian Hospital from occurring without private health care."
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Yet: is the answer always to 'socialize', to monopolize, to 'Douglasize', just because single-payer collectivism is the fashionable cult of the day?!
The Grossmans' and the Jeff Turnbulls' can go right ahead and try to "fix" Tommy Douglas' perverted monopolistic health-care "inefficiencies".
But these 'fixers' should have no right preventing any Canadian from arranging and obtaining their own non-government-controlled health-care.
The supposed-"fixing" of Tommy Douglas' monopolist problems should not infringe on the ability of citizens to obtain private coverage.
The "appropriate way" to  "fix" the "inefficiencies" is through competition, not profit-hating collectivist rhetoric.
Just look at Ontario's monopoly-pushing Liberal MPP Jim Bradley: he's been... ummm... "fixing" health-care in Ontario for over thirty years - and look at the great job he's done...
[Can you imagine McGuinty or Bradley ever running a coffee shop?! They'd be hollering for government subsidies within a week.]
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It is hilarious pathetic pathetically hilarious that the socialist Jack off Layton would go on to actually use this Hortons incident in a campaign ad, first airing Mar.30,11 - in a federal election, linking Harper to this incident! Har har har!
Which party is in power in B.C., Jackoff?
Who is the premier in B.C., Jackoff?
Why isn't the Liberal premier (Campbell or Clark, don't matter...) of British Columbia mentioned in Jackoff's ad?!! Has Jackoff demanded answers from those people - Liberals - who are actually in charge of B.C.'s health monopoly?!
Jackoff  has utterly jumped the shark here - his assumption being that voters are too stupid to know that the provincial premiers are responsible for health care - in the same way McGuinty is fully responsible for health care in Ontario. I haven't heard Jackoff lambasting Liberal McGuinty in Ontario - and Jackoff lives here.
With this ad, Layton has demonstrated the disdainful and disingenous gimmickry of his scummy socialism. 

Freeze in the dark for Dalton

Interesting comments by RMAT in the National Post comments (Nov.20, 2010):

"Ontario NDP leader Horwath says people can't afford the HST on hydro bills while her federal counter part supports the greenwashing that's responsible for the bulk of hydro rate increases. When carbon trade gets implemented, the bills will go up again. Meanwhile Taliban JAck says it was undemocratic for the "unelected " senate to kill the Climate Bill passed by the toika's majority in the house. When did the Canadian public give the troika a mandate to go beyond "kyoto"?

Ontario could have put up-to-date scrubbers on the coal plants for a fraction of the cost. But since scrubbers don't take out CO2, they build high priced wind farms and solar. We are killing more jobs than we are creating... meanwhile..."the global coal trade would grow significantly during the next few decades, with total thermal seaborne coal demand set to increase from 680-million tons to 1,1-billion tons between 2010 and 2025." And Ontarians are going to save the planet by freezing in the dark (at least those who don't work for public sector with cost of living increases and indexed pensions- the NDP core support)?

Ontario energy minister was on CBC telling us make the sacrifice fo the sake of creating a better world for grandkids. Those starving farmers who are leasing lands to industrial wind farms are exposing their kids to 3x recommended noise levels and resulting health impacts(sorry, but government's EP rules don't protect kids whose parents sign leases with wind farm developers). Those gas plants in the GTA that back up the wind turbines are poisoning the kids with their emissions. And they tell us they are doing this for the kids."

Horwath and Layton should get their stories straight. Layton's whining about the planet being destroyed by Al Gore's fictional floods is really tiresome. Layton 'going beyond Kyoto' is socialism going beyond the pale. McGuinty ignored clean coal (no such thing, argue the greensheviks) so scrubbers weren't a Liberal priority - seeing as they weren't designed to clean the fictitious evil Co2, but actual real pollutants! So making Co2 an evil became a precondition for Al Gore and his greenshevik acolytes to attempt to corner the carbon-trading market.

George Smitherman was brought in by McGuinty to trot out the Liberal GreenWash Energy Act, and to lie about what it would cost.

As John Ivison reported on Nov.19, 2010:

"The province will be in the red for another eight years (at least), and net debt has risen from $138-billion seven years ago (28.2% of GDP) to $220-billion this year (37.2% of GDP) -- almost $17,000 for every person in Ontario.

This is in large measure because of spending under the McGuinty government, which has risen to $116-billion this year, 21.3% of GDP, up from 16.2% when Mr. McGuinty came to power in 2003.

Hydro bills are on the rise, in part because of the Liberal Green Energy Act.

The act offers absurdly generous 20-year payments to solar and wind power producers (between 44.3¢ and 71.3¢ per kilowatt hour for solar and between 13.5¢ and 19¢ for wind. This compares with the average weighted price for electricity of 4.02¢).

Rather than reducing an already crippling debt load that costs taxpayers $9.7-billion a year to service, the McGuinty government is prepared to increase the burden on the next generation to pay for its own poorly conceived and badly implemented green energy policies."

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Ivison above clearly outlines the costs - paid by the taxpayer - which the moronic Liberals are spending to implement Smitherman's GreenWash fiasco.

So now, take a look at what Smitherman told us back on May 27, 2009, about his GritShitTM GreenCrapTM Energy Fiasco:

"Let me say a word about price. The weighted average market price for electricity in 2008 was 5.2 cents a kilowatt hour, down from 7.2 cents in 2005, and less than the average price of 5.5 cents since the market opened seven years ago. About 40% of Ontario’s electricity production is subject to regulation. This has contributed significantly to stable prices for Ontario consumers."

McGuinty and Smitherman were gladly agreeing to pay absurd, rigged premiums to shove their GritShitEnergyTM down our throats, with long term contracts paying up to 71 cents for electricity which is sold for 4 cents. George 'bait-and-switch' Smitherman was telling Ontarians that his GreenWashed pack of lies were only going to cost us a 1% increase; now we see it's going to be at least a 46% increase!! Is this insanity, or just plain Liberal energy duplicity and incompetence?

The joke now is that you get these McGuinty-subsidized solar panels set up on your roof, then install some stadium lights aimed at the panels - day and night! - and voila, you'll be raking in the dough.

Bradley babbles about Layton propping up Harper during question period

Take a look at the Nov.17, 2010 Question Period at Queen's Park at about the 59:00 minute mark of the video, starting from where Howard Hampton asks McGuinty's government to explain why American firms are claiming they can sell propane in Ontario without charging the HST. Look at how Jim Bradley swivels around and smugly blames the federal government!! Bradley keeps on blabbering on in the foreground as minister Aggelonitis, standing behind him, tries to give a typical Liberal non-answer to the question; when Hampton then follows-up asking whether these companies meet TSSA standards, Bradley can still be heard spouting off about Jack Layton and Harper!!!

Green Lizzie, Copenhagen succubus

The St.Catharines Standard continued its climate change GreenFear propaganda fear campaign in Niagara, just the way Ban Ka Boom and Al Whore wanted them to: above: the Pre-Copenhaganist St.Catharines Standard, Dec.5, 2009, goes all out with Coloured Graphs and All Kinds Of Arrows to goad us into thinking that this Green bolshevik pile of shite actually means anything.
The End Of The World is Nigh ...
We are on the road to "PERDITION"... scream the climate-change-fear-mongerers at the St.Catharines Standard!!!

...But there still is time for "REDEMPTION" promise the Climate priests: just pray to Gaia, aka Al Gore, and you'll be rewarded with Heaven on Earth!! Al and Barack and David Suzuki will save you!!

Bend over, so Al Gore, Stephane Dion, Jim Bradley, Jack Layton, and Elizabeth May can have their way with you!

On Dec.7, 2009, look who popped/pooped up in the St.Catharines Standard (no... it wasn't good ole Jim Bradley, strangely), it was good ole Copenfu*ker Green Lizzie May, continuing her climate fearmongering in the St.Catharines Standard with this (unchallenged) doozie:

"After 17 years of further meetings and negotiations (including the 1997 meeting in Kyoto and the protocol produced there) we are rapidly approaching the danger zone. We are already experiencing the loss of millions of square kilometres of Arctic ice, the retreat of glaciers around the world, persistent drought in much of the world, unprecedented shifts in rainfall patterns and sea level rise."

Oh, dear... Elizabeth may just be a climate succubus.
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The "truth" revealed at the St.Catharines Standard

above: St.Catharines Standard, Nov.27, 2009

Isn't it nice to see the St.Catharines Standard kindly providing a link to a site showing an edited-for-propaganda video about Sarah Palin?

The St. Catharines Standard didn't quite bother to mention whether this edited video was approved by Oprah Winfrey or her production company.

Why would this even be in the St.Catharines Standard? Is this news... entertainment... gossip... info-tainment? Or plain ole smear mongering? Nah... it's just "funny stuff"!!

Did the St.Catharines Standard publish a similar funny stuff piece, linking to any videos showing Barack Obama confessing his addiction to incompetency, unprotected sex, and a love of porn? The Standard can't seem to find, let alone recommend to its readers, any links to similar video confessions from Liberal Michael Ignatieff... or from Jack Layton... or Jim Bradley... or Al Gore... or ...

Funny.
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Ignatieff pours revisionist syrup on his coalition waffle

During May 2009, revisionist Michael Ignatieff began trying to con Canadians into believing that he had had serious reservations about Dion's coalition coup attempt back in Dec. 2008.

Come on, Iggy, stop your flip-flop.

The Liberal/Bloc/NDP coalition document was signed on Dec.1. 2008.

No federal Liberal had the balls to stand up before the afternoon of Dec.4, 2008 (when the Governor General made her decision to prorogue parliament) and say "Hey, 'I’m not on board with this."

Some behind-the-scene Liberals waited until after the GG made it clear that the clowns of the cuckoo cobblition . . .

[the 'cobbled-coalition' - made up of Canada's Three Stooges: Larry (Jack Squat Layton), Curly (Separatist dupe Duceppe) and Moe (ringleader and circus-master clown-extraordinaire, Stephane Bumbledore Dion]

. . . were not going to get the keys to Canada's government as easily as they thought they would.

So, where was Iggy when his Liberal party was performing political fellatio on the separatists and socialists in order to grab the reins of power?

Iggy didn’t protest - he and Bob Rae coyly hedged their bets - they claimed they supported their leader Moe, er, Dion, then they retired into the woodwork to watch the fallout.

So, when exactly was Iggy on record as not having agreed to go along with Dion's gambit?

Iggy willingly signed Dion's coalition agreement - and then, Iggy was conspicuously MIA for about four days! Supportive when necessary, but not necessarily supportive, eh, Iggy? Yep - clear as Liberal mud.

Where the hell were Iggy's so-called 'reservations' about Dion's coalition then?! If he had any second thoughts - as Iggy wants us now to believe - then why did he sign and support Dion's plan? Why did Iggy not stop it? Or present another scenario of his own? Or simply act honestly and clearly say: 'No - I can't support this' ?

Iggy - you had a choice.

By Dec.5, 2008 (the day after the GG's decision) Dion's little junta became toast, and for all intents and purposes, began disintegrating, although Liberals at the time still vowed they'd fight on... bla... bla... bla... but it was over, as we now can see in retrospect. However, Iggy was still using his 'My view is perfectly clear... coalition if necessary, but not necessarily coalition' line, on Dec.7, 2008 (with Michael Enright, CBC). "Clear", Iggy? Clear as mud. As clear as Iggy's trite 'the coalition was a means, and it was an end' double-speak.

Iggy's backroomers were already scheming to oust Dion; Dion announced on Dec.8, 2008 that he's quitting as Liberal leader; on Dec. 10, 2008, Iggy was acclaimed as the Liberal leader.

(Let's not forget, though, that Dion, back on Oct.20, 2008, had already announced his intention to resign as Liberal leader in May of 2009.
Dion had made this decision shortly after his Liberals got their ass kicked in the federal election, losing 19 seats and receiving only 26 per cent of the popular vote!
So Dion's previously-announced departure date was simply sped up when he quit on Dec.8, 2008.
Looking at this timeline in retrospect, Dion's coalition attempt was clearly a desperate, last-minute, opportunistic attempt to steal power. Let's always remember: Michael Ignatieff went along on Dion's coalition ride as a willing accomplice.)

But by the spring of 2009, only a few months later, Iggy wants some kind of Dion-style-'Can-I-have-a-do-over'; he somehow wants to rewrite, recast, reconsider, or revise his role in that whole unsavoury episode, and tries to portray to Canadians that he was somehow against Dion’s cuckoo coup-attempt: but that was just not so!

The Liberals, including Iggy and Rae, didn’t mind Dion's gamble, and willingly took the chance that Canada be sacrificed to this coalition of separatists and socialists for the expediency of a power-hungry Liberal party.

No Liberals - especially Iggy - protested a deluded-Dion's disastrous coalition plan. It's worthy to ask: Where was Iggy's much-heralded judgement then? Why is Iggy now trying to reframe what he actually did then?

When he could have, Ignatieff did not do what was right and call Dion on the folly of Dion's cobblition gambit, for the sake of the country, as Ignatieff now tries to spin it. Like a true Grit, Iggy greedily tried to keep his personal options open, despite sensing unease (as we're supposed to now believe) about the odious audacity of Dion's coalition.

Iggy - the two faced waffler - stood by his man on his reckless gamble. And this is the Iggy that wants us now to think of him as a decisive leader? Come on. Iggy threw out any principles he might have had when he greedily signed Dion's coalition papers.

Once again, don’t ask what Liberals can do for Canada, ask what Canada can do for the Liberals.

Over a $1.95/vote subsidy, the price of a cup of coffee, Canada's disgusting Liberals whored themselves out to grab power in the most vile manner they could - and this right after they had just LOST the federal election.

Bumbledore Dion, comedic conspirator of cuckoo-coup-coalition quits

above: National Post, Dec.3, 2008: Canada's Axis of Idiots, aka the three cobble-itionist conspirators, Jack Layton, Stephane Bumbledore Dion, and the separatist Duceppe. click on photo to enlarge.
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Stephane Dion announced today that he will be resigning earlier than he had planned... fittingly, he couldn't even carry out his own resignation plans properly, let alone stop global warming/climate change!!!

Why, just last Monday, Dec.1, 2008, he was going to take over Canada by sleeping with his mortal separatist enemies (!); this Monday, Dec.8, 2008, Bumbledore's waving bye-bye to his theatre of the absurd.

The curtains are finally coming down on the cerebral political comedy stylings of Stephane Bumbledore Dion.
What a run: we were treated to some of the funniest, classically preposterous political manoeuvres ever attempted in Canadian history - what an act!

Dion leaves behind a dramatic legacy of two classic videos exemplifying his comic genius, demonstrating his superhuman ability to stay in sustained character to the nth degree:
his famous CTV 'if am prime minister...when...now..?' video is a legendary, convoluted comedic achievement, of epic proportions. So underplayed... so... believable... Bumbledore makes you, makes everyone, think he's really a Liberal Canadian political leader.
The subtlety is pure genius. Move over, Borat, move over Spinal Tap - Stephane Bumbledore Dion takes the cake when it comes to pushing the envelope of delusional docu-comedies.

And who can forget the inspired 'clarity' of Dion's other masterpiece of interpretational political-situation-comedy:
his unbelievable, out-of-focus Gzowski Hot-Air farce of a video will be a knee-slapper for years to come - it's so earnestly serious, yet at the same time, so utterly laughable, that the audience is left wondering how this Dionist circus act they see unfolding before them can possibly be real. (This video can't be blamed on CTV this time! It was ALL a Liberal production - the whole laughable deal.)

The comedy-verite was so complete, it took on multi-layers of meaning, and other parties became unwitting bit players in this fantastic long-con - newscasters were waiting for it, Cuckoo coalitionists were hoping to see their nutty professor leader charge ahead with coherent plans to wrestle the government of Canada away from the rightfully elected ... everyone was waiting with great anticipation to hear the Grand Utterances of the Dion - and they got a video that looked as if it had been made in a cave.

Only true inspired genius could have come up with and pulled off such bold political satire... Bravo, Sir. For two years, you mesmerized many gullible Canadians to fall for your act, your method of madness will be studied for years to come. Take a well-deserved break. Your understudies circling in the wings are poised to take your place in the spotlight, but to knowing Canadians, you will be our one true Bumbledore.
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Global-warming has nothing to do with climate-change

Watched the Michael Coren Show (CTS, Feb.27, 2008) with guests Ted Woloshyn, David Menzies and Marilyn Churley. Woloshyn was right on in condemning Toronto's school board for not teaching about the Soviet man-made famine-holocaust in Ukraine under Stalin.
The debate turned to “global warming”, and in an exchange between Menzies and Churley, Churley blurted something to the effect that ‘global warming’ isn’t the issue/problem – that it’s 'climate change.'
An exasperated Menzies said that well, the climate is changing…and has for eons.
The more I listen to Churley, the more insufferable she becomes. Her tranformational defense of the whole global warming act (so zealotly pushed the likes of Jack Layton) to now say it’s really about climate change just makes one wonder what the flick this former Ontario NDP politician (shudder) is talking about??
If the subject being blabbed ad nauseum by Suzuki, Gore, et all isn’t about "global warming", what is it about? Haven't they been claiming all along that it's all about global warming – more specifically MAN-MADE, anthropogenic carbon emissions – that cause the greenhouse effect leading to climate change? Isn’t that exactly the narrative being peddled by the kyodiots for the last number of years??
Marilyn Churley is now denying ‘global warming’ and morphing the cause as now being ‘climate change’ ??!! Well, Marilyn, OF COURSE the climate is changing! Tell us something we don’t already know. This is some great revelation to her? But, what then is 'changing' the 'climate', Marilyn?? Is it no longer the supposed/alleged GLOBAL WARMING CAUSED BY MAN?!
It’s like she’s talking in circles.
"Climate change" safely encompasses both global warming and global cooling camps. So when anthrpogenic global warming is laid to rest, the Churley's can still say see - the climate has changed! Yes, Marilyn, it snows in winter and gets hot in the summer, we have weather cycles and seasonal cycles, the sun rises once a day, rivers flow downhill............doh.
Climate stasis – now there would be a real concern, where nothing ever changes for all time. No planetary effects, no man made effects, no effects whatsoever from the sun…that would be something for Marilyn Churley to chew on.
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In a related story (aren't they always somehow related?), the Canadian Government on Feb.26 released its 2008 Budget - which included millions of dollars to build NEW ICEBREAKER SHIPS to patrol the Arctic.
Wha...?

Promised medicare: pre-paid illusion

Further to my earlier Oct. 17, 2007 post, Another Canadian patient forced to U.S. for treatment due to long Ontario wait lists, here is a subsequent thread of letters on the issue of the Shona Holmes health-care Charter challenge against the Ontario government.

John Shaw wrote in “Health care is too important to ration”, (National Post, Sept.7, 2007):

“I find the hypocrisy of Doris Grinspun, executive director of the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario, offensive and typical of the reaction of bureaucrats when faced with the real-world effects of a failed ideology run amok.
People are dying prematurely due to the current rationing of health care in Canada, but she equates the attempts to minimize the impact of the worst excesses with preying on the vulnerabilities of patients to further an "ideological agenda." There can be no more purely ideological agenda than the one she supports.
A government does not have to own every food store to help the poor eat. The same applies to health care. The free market is effective, monopolies are not. A monopoly on the supply of a service can only be seen as an egalitarian ideological agenda. Health care is too important to ration and we are all suffering under second- tier health care.”
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Gerry Vance wrote in the National Post (Sept.7, 2007):

“Re: Lawsuit Challenges Ban On Private Care, Sept. 6.
I agree private clinics should be allowed in Canada as they will improve on our health care system. Shona Holmes did the right thing by suing the Ontario government, demanding that it strike down its ban on private medicine, private MRI clinics and private health insurance.
However, I would correct one very important point not clearly articulated in the article; the medical attention and treatment given to Canadians is not free. In fact we pay for health care through our exorbitantly high taxes and yearly premiums. Actually we prepay for our health care and the service is due to us when we require medical attention and we should never forget that.”

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Hilda Swirsky wrote in “Proof that two-tier care doesn't work”, (National Post, Sept.10, 2007):
“Re: Health Care Is Too Important To Ration, letter to the editor, Sept. 9.[sic.]
It is deceptively alluring to believe that two-tier health care is a panacea that would solve all our problems. However, if letter-writer John Shaw wants compelling evidence of a failed ideology run amok, he should see Michael Moore's movie Sicko and listen to the health care horror stories of nurses who have left the U.S. and other countries that rely on private medicine.”

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Judy Greenwood-Speers, RN, Green Party Health Advocate, Waterloo, Ont, wrote in “Greens support public health care”, (National Post, Sept.11, 2007):

“Re: Health Care Is Too Important To Ration, Letter To The Editor, Sept. 7.

I'd like to offer a reality check in response to John Shaw's letter opposing the postion of the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario (RNAO) against private health care.
Paying for private health care does not create new doctors, but does help to drain them away from the public system, as they can earn more money by still billing for the OHIP-covered services as well as collecting as much as the market will bear in additional fees. As well, private care will help to ensure those who cannot pay will wait even longer, while those who can will jump to the front of the line. This is not part of our Canadian health ethics.
My family understands wait times, as my husband has had eye issues -- first a detached retina that required immediate and timely surgery, which he got. More recently, he was blinded from another cause for three months. When the local doctor's office finally got the referral to the specialist in London, Ont., the surgery was done well and quickly with great results. How long would we have waited in the U.S. if we did not have coverage? I shudder to think if we could have ever afforded the specialized surgery required.
The Green Party supports publicly funded, publicly accountable, publicly delivered health care. As a registered nurse, I also agree with the RNAO on this position because I know it to be in the best interest of sustaining our health care services. We can make it better, but not by increasing profits.”
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Moore's Sicko propaganda proves a failure in its attempt to glorify the single-tier monopoly health system as found in Ontario since 2004. It was Liberal health care ideology 'run amok' in Liberal Ontario which threatened Shona Holmes and became the basis of her legal challenge. Simply put, Liberal promises could not be backed up with required action. And to the left's chagrin, the U.S. was able to treat Holmes when Ontario's facsimile of a system could not. Swirsky might have to bring herself to acknowledge that Ontario's single-payer monopoly failed Holmes. As well, Swirsky can peddle her own alluringly deceptive, authoritarian ideology, but not to the extent of forcing everyone into her one-size-fits-all, unrealistic, demonstrably failing system. I shudder to think of the patient misery that would ensue within Ontario if the ghoulish, clueless Green posturing of Greenwood-Speers' letter is any indication. She even actually trotted out the old chest-beating, flag-draping, Tommy-Douglas-invoking nationalist chestnut of "Canadian health ethics" in order to justify why she thinks it is ethical to deny patients health-care payer and provider options! Let her idol Elizabeth May and Jack Layton out-pious each other on this one.

Jack Layton's muddled health-care flip-flops

Thomas Walkom wrote in “Stands on medicare muddled”, (Toronto Star, Dec.6, 2005):

“No wonder that the voters are confused.
On Thursday, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper - the man many Canadians think of as the great privatizer - announced he was firmly in favour of single-tier universal, public medicare.
On Sunday, New Democrat Party Leader Jack Layton, whose party has built its reputation on public health care, said he thinks existing private clinics are all right - as long as taxpayers don't have to subsidize them.
Prime Minister Paul Martin's exact position? So far, it's hard to pin down. But, generally, Martin says he and his Liberals love medicare more than anyone - and certainly more than Harper. At first glance, it might seem that the major parties are singing the same tune on something that voters have identified as their number one issue.
But they're not. There are differences. It's just that they aren't always easy to spot.
That's because the leaders (and we journalists) too often mix up three related but different questions Who pays for medicare? Who delivers it? What's covered?
Who pays? This is the key to the Canadian system. Medicare is, in the jargon of the trade, a single-pay insurance system. This means that any Canadian resident can receive so-called medically necessary services from a doctor or hospital without paying out of pocket. Instead, they are covered by compulsory government health insurance.
This monopoly element of medicare is kept in place by not only the federal Canada Health Act but a raft of supporting provincial legislation - including bans, in six provinces, on competing private insurance. That's why the Supreme Court's decision this summer to overturn Quebec's insurance ban was so important. The court said the ban made patients wait too long for service.
So far, only the Conservatives have addressed the court decision directly. Harper wants a so-called care guarantee to ensure that patients get treatment quickly, paid for by the public system.
The NDP has attacked Harper's idea because it originated with Liberal Senator Michael Kirby. And the Liberals haven't said much at all.
In general, the single-pay aspect of medicare is politically the least contentious. All parties support it, at least in theory.
So when Harper announced Friday that he fully supported a single-tier system for "core services," he wasn't saying anything new.
Who delivers? Canadian medicare has always offered choice. Most physicians are private practitioners. Almost all Canadian hospitals are private (although non-profit).
Radiology and abortion clinics are usually private, as are testing labs. Until recently, none of this was controversial. As long as providers were operating within the ambit of medicare, few cared whether they were private or public.
But that changed in the 1990s when Alberta decided to permit a new generation of private clinics.
The problem here was that these clinics were offering both medicare and non-medicare services. In Calgary, for instance, patients who wished cataract surgery could book a medicare appointment and wait weeks. Or they could pay out of pocket and get the service faster.
Technically, this didn't break any laws because the direct-pay patents were allegedly paying for medically unnecessary extras, including a videotape and a prayer.
In the mid-'90s, Vancouver surgeon Dr. Brian Day opened a private clinic that took advantage of another technicality to let those with money jump the queue. In this case, patients didn't pay Day directly. Instead, they had friends or relatives write the cheques.
By the end of the decade, private MRI clinics in Nova Scotia, Alberta, B.C. and Quebec were offering so-called medically unnecessary scans that allowed patients with money to jump the diagnostic queue, and thereby, the surgery queue.
These developments eventually led the NDP to call for limitations on private delivery. Now Layton wants Martin to prevent private clinics from mixing medicare and medically unnecessary services.
If private clinics exploiting this loophole were denied access to medicare patients, the NDP theory goes, they would not be able to survive financially.
NDP spokesperson Jamey Heath says that's what Layton meant this Sunday when he said, in Vancouver, that he wouldn't close existing private clinics but would starve them by cutting off federal medicare funds.
Harper, by contrast, actively encourages private delivery. He always has. But the Conservative leader has not dealt with the tougher question posed by private MRI clinics How do you maintain the integrity of single-tier medicare if wealthier patients are allowed to have their problems diagnosed first?
Martin's Liberals say only that they "prefer" public delivery of medicare services.
What's covered? Technically, the Canada Health Act requires only that medicare cover "insured" services, leaving it to provinces to decide what that means. The working assumption for medicare's 37- year history has been that all so-called medically necessary services would be covered.
While all provinces have cut items from their medicare lists, none has yet had the nerve to undertake a drastic cull.
As health commissioner Roy Romanow recommended that the act be amended to include diagnostic scans, like MRIs, as medically necessary. The Liberal government ignored that.
Neither of the other big parties has addressed the issue of what should be covered. Harper talks of a universal health-care system that provides "core" services. But he doesn't say what he means by this. The NDP doesn't say much here either.
In the past, both Harper and the NDP have supported the idea of a national drug plan. But they're not talking about that these days.”

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The above was written during the last (2005) federal election campaign. From the start, the candidate consistent on medicare has been Stephen Harper, who clearly supported the Canada Health Act and has clearly said that he sees nothing wrong with private health care delivery as long as the provinces pay the cost. (Similar to John Tory's platform in 2007, which was immediately twisted by the left with baseless fear-mongering condemnations of impending 'privatization', 0blivious to the 'publicly-paid, privately-delivered' distinction [which worked so well for Jack Layton]. The left's aim is complete health system control, publicly paid and publicly delivered.)

Maybe if Thomas Walkom’s story caption had more aptly read “Layton flip-flops on healthcare privatization” medicare wouldn’t be as “muddled” for Toronto Star readers. Muddling health-care reform issues with red-herrings, innuendo, and plain fear-mongering is just one way to successfully prolong a problematic medicare monopoly whose best-before date has long expired. The “many Canadians” who, as Walkom opines, think of Harper as “the great privatizer”, are most likely readers of the Toronto Star who have been “confused” by leftist Star gobbledy-gook to “think” so.

Although it may be distasteful to Walkom, the epiphany of any socialist, however incremental, is always welcome! The Star editorialized on May 16, 2004 how Layton took a “principled” stance that he’d amend the C.H.A. to ban the practice of private delivery. Now Mr. Layton says private clinics are “a fundamental aspect” of our health care system and that he would not shut down private clinics. My, how the Great Socializer has changed from “principled” to pandering.

Liberals, of course, have been healthcare hypocrites for years; their hidden agenda being to superficially denounce privatization while doing little to curb it. A blatant example of Liberal health care duplicity was when Pierre Pettigrew (in a rare moment of un-Liberal like lucidity) said “If provinces want to experiment with private delivery options, as long as they respect the single, public payer, we should be examining these efforts”. He was swiftly forced to recant, after howls of Liberal and NDP derision.

Let’s be a bit more honest as to who’s been consistently principled, who’s been consistently in denial, and who has just woken up. A civilized leaders’ debate on their nuanced visions of our healthcare future would be welcome.

[since 2005, we’ve had an Ontario provincial election (2007) where the health care system was barely discussed. There was no debate at all of any consequence on this issue. We have seen what Dalton McGuinty's Ontario Liberals did to Suzanne Aucoin, we have seen the McCreith/Holmes health-care Charter court challenge rise in Ontario; we have seen Ontario's Auditor reveal severe shortcomings in Ontario’s Liberal-run health system [most recently in Dec. 2010!]; we have we have seen many Ontarians forced to obtain their health care in the States.

We have seen Dr. Brian Day take his turn as CMA head, amidst the predictable eye-rolling and derision emanating from the status-quo left.

The opinions on Layton’s “muddled” positions were quite clear from this health-care thread in the National Post:

The National Post’s (Aug.21, 2007) editorial, “Welcome to the debate, Dr. Day” read:

“If nothing else, Vancouver surgeon Brian Day's tenure as president of the Canadian Medical Association will be fun to watch. The unapologetic proponent of more private health care choices for patients is a shrewd and articulate campaigner. If anyone has the energy and wit to explain the benefits of private options to Canadians it is Dr. Day, who assumes the CMA presidency this week. Of course, the proponents of state-monopoly care are already lining up to eviscerate him.
Indeed, medicare's defenders began making Dr. Day's tenure difficult at last summer's CMA convention where he was chosen president-elect. For only the third time in the organization's 140- year history, Dr. Day's election was opposed from the convention floor, mostly by supporters of socialized medicine fearful of seeing a man they call "Dr. Profit" capture such a bully pulpit.

One of the finest orthopaedic surgeons in North America, and an early pioneer of orthopaedic sports medicine and arthroscopy, Dr. Day is quick to point out that he has never advocated the elimination of public health care, but rather the introduction of private options for patients and incentives for hospitals to be more competitive. "I believe in a strong public system," he told an interviewer for the CMA Web site this summer. He would prefer, though, that hospitals no longer receive one big block of funding for the year, but instead are paid by governments according to the number of patients they treat. "I'd like to see hospitals competing with one another for patients."

Such a system is used in many European countries - France and Sweden for instance - and has led to the near-elimination of wait lists and the rapid modernization of medical technology. Governments determine how much a particular procedure should cost and pay hospitals for each one they perform, rather than guessing at the beginning of each budget year how many procedures a hospital is likely to do and giving it a lump sum to cover anticipated annual expenditures. Under this latter "global budget" arrangement used in Canada, patients come to be seen as drains on a hospital's resources. Administrators attempt to have as few tests and operations performed as possible to conserve their budgets. And since a hospital's income is little affected by the number of patients it serves, few administrators see any advantage to making their health centres more attractive.

Even before assuming the CMA presidency, Dr. Day had been making devastating arguments about the hypocrisy of Canadian politicians over private care. In public speeches he has pointed out that three former prime ministers - Joe Clark, Jean Chretien and Paul Martin - all sought faster private treatment, while at the same time singing the praises of public-only care for Canadians. Even NDP Leader Jack Layton bypassed the queue for hernia surgery by having an operation done at a private clinic in the mid-1990s, Dr. Day has reminded audiences.

Dr. Day also noted that while federal politicians like to boast their medicare legislation is based on principles espoused by Tommy Douglas in the 1960s, the Canada Health Act leaves out three of Mr. Douglas's eight pillars - efficiency, effectiveness and responsibility - the three most likely to be reintroduced by private care delivery.

As long-time advocates of more consumer choice in health care, we welcome Dr. Day's elevation. His one-year term is certainly going to broaden the health care debate in this country.”

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Anne McGrath wrote in “Jack Layton is not a queue jumper”, (National Post, Aug.22, 2007):

“Re:Welcome To The Debate, Dr. Day, Editorial, Aug. 21.
It was extremely disappointing to read the incorrect statement that "Jack Layton bypassed the queue for hernia surgery."
Mr. Layton did have a hernia operation at the Shouldice Clinic north of Toronto in the 1990s, but it was done within the public medicare system. He was referred by his family doctor, presented his provincial health card and did not bypass any queue.
Though your editorial was careful to attribute the queue-jumping allegation to Dr. Brian Day, the new president of the Canadian Medical Association, you do owe your readers a duty to not repeat false statements.”

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Anne Robinson wrote in “Layton benefitted from two-tier health-care”,(National Post, Aug.23, 2007):

“Re: Jack Layton Is Not A Queue-Jumper, letter to the editor, Aug. 22.
In defending her leader's use of the Shouldice Clinic, NDP president Anne McGrath does not seem to realize that she has just reinforced the validity of having private, for-profit clinics provide services in a more timely fashion. The Shouldice Clinic can do hernia operations in a matter of weeks. I am booked at a public hospital for a similar procedure, but it will be well into 2008 before it can be done.
It seems to me this is exactly the message that Brian Day, the new president of the Canadian Medical Association, is giving - use the private sector for providing timely services even if they are paid for by OHIP.”

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Vic Stecyk wrote in the National Post, Aug.23, 2007:
“Ms. McGrath protests that Jack Layton is no queue jumper. Let's see: He left the queue in the state-run health care system to have his hernia surgery taken care of in a privately owned and operated clinic. Maybe he merely shifted, but didn't jump. Perhaps Ms. McGrath prefers the image of a shifty Jack, as opposed to a jumping Jack.”

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Dan Samson wrote in the National Post, Aug.23, 2007:
“Jack Layton is not a queue-jumper for using the Shouldice Clinic under the auspices of the provincial health plan. But he sure is a hypocrite: The clinic is a privately owned and operated hernia hospital, providing timely access and high quality care to both OHIP and private patients without delay. In other words, Shouldice is the "two-tier" boogeyman that Mr. Layton has expended considerable political capital on shutting down.”

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Consumers should reclaim their right to choose their own method of health care payment and delivery. I don't see any politicians willing to risk stepping on the "third-rail" of monopoly health-reform by rewriting the sacred federal CHA, or Ontario's Commitment to the Future of Medicare act. Politicians will hypocritically continue to kiss Tommy Douglas's ass while patients suffer in line ups and die. We can only hope that judicial Charter court challenges will eventually nullify the politicians' negligent legislative folly.