Brantford demolition continues

below: further to my previous photos, as of Aug.9, 2010, the demolition today claimed #103 Colborne St., which had been the right-half of the white-painted-brick building seen in the centre; a steel beam, which had held up the brick wall over the storefront windows of #103, is now seen hanging unsupported at the centre right as the demolition continues. The left-half of the white-painted-brick building is #105 Colborne St., which will be torn down on Aug.10, 2010. This building at #103-105 Colborne St. was built ca.1870 by Arunah Huntington (who had also built #35-39 Colborne St. in 1867, which was the first building in this strip to be demolished, back on Jun.8, 2010, see here).
above: Aug.9, 2010 - a large section of floor is hauled off from the demolition of #103 Colborne St., which had stood at the left; a small remnant of its rear brick wall can still seen in this shot in the left distance; it was torn down several minutes later.

below: Aug.9, 2010 - a closer view of #105 Colborne St. (at the left); the right-half of the building, which had been #103, is now gone; only a steel beam, which had been the main lintel supporting the upper front brick wall, remains hanging. A chunk of the white-painted brick facade of #103 can be seen laying in the rubble on the sidewalk at the right. below: Aug.9, 2010, video of 103 Colborne St. during demolition.

Medicare's head is still in-the-single-payer-status-quo sand

Regarding CMA's recent 2010 report, and Tom Blackwell's Aug.4, 2010 story "Doctors call for pay incentives", the National Post's Aug.5, 2010 editorial was "The CMA doesn't go far enough":

"The Canadian Medical Association’s latest report on the state of health care in Canada makes for sober reading. According to the CMA, our health system fails to deliver on all five founding principles laid out in the 1984 Canada Health Act: universality, accessibility, portability, comprehensiveness and public administration.
   Although notionally universal, the report notes, our health system consistently fails poorer, marginalized populations, which find it more difficult than the better-off to access and navigate an increasingly complex system. Since low-income Canadians generally are more vulnerable to illness, those most in need of care are least likely to get it.
Wait times, the report notes, have been reduced in a few select areas, but delays remain endemic for many treatments and conditions. Five million Canadians lack a family doctor, making access to primary care problematic.
   Many of the benchmarks we use to judge the system date from the establishment of medicare in the 1960s, and the introduction of the Canada Health Act 26 years ago. Much has changed since then. Spending on seniors’ drug coverage and home care has escalated dramatically, yet neither is subject to the Act’s program criteria, and both “are often subject to arbitrary cutbacks.” Similarly, psychiatric hospitals are not covered by the Act. Access to mental-health services remains poor for children and adults alike, despite a growing understanding of the extent to which mental illness afflicts Canadians.
   Too often, the debate over the health system has concentrated on the ability of governments to finance the ever-increasing cost of care. It should be evident by now, to all but the most dogmatic, that the country simply can’t pony up limitless funds for bottomless budgets. Some other approach is needed.
   The CMA has its own list of proposals, which include a re-examination and modernization of the five founding principles of the Health Act, and the creation of a “Charter for Patient-centred Care.”
   A better solution, we think, would be simply to bring Canada in line with virtually every other OECD nation, and create a hybrid system that permits private health-funding options in parallel with a publicly-funded universal health system. As others have noted many times, Canada is the only country in the world, outside of Cuba and North Korea, where garden-variety private health insurance for essential health needs is illegal.
   It is all well and good that the CMA is critiquing the fine points of Canada’s single-payer health model. But until our politicians tear down its Soviet-style proscription of private options, everything else is palliative care."

The above was from Aug.5 2010; but - let's compare and look back to the warning signs about Jeff Turnbull's ascendancy, and the CMA's potential regression back to a medicare-dependency-pushing status-quo, which were noted a year ago, in the National Post's Aug.18, 2009 editorial "Canadian health care is no model":

"The last two presidents of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) have both been staunch advocates of increased private care. The incoming president, Anne Doig of Saskatoon, who will be installed this week, says our health-care system is "imploding." While not as committed to private options as her predecessors, Dr. Doig acknowledges our current universal public system is "unsustainable." She also argues we should not fear private options, but rather should implement whatever models from around the world -- be they public or private -- that produce the best results for patients. On the other hand, the physician who will replace Dr. Doig next summer, Ottawa's Dr. Jeff Turnbull, promises to be a passionate defender of the government health monopoly during his one-year term.
   Overall, then, three of the four most-recent CMA presidents and presidents-elect have argued to varying degrees that private options for patients are inevitable; just one believes our current government-administered system can be prolonged. Only a dogmatic left-wing outlet such as the Toronto Star editorial page would view this - as it argued in an editorial on Sunday - as proof that a "fresh [pro-medicare] approach may be taking hold" at the CMA, an approach that will "ensure the reactionary American debate over the future of its health care does not poison our own."
   Like most defenders of Canada's health monopoly, the Star misses the point of what is going on Stateside. Contrary to what one might conclude from the clucking and preening exhibited by Canada's friends of medicare, not even those Americans backing guaranteed care for all are holding out our system as their ideal.
   No one in the United States, for example, is calling for a Canada Health Act-like ban on private insurance. Even Barack Obama, while allowing that our system may work for us, was emphatic that the Canadian system "would not work for the United States." No mainstream U. S. politician is calling for the closure of private clinics.
   Indeed, fewer and fewer countries believe, as medicare's defenders do, that it should be illegal for ordinary citizens to use their own after-tax dollars to buy supplemental care. Even major countries with cradle-to-grave social benefits such as France, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and Britain, all permit their citizens private options. All allow user fees. Most also permit surgeons to charge thousands of dollars extra for non-emergency, non-life threatening operations, including hip replacements. Even Sweden, long the utopian ideal of the Canadian left, has recently permitted private clinics and hospitals to compete to provide publicly funded procedures. And the Scandinavian sky has not fallen.
   Dr. Doig is neither categorically in favour of private options nor fundamentally opposed. She wants Canadians instead to debate what care they want and how they want it paid for. That strikes us as quite sensible. It is unfortunate her successor is not similarly enlightened."

The above was from 2009: now we see Danielle Martin and Irfan Dhalla predictably cheering the CMA's 2010 report in "CMA's welcome, but belated, change of heart on medicare" (Toronto Star, Aug.6, 2010); and, now we see the predictable anti-patient-choice Aug.7, 2010 obstructionist response to the Post's Aug.5, 2010 editorial from Canadian Nurses Association boss Judith Shamian; obviously the left's sacred, recriminatory head-in-the-single-payer-status-quo-sand ideology (well-described by Keith Martin in "Canada does not have the best health care system in the world" - and he's a Liberal !) is meant to end up in a non-debate (or at best, a hijacked faux-debate - you don't see medicare-monopoly-pushing-doctor-hating-thugs, such as Ontario McGuinty Liberal MPP Jim Bradley, tolerating any "debate"; for Good Ole Jimmy, as with 'man-made-global-warming', the "debate" about monopoly-health-care is "settled"!! There is NO 'debate'.)
Left wing sycophants of Tommy Douglas' failed medicare monopoly socialism are not interested in 'reform', if by "reform" we mean a complete re-think of Tommy-Douglas' failed health care monopolism; and if by "reform" we mean recognizing the need to move towards a hybrid, pro-patient-choice, anti-government-run-monopoly health-care system.
'Reform' to the 'Chaoulli-be-damned' political left (as we've seen in Niagara, as well) does NOT include any notion of more patient choice, but rather, demands MORE OF THE SAME-OLD FAILED GOVERNMENT-RUN, STATIST HEALTH-CARE INTERFERENCE!
It is time for a hybrid health care system; it is time to begin the de-monopolization of Ontario's state-run, Liberal-infected health-care system. Don't allow your local neighbourhood leftists to confuse you with their populist 'universal health-care' rhetoric: single-payer, state-run monopoly health-care is not the same thing as 'universal health-care.'
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Brantford demolition continues

Further to my previous post of Aug.3, the demolition along Colborne St. in Brantford has claimed two more buildings as of Aug.6:
- #99 Colborne St. (it was the green-painted Super Bowl building seen in the previous post; in the photo below this building had stood at the very far right, behind the stop sign);
and
- #101 Colborne St. (which had stood at the right side of the below photo, next door to the white-painted building still standing). #101 Colborne St. was torn down earlier today, on Aug.6, 2010; its rubble is still seen laying along the sidewalk at the bottom right. It had been built ca.1867 by William Matthews, who had also been mayor of Brantford. (see earlier photo)
above: Aug.6, 2010 - the white-painted brick building seen still standing at the right is #103 Colborne St., the left half of the same building is #105.
above: Aug.6, 2010 - looking up at the demolition site from the rear, the sidewall of #103 Colborne is seen exposed.
The demolition of the south side of Colborne St. began on Jun.8, 2010, at # 35 Colborne St., which had stood just east of Brant Ave. The demolition, as of Aug.6, 2010, has reached the intersection of Colborne St. and Queen St. (where the two buildings, previously hidden from this angle, are now visible across the street, in the left and centre distance) which makes this about the half-way point of this demolition project.

above: Aug.6, 2010 - further east at #151 Colborne St., looking at the 1867-built Smith building, more of its second floor has been demolished.

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Thank Liberal George Smitherman for the Fort Erie and Port Colborne Emergency Room closures

Bernie Cusack of Port Colborne wrote a letter to the editor in the Aug.5, 2010 St.Catharines Standard, "NHS hospital reforms aren't working":

"We had people from Quebec staying in our cottage, and one lady had to go to the emergency room in Port Colborne. This hospital had a reputation for seeing patients in 15 to 20 minutes prior to converting to what it is today.
The Niagara Health System is to be congratulated. In a few short months, it has extended the time to see a doctor to almost equal that in St. Catharines, Welland and Niagara Falls.
These people had a six-hour wait. They commented that in Montreal the wait time was long, but nothing like this.
How do we explain to those running our health system that the object at all hospitals is to reduce wait times, not extend it - especially where things used to work?"
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First off, you can't explain that concept to leftwing politicians who are ideologically-enamoured with monopoly health-care; who still kiss Tommy Douglas' ideological socialist ass at every opportunity, and who believe that single-payer, state-run, no-other-patient-choice health-care is the way to go, so we can emulate Cuba and North Korea.

Secondly, the people Cusack should be sarcastically "congratulating" are NOT the NHS, but Dalton McGuinty's scumbag Liberals: it is Dalton McGuinty's Liberals who control, direct, and fund the Niagara Health System monopoly!!!!!

Cusack should look into the person who was the father, if you will, of both the Port Colborne and the Fort Erie hospital Emergency Room closures: Liberal health-minister George Smitherman.

To the proud cheers of every Ontario Liberal, Smitherman created the LHIN's as a vehicle to force Liberal health-care cuts onto the Liberal's ideologically-motivated anti-patient-choice health-monopoly.

Smitherman and his scumbag Liberals laughed at the momentous Chaoulli health-care decision - which Cusack's guests, being from Quebec, must surely know about. (see Chaoulli links below)

Sadly, our only option to get a message across to "those running our health system" is to vote those who ACTUALLY DO RUN THE HEALTH SYSTEM - specifically, Dalton McGuinty and his Liberal scumbags - out of office.

That includes local Niagara Liberals such as MPP Jim Bradley and MPP Kim Craitor, and wannabe Liberal hacks such as Port Colbone mayor Vance Badawey. Their ideology IS the problem.

And we should all learn about and support the Lindsay McCreith and Shona Holmes health-care Charter challenge against McGuinty's Liberal monopolist-health-care fascists. (see here; here)
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Where on earth is Liberal MPP Jim Bradley?

It's strange how Marlene Bergsma writes her St.Catharines Standard report ("St.Catharines joins call for NHS hospitals investigation", Aug.4, 2010) yet fails to mention any response from Jim Bradley, the Liberal MPP in her newspaper's city!
Yep, it's almost as if Jim Bradley - the anti-patient-choice, monopoly-pushin', health-care-cuttin' Grit hypocrite, who loves to blame either Ralph Klein or Mike Harris for everything, including 'global-warming' - has nothing at all to do with any of this!!
Who'd of thought that the St.Catharines Standard would not bother to include Liberal Jim Bradley's comments (or lack thereof!) in a report where the city is questioning the efficacy of his and McGuinty's Liberal health-care monopoly's performance, and, is demanding an "investigation"? Certainly not me!
Funny, eh!? Jim Bradley ISN'T mentioned at all!!
The socialists are attacking Jim Bradley's supposedly-great Liberal single-payer health-monopoly-monstrosity, and yet, The Standard can't find Good Ole Jimmy for a response or comment!!!
But the good folks at the Standard were able to send Grant LaFleche on a mini-vacation to Eganville [environmental footprint and eco damage to the planet of said useless trip: NOT mentioned! maybe the GreenTeamsters will write a full-feature on that?] to try to dig up some kinda dirt on Bishop Wingle, publishing a story about it on July 31, 2010, with a gigantic "Where on earth is Bishop Wingle?" headline - yet, the Standard has never bothered to publish their story "Where on earth is Liberal MPP Jim Bradley?" !!
Jim Bradley now can just PHONE IN HIS PATHETIC RESPONSES (if he feels like it, that is...) and leave his unchallenged Liberal rhetoric on the Standard's answering machine - and well, that's good enough for the Jim Bradley Fanclub!
Why, the St.Catharines Standard still has not bothered to publish what Liberal MPP Jim Bradley's specific reaction and comments were to Dr. Jack Kitts' report (see here) regarding the NHS's 'HIP' plan - FROM OCT. 2008 !!!!!!

[...see here, where I wrote back on Nov.2, 2008:

"Why isn’t local St. Catharines Liberal MPP Jim Bradley explaining why his Liberals are underfunding their health monopoly – right in Niagara? Is anyone even asking him? A vaporous Bradley has nothing to say about anything … why, Jimmy’s busy banning cellphone use in cars while merely phoning-in his own duties as St. Catharines MPP!
(A story in the Oct.30, 2008 St. Catharines Standard, "Rifts remain over NHS plan", read : "St. Catharines MPP Jim Bradley, who previously declined to comment on the NHS plan until Kitts delivered his report, said he did not want to comment Wednesday. "I still have to read the full report, and then the LHIN has to make a decision on it," he said. "As much as possible, I think politics should be kept out of this."
Bradley now wants 'to keep politics out of health-care'??!
Is he for FLICKING real?
This from the FLICKING Liberal partisan who for years earned his living constantly posturing and blustering about health-care, spewing his monopolist rhetoric and his Liberal health-care duplicity far and wide? The gall of this smarmy hypocrite to now pretend and plead that somehow "politics should be kept out of this"... when "this" is ALL ABOUT politics: failing, duplicitous Liberal politics which Bradley conveniently now wants us overlook.
Hypocrite, thy name is Jim Bradley."]

The Standard didn't bother to pursue their local golden boy Jim for specific answers then, and they haven't bothered to do so now: nothing from local Liberal health-monopoly-pushing strongman Bradley whatsoever. (...maybe Bergsma could have now asked Jimmy if he's read the report yet - two years later...!!)
Bradley's initial reaction to the 2008 Kitts HIP report is completely intertwined with, and, completely relevant to Bergsma's story of today, Aug.4, 2010 - yet we don't even know what secretive Ole Jimmy thought about the Kitts HIP report back then, let alone what Jimmy is thinking about the calls to investigate the fallout of that very same HIP report now!!
These calls to 'investigate the NHS' are another indictment of the McGuinty - Bradley - George Smitherman Liberal-monopolist-health-care cock-up; another example of Liberal Healthcare Duplicity.
Let's not forget, a secretive Liberal Jim Bradley refused to call for Ontario's ombudsman to investigate why hundreds of patients were dying of c. difficile infection in McGuinty's health-care monopoly.
A secretive Liberal Jim Bradley also refused to call for any investigation into why the NHS (Niagara Health System) had the third-highest patient death-rate in Canada, as was revealed in a 2007 CIHI study.
A smug Liberal Jim Bradley could care less about having anyone examine his Liberal government's despotic single-payer health-care dictatorship.
And the St.Catharines Standard has treated Liberal MPP Jim Bradley with kid gloves and protected Jimmy's Liberal ass for years.
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Brantford demolition continues

below: the demolition of a large part of Brantford's old downtown commercial strip along the south side of Colborne St. continues.
As of Aug.3, 2010, as seen below, the demolition has now claimed #95-97 Colborne St., which had stood to the right of the green-painted building seen still standing (see previous photos here) The green-painted building, at #99 Colborne St., was built ca. 1880, and was lastly the Super Bowl restaurant (see earlier photo here).

above: Aug.3, 2010 - looking up from Water St. at the demolition site from the rear - the building standing in the center (and next in line for demolition) is #99 Colborne St.

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below: as seen July 26, 2010, the 1867-built Smith building (located at #151 Colborne St., at the very eastern end of the demolition site) was being prepped for demolition - also see earlier view here.

above: Aug.3, 2010 - same view, the top floor of the Smith building has been demolished; part of the former Right House structure is at the far right.

Rosbergs site cleanup continues

below: Rosbergs department store building in Niagara Falls, Ont., seen on Jan.5, 2009, looking from the south-east. Queen St. runs in the foreground, Erie Ave. runs along the front of the store in the left distance.

above: same view, Oct.5, 2009, early in the morning, the day after Rosbergs had burned (see also here); smoke still rises from the interior. Note the rear block wall is still (mostly) standing.

above: same view, still on Oct.5, 2009, late in the afternoon - note the upper part of the rear wall is now gone - it was unstable after the fire, and was demolished earlier in the day by a block and crane.

above: same view, Oct.6, 2009 - note the lower part of the rear wall has now been removed, revealing the full extent of the damaged structural steel supports left twisted within the building.

above: same view, Oct.8, 2009 - an official examines the wreckage. Note the side brick walls which had flanked Queen St. at the left have now been demolished, and some of the higher structural steel beams have been taken down.

above: same view, Oct.25, 2009 - more of the steel structure has been taken down. The fire marshall's office was examining the site after the fire.

above: same view, May 25, 2010 - seven months later; though more steel has been taken down, inside the site still remains essentially untouched all winter; most of the steel and masonry and debris remained on-site as it was, due to asbestos contamination (see here).

above: same view, July 31, 2010 - two months later, the site has been cleared: now the basement walls can be seen, outlining the footprint where the old Rosbergs store stood.

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below: Jul.30, 2010, looking at the Rosbergs site from the Queen St. side, closer to Erie Ave.; an excavator is inside the former basement; note the pipe sticking out of the old parged rubble-stone foundation.

above: same view, Jul.30, 2010 - the excavator knocks the wall down. This stone-rubble foundation probably dates back at least to the old Armstrong Hotel, which had once stood on the north-east corner of Queen and Erie (see further below) and which was sold to Jacob Rosberg by the Armstrong family around 1919. The Armstrong Hotel would have occupied the bottom portion of the photo.

above: this is the same view as the previous two shots, as seen earlier on Jun.6, 2010, looking at the mess inside. The same foundation wall is seen at the centre right.
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below: seen at the far right, this is what the Armstrong Hotel, on the north-east corner of Erie Ave. and Queen St., looked like in 1900. The series of buildings next to the hotel, running north along Erie Ave.at the right, became the Rosbergs store (see here)
[above photo and below photo from the Niagara Falls Ont. library archives]
above: a postcard view of the same corner, dated Aug.13, 1912; the gabled Armstrong Hotel building is seen at the right. Note the steam visible from locomotives behind the then-Grand Trunk railway station in the left distance; the same building - now a CN station - located on Bridge St., is still there and still in use today.
Also note that both streetcar and train tracks crossed Erie Ave. in front of the Armstrong; also note the large incandescent glass globe which provided illumination above the intersection. above: the same corner where the Armstrong once stood, seen Oct.8, 2009, as rubble from the Rosbergs' fire lays scattered on the street.
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