CIDA spreads "climate change" GreenFear

Another neato piece of GreenFear TM in the St.Catharines Standard was the below Feb.5, 2010 story "Climate change could make it harder to feed hungry".
Notice how a disengenuous CIDA president Margaret Biggs doesn't quite say - and this Canadian Press article conveniently doesn't quite specify - which... umm... KIND of "climate change" they are fear-mongering about: is it AGW?! The climate IS "changing"; what Biggs doesn't cite is her and CIDA's sources for their fear mongering assumptions and time lines:
     "Poor countries are still gripped by the food crisis of two years ago and climate change will only make things tougher in the coming years, says the head of Canadian International Development Agency.

CIDA President Margaret Biggs offered that candid assessment of the state of the undeveloped world and what Canada can to do help, in a speech Thursday to University of Ottawa students.

Biggs, who rarely speaks publicly, also said a tough road lies ahead in rebuilding earthquake-ravaged Haiti.

Food security is expected to be a key part of the G8's outreach to poor countries at the summit Canada is hosting this summer.

Reminding her audience of about 80 graduate students of the global food crisis of 2008, Biggs said: "It has not gone away."

One-sixth of the world - one billion people - including one of every three inhabitants of sub- Saharan Africa live in poverty and are "chronically hungry," she said.

And the ability of poor people to grow food to feed starving populations will be strongly challenged by climate change in the next five years, she added.

"A key factor has been a decrease in agricultural productivity because of the low levels of investment in agriculture around the world. Everybody dropped the ball," said Biggs.

"In some areas, climate patterns are exacerbating some of these tendencies. Arable land and water is becoming scarcer in some cases because of climate change," she added.

"It doesn't mean we can't adapt ... but that's a major new dynamic."

Her remarks are some of the strongest to date by a Canadian official on the subject of climate security - the notion that climate change will have serious security effects such as forcing mass migrations of people, loss of coastal areas and possible conflict.

The British and U.S. militaries have drawn up significant contingency plans to compensate for what they see as the serious global security threats posed by climate change in the coming decades.

Before the Jan. 12 earthquake, Haiti was ravaged by four hurricanes that destroyed 85 per cent of its agricultural capacity, said Biggs.

On the development front, Haiti is a "microcosm of a lot of what's gone wrong in the past and what we have to get right going forward."

The key will be rebuilding state institutions and ultimately making Haiti's government stronger, she said.

On a broader scale, Biggs said Canada's development focus on food security is a key priority.

Biggs noted how Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced $600 million over three years for food security at last year's G8 summit in Italy. At the Huntsville meeting in June, food security is expected to be a major issue on a day of outreach when the eight countries open up their talks to about a half dozen poor countries.

Biggs said food security is linked to Harper's other high-profile G8 priority - reducing the deaths of children and pregnant women in poor countries."
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Perfect: CP {Canadian Propaganda}, with the St. Catharines Standard's editors' help, has managed to link some kind of "climate change" to hurricanes and earthquakes and food crisis' and Harper and Haiti and alarmist deadlines - a jumbled mess of enviro Greenpaganda TM; a nice "microcosm" of unrelated environmental causality spewed by CIDA packaged in a neat St.Catharines Standard "story"! Biggs should do her job without resorting to specious "climate change" GreenFear TM populism.
For another perspective on the climate-change fear-spreading industry, see here. (National Post story link vanished long ago apparently)
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It's not about Danny Williams; it's about the hypocrisy of single-payer-pushing politicians

Rex Murphy wrote in "The private life of Danny Williams" (National Post, Feb.5, 2010, here):

"Danny Williams, Premier of Newfoundland, had or is having major heart surgery in the United States.

I'm sure everyone wishes him and his family the very best with the operation.

His going to the U.S. has stirred a great volume of controversy and comment - almost as much, by informal measurement, as the prorogation of Parliament. Both here and in the U.S. Heavens, it's even been brought up in that Shangri-La of Socratic disinterest, FOX News' Bill O'Reilly show.

Not surprising, many might say. Danny Williams is a lightening rod of his own construction. He's aggressive, combative, partisan - and back home, largely without any real opposition. My own personal take on him, for what its worth, is that I admire the ferocity of his feelings for Newfoundland while I sometimes deplore the bullying and bluster it occasionally leads to.

But I see it as more than awkward that his surgery, and his choice - perhaps on the advice of his Newfoundland doctors - of where to have it, has become the great political football that it has. I've never been a fan of that wretched slogan "the personal is political" for the very obvious reason it demolishes the barrier that should - must - exist between our genuine private lives and the wide-open, reckless and supercharged arena of politics.

It's his heart, it's his surgery, and it's his choice. Danny Williams, Premier or no Premier, and his family are the only ones at this point who have any real say about where he chooses to have life-threatening surgery. Further, as most commentary admits, the actual facts upon which he made his choice, and the counsel he has received from his Newfoundland doctors is not known to us - nor, by the way, should it. So the river of commentary, both here and in the states, is taking place in a vacuum of fact.

A larger reason for refusing to politicize the moment however is a simple one: It parallels Trudeau's dictum that the state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation. Likewise, politics should stop at the edge of the operating table. It's his life and it's his business.

He hasn't, using his standing as Premier, jumped some queue, lined up an MRI by cutting off someone less connected, hasn't displaced some other Newfoundlander waiting for surgery. Something like that would make a genuine case for debate of condemnation.

So - the decent civil course would be to wait till the operation's done, wish him the best, wait for his recuperation - and if then, he wants to unfold his personal circumstances, and offer some thoughts on the "politics" of his choice, we can all hear him out.

But for now, leave him be. Politics, as I've said, should stop when the man in the white coat is reaching for the scalpel.

For The National, I'm Rex Murphy."

I think Rex Murphy misses a major point here: it isn't only about 'Danny Williams the person'; it's about THE IDEA which Canadian monopoly-pushing politicians - like Williams - represent.

It's about Williams as the political embodiment of an idea that is forced on us, but not good enough for him.

That's the point.

That was the point the day before Danny Williams revealed his intention to get surgery in the States; that's still the point now.

There's NO "vacuum of fact": Williams has become yet another Canadian goin' down the road to Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, etc. for healthcare. What we do have a "vacuum of" is honest healthcare debate - and that's a fact. Every politician is afraid to discuss the obvious private-parallel system that must be implemented to supersede Tommy Douglas' failed socialist construct.

Murphy's use of Trudeau's old 'state has no place in the bedroom' phrase in the context of this story is pointless here: single-payer health care is nothing BUT state involvement in your private affairs!!

Meddling in the healthcare choices of Canadians is WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT, REX!!

Sure, leave Williams alone, as Murphy pleads - but the ideology of the health-monopolists is beyond 'Williams, the person'; we should not stop demanding answers from all these single-tier-pushing despots across Canada.

William's situation simply highlights the hypocrisy of single-tier health care. Health care IS politicized in Canada. Let's not pretend otherwise.

Jim Bradley stretches the limits of credibility

As you read the below story it becomes apparent that this St.Catharines Standard article is totally mis-named; giving the impression that all is well; it should more aptly have read "EMS needs millions to carry out McGuinty ER cuts".

Grant Laflech wrote in "EMS keeping up with NHS changes" (St. Catharines Standard, Feb.4, 2010)

"Niagara's paramedics are staying on top of changes introduced by the Niagara Health System, but it isn't cheap and it hasn't been easy, they say.

The hospital system's restructuring plan has morphed emergency rooms in Port Colborne and Fort Erie into 24-hour urgent-care centres. They can handle minor illnesses and injuries while more serious cases are directed to hospitals in Welland and Niagara Falls.

Kevin Smith, Niagara EMS associate director, said the changes ultimately required more ambulances and more paramedics on Niagara roads. The increased distances to transport some patients means it takes more time on some calls, meaning extra crews were needed to maintain response times.

The extra vehicles and staff, paid for by Niagara Region, will cost about $3.3 million in the 2010 regional budget.

"That is just for the new vehicles and staff," Smith said. "That is on top of our usual budget."

Smith said the Niagara taxpayer shouldn't be shelling out for the changes in EMS services.

As he sees it, the changes made by the NHS were ultimately mandated and approved by the provincial government, and the buck should stop there.

"We cannot control the changes the NHS makes. We can only react to them," he said after presenting a report on the situation to the regional public health committee Tuesday afternoon. "That is why we are asking the provincial ministry to fund (the budget increase) 100%."

The Region sent a request to the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care several months ago, but Smith said no response has been received. The committee said it would follow up on the request to the government.

St. Catharines MPP Jim Bradley said while neither Niagara EMS nor the Region has approached him about funding, he is aware of the issue and has raised it with the ministry.

"My understanding is that ministry staff is to set up a meeting with EMS and Niagara Region to discuss this issue," he said.

Bradley said all such requests are being handled on a case-by-case basis because the government is facing a $25-billion deficit. Funding requests of all kinds are being made, he said, but the government budget has its limits.

"A case has to be presented and if a case is strong enough, a ministry can see if it fits into their budgetary process."

Smith's report outlined why the extra resources were needed.

Since the NHS made the changes in Port Colborne and Fort Erie, paramedic workloads have noticeably risen. While call volumes have remained about the same in Port Colborne, they have risen in Fort Erie.

The report says while the number of calls has risen, patients not knowing when they should go to the urgent-care centre or an emergency room is also a factor.

A growing number of people are showing up at the Fort Erie urgent-care centre who should be treated at an emergency room, and some of them need to be transported to an ER by ambulance. The overall increased traffic of patients to the Welland and Niagara Falls ERs has exacerbated the chronic patient off-load delay problem. When an ambulance arrives at an ER and there are no beds for the patient, paramedics have to stay with the patient until one becomes free.

Smith's report said patients who previously would have not been subject to off-load delays in Port Colborne and Fort Erie are now facing those delays at ERs.

Committee members asked Smith if it was possible to take some patients to the urgent-care centres rather than an ER. It is possible, he said, but the NHS criteria for taking patients to an urgent-care centre are very narrow, meaning very few patients are transported to them.

"If we did not have the resources the Region has given us, you'd see response times start to rise," he said.

The report did not contain information about the St. Catharines emergency room and urgent-care centre.

Smith said he would update the committee in three months." [above red emphasis mine]
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At least Lafleche managed to find Niagara's elusive Jim Bradley and get an actual quote from His Royal Hindness of Niagara. Why didn't Bradley provide any stats for the St.Catharines hospital in his own city?! Did the reporter ask? It's amazing: when Good Ole Jim was in opposition, if someone as much as sneezed in the hospital, Jim would call a news conference armed with all kinds of charts and figures and quotes and anti-Harris rhetoric.

Today - NOT A FLICKING THING from Good Ole Health-Care-Cuttin' Jimmy.

If only Lafleche had asked about Bradley's views on the Kitts HIP report: what public comments did Bradley ever make on that - since 2008? Anyone know?? Isn't that a wee bit relevant today?

Here we are in 2010, and LOOK AT BRADLEY'S SMUG REMARKS!

This Liberal MPP - after having helped McGuinty cut south Niagara's ER's - now sits there like a smug bureaucratic ass and says "hey - no-one called me!! How was I supposed to know how the hell patients will get to the hospital! That's the region's problem. Let the EMS worry about that!!"

Unbelievable.

Now Bradley sits back and has the utter gall to say that Smith from the EMS has to come crawling to the Liberals TO MAKE HIS CASE?

Unbelievable!!

IT WAS BRADLEY'S LIBERALS that should have made the case - BEFORE their state-run health-monopoly initiated the cuts!

What is this incompetent Liberal smoking?

"The government budget has its limits" Bradley (the health-care-monopoly-forcing-despot) NOW sagely tells us, without any sense of hypocrisy or irony; without any damn acknowledgement or realization of the culpability of his own rabid, duplicitous ideology which led us here.

The utter GALL of this disgusting Liberal: 'the budget, which we ruined, has its limits, dear sheeple; nevertheless, we will not allow you to seek alternatives to our incompetent Liberal health monopoly!'

Now, Bradley babbles on (as if he's surprised) about his pathetic McGuinty government's $25 billion dollar deficit - thereby JUSTIFYING THE CUTS!! Bradley tells us this IS about money!!

The point of the Anzovino inquest is all about the fallout of the Liberal ER closures on the EMS response/patient delivery time!!

Just several days ago, on Jan.23, 2010, in the Globe and Mail (see here), Liberal health minister Deb Matthews told us that the Kitts HIP plan (which led to the ER closings in Port Colborne and Fort Erie) WAS NOT about saving money!!

Come on Jim: get your damn story straight - your own health minister contradicts you.
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Danny Williams didn't walk the health-care talk

Andre Setton wrote in "Two-tier health care on The Rock?" (National Post, Feb.3, 2010, here)

"Re: N.L. Premier Williams Set To Have Heart Surgery In U.S., Feb. 2. National Post

I think we can all agree that we all wish Premier Danny Williams a complete and speedy recovery.

But his trip to the U.S. for this procedure raises so many questions about our health-care system. Such as:

-Was this procedure not available in Newfoundland or anywhere else in Canada and if so, why not?

-Is this a case of "jumping the queue" because the Premier couldn't wait to have this procedure?

-If the province is paying for the procedure, would any other resident there also be flown to the United States for a similar procedure?

-If Premier Williams (or some private insurance plan) is paying for the procedure, is this not a blatant case of a two-tier system where people who can afford private insurance get options and choices not available to the general public?

And the most important question: The next time any premier defends Canada's single-payer option, will anyone have the courage to ask the him all these questions?"

These are some good questions to ask not only of Williams, but of other big-mouth Canadian single-payer health-care-monopoly-enforcing politicians.

Let's hear Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff pontificate on Williams' running for the American border to obtain cardiac treatment which (we are told, without detail) is supposedly "not an option" in Canada - anywhere. Where's Iggy's smug Liberal outrage?!

A clever Iggy skates around commenting on the issue of Williams' blatant single-payer health-care hypocrisy by saying (here) "the optics are for Mr. Williams to deal with."

What: Ignatieff has NO defense of the single-payer Utopia that his party doggedly bleats on about on any other occasion?! What kind of "optics" does Iggy's own duplicitous non-stand connote?!

Let's hear Iggy pronounce that, unlike Danny Williams, or Belinda Stronach, or Jean Chretien, or Robert Bourassa, he would never travel to the U.S. for health care, no matter what! Then let's hear Iggy accuse others of harbouring secret health care agendas!

Let's for a moment quickly jump back to 2004, and recall Canada's federal-provincial health-care mess under Liberal PM Paul Martin, just after his 'healthcare-billions-"fix" for a generation' fiasco - a year before the Chaoulli decision changed the monopoly-status-quo-landscape (at least in Quebec). Note Williams, in the below story, happily taking Martin's cash; saying that healthcare is not the feds problem: that it's HIS problem, that it's his province's problem.

John Ivison wrote on this theme in "Money will not fix what ails system: Summit was a missed opportunity" (National Post, Sept.17, 2004): [my emphasis in red]

"Paul of Tarsus would have been impressed with the conversion that many of Canada's premiers underwent in the wee hours of yesterday morning. The late unpleasantness was forgotten, even by Danny Williams, the Newfoundland and Labrador Premier, as the first ministers high-fived each other at the conclusion of the 10-year plan to strengthen health care.

Williams, who had previously said that the whole process was a "farce" that could "destroy health care for a generation," was much more emollient after the deal was signed. The vision of dollar signs he saw on the road to the conference centre persuaded him that they had reached an agreement of which everyone could be proud. He did say his province still had serious fiscal problems but told Paul Martin, "It's not your problem ...that's my problem, that's our problem and I don't expect you to fix and heal all those problems." Martin should put such provincial empathy down to sleep deprivation because Williams is unlikely to be as understanding when the premiers crash antlers with the Prime Minister over equalization payments next month.

For his part, Martin's ambition to fix health care for a generation had wilted to merely striking a "deal for a decade." Nonetheless, he proclaimed the agreement as a great day for Canada and one that "adopted the best aspects of the competitive market economy."

As Adam Smith whirled in his grave, it was left for Gary Mar, the stoic Alberta Health Minister, to douse the meeting with cold, hard reality. The deal was, he said, a good start, and one that should improve access to health care across the country. But it was emphatically not a deal for a decade.

"The current iteration of the Canadian health system will not last 10 years. The provinces and the territories will be back," he said.

New technology and skyrocketing drug costs mean that health care inflation runs at a rate of between 6% and 10%, while government revenues increase at around 2% to 4% annually. "Ultimately, even if the federal government's very generous 6% escalator applies to 25% of Canadian health care costs, there are still 75% of Canadian health care costs growing at a much faster rate than 6%." [my insert: oh, my - didn't Dalton McGuinty know - or remember - that?!]The result, he said, was that Alberta would continue to seek to "innovate" - a euphemism for private delivery - a move that Premier Ralph Klein has already commented could end up breaching the terms of the Canada Health Act.

As the dust settles on the new deal, it would be churlish not to acknowledge that it contains some good things. It is hard to argue with the establishment of comparable indicators, and new benchmarks and targets for wait times.But the deal essentially provides money to do more of what we are already doing. We may be able to more readily identify problem areas, but there are no provisions for fixing those problems. As jurisdictions around the globe reform their systems to curb runaway costs, Canada has actually buttressed an entrenched status quo.
It's as if no one present at the conference had actually read Senators Michael Kirby and Wilbert Keon's recommendations on achieving efficiencies and productivity gains in health care. The two senators contend that the current fix of throwing more money at the problem "neither works nor is financially sustainable."

Kirby and Keon believe that, while retaining the single public funder principle, an element of competition should be introduced so that hospitals and doctors compete on the basis of price and quality of service. They argue that a monopoly situation exists, which on the labour side means that doctors and nurses wield excessive power and secure pay increases that surpass bargaining in other industries. For example, the Conference Board said median annual earnings for health workers in general rose twice as much in the 1990s as for non-health workers (6.4% versus 3.1%). Health professionals saw wages rise 15.1%. These increases were secured without any consideration for increases in productivity.

The monopoly of hospitals, according to Kirby and Keon, means "they have little incentive to enhance the quality and/or accessibility to their services, to contain or reduce costs or to improve their efficiency or effectiveness." They recommend that procedures such as cataract surgery could be performed much more cheaply in specialized health clinics not constrained by rigid collective agreements because of their lower overheads and more flexible work rules. They believe that the ownership of these clinics is irrelevant, particularly since delivery of health care is almost entirely in private hands anyway (in the form of doctors' private practices and not-for-profit hospitals). The Canada Health Act, they point out, does not restrict private ownership.

The brute reason of many of these arguments seems indubitable, and it is preposterous that they were not even raised at a three-day conference devoted to reforming the health care system for a generation. These are hardly absurd, utopian recommendations. Many of the basic precepts are already being introduced in the United Kingdom, in the face of predictable opposition from public sector unions.

That the real issues at the first ministers conference were buried beneath a welter of self-serving verbiage may have something to do with the fact that a number of provincial governments have made recent moves that actually strengthen the monopoly positions of health care workers and hospitals.

In Ontario, Dalton McGuinty's government purchased three for-profit MRI clinics and required four others to convert to not-for-profit status. In Manitoba, the NDP government purchased a for-profit orthopedic clinic in Winnipeg. "The purchase of these facilities ... simply means that money will have been taken out of cash-strapped health care budgets and spent in a way that provides no added benefits to patients and does nothing to shorten a single waiting line," wrote Kirby and Keon.


In the final analysis, the health summit was a tragic missed opportunity. Without some discussion of fundamental structural reform, Martin's victory will ultimately prove Pyrrhic. The "transformative change" the Prime Minister envisaged, presumably did not include turning Canada's health system into that of a banana republic rapidly running out of bananas"

Let's hear Banana-republic-leader Dalton McGuinty pledge (ha!) that he too will never go to the States for any kind of health care, no matter what!

"Structural reform"? HAH!! McGuinty, Smitherman, Caplan, Matthews, Bradley and rest of the Grits derided and loathed that concept since their sad election in 2003. For McGuinty's health monopolists, even the sensible, mild Kirby-Keon recommendations were laughed off as ridiculous! (And don't forget how the federal Liberals sanctimoniously crapped all over their own colleague Pierre Pettigrew for his mild suggestions to improve health-care)

Let's hear Liberal MPP Jim Bradley make the promise never to go to those United States, which he hates so much, for health care treatment.

Let's hear from any of these these smug health-monopoly-shoving, Tommy Douglas butt-licking Liberals, Conservatives, and NDPeers that neither they, nor their families, will ever, under any circumstances, go to the U.S. for their health care.

Single-payer-pusher Williams' has run out of bananas, and has made himself a single-payer health-care hypocrite: he had no problem running away from the system which was not good enough for him, yet, at the same time insisting was the ONLY system good enough for the rest of us! Do as I say, not as I do...

As Lorne Gunter wrote in "What's good for Danny Williams..." (National Post, Feb.4, 2010, here)

"...The point I am trying to make here is that only because we have turned health care into a political hot potato are any of us even wondering whether the premier is justified in going to an American clinic.

He is justified in making whatever decision he deems best for his own health, period. Considerations about equity and fairness and the public good have nothing whatever to do with health care and everything to do with politics.

Thankfully, Mr. Williams has enough money that he can fly off to wherever the best care exists. I wouldn't resent him using the money he has earned to buy better care or faster care. I wish him a full and speedy recovery. But why don't the rest of us have the option of escaping socialized medicine, too?

What I resent is the way premiers and prime ministers won't free you or me to buy insurance that would enable us to procure first-class care in times of need. What I resent is the way many limousine liberals lash us to the mast of the good ship Medicare, then run off to the United States when it's their lives or their families' on the line. They are like public school trustees who send their kids to private school.

I don't care whether Mr. Williams gets treatment in St. John's or Cleveland or Timbuktu. But then he and his fellow politicians have to stop caring where I get treatment. They have to stop limiting my health care options just to win political points.

In its 2005 decision in the Chaoulli case, the Supreme court ruled that if Canadian governments could not provide timely heath care they had to permit Canadians to buy insurance for private treatment, whether inside the country or out. It's time governments lived up to that decision - so that perhaps the next time Danny Williams needs his heart fixed, he doesn't have go to the United States. "   


The NDP and Liberals don't even believe in the Chaoulli ruling, and both accuse the Conservatives of harbouring a scary "secret agenda" (you've heard it; you've heard your paranoid friends repeat it -  to "create" a two tier system: a system which was informally created by none other than Chretien and Martin!! But why quibble with Canada's history of Liberal healthcare duplicity?

Here's Lorrie Goldstein's comment in "Have a heart, Danny, please speak up" (St.Catharines Standard, Feb.4, 2010, here):

"If Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams urgently needed heart surgery that could not be performed in Canada, all he has to do is say so and the controversy over his decision to seek medical care in the U.S. will end.

Even if Williams, a millionaire who donates his salary as premier to charity, paid for it himself, it's hard to criticize anyone for using their own resources to seek the best medical care available.

This as opposed to having the operation done in Canada, and possibly having to wait in line, simply to make a political statement in support of medicare. (Newfoundland's medical wait times are among the longest in Canada.)

Deputy Premier Kathy Dunderdale said Williams' surgery wasn't available in Newfoundland, but not whether it could have been performed in Canada.

Vickie Kaminksi, head of Newfoundand's largest health authority, said Williams - who hasn't publicly commented - acted on the recommendations of local doctors, who referred him out-of-province.

But Canadian experts like pioneering heart surgeon Dr. Wilbert Keon-a Conservative senator -told theGlobe and Mailthere's "no question" Williams could have chosen treatment in Canada. Alberta cardiac surgeon Dr. Arvind Koshal said Williams was setting a bad example, adding: "The optics are very poor, especially for people who are proponents of the Canadian health-care system."

Opponents of President Barack Obama's medicare initiative in the U.S. are chortling Williams is just the latest Canadian politician to opt for U.S. health care.

More significantly, our Supreme Court in 2005 - citing wealthy individuals who could bypass wait times under medicare by heading south - ruled Quebec's law banning private medical insurance, and by implication similar laws across Canada, were unconstitutional because they denied patients the ability to seek timely care when medicare can't provide it.

Our politicians claim they've addressed that issue by shortening wait times, although many patients disagree.

If it turns out Williams headed to the U.S. for faster care, it raises the issue of why our governments continue to prevent us from buying private medical insurance so more of us can avoid medicare's line-ups, as the wealthy do by travelling south."

Well, let's ask Liberals Dalton McGuinty, Deb Matthews, Jim Bradley, and Kim Craitor that same question which Goldstein asks: Why do Ontario's Liberals ignore the precedent of Chaoulli and continue to prevent Ontarians from buying private health insurance, so that more of us can avoid Ontario's McGuinty-made medicare line-ups?

Let's ask the McGuinty gang the same question Gunter asks: Why don't Ontarians have the option of escaping socialized medicine too - in our own province, not in another country?

Look forward to your answers, Dalton, Deb, Jim, and Kim. Oh, and seeing as Michael Ignatieff is an Ontario MP, we look forward to his answer as well. (note: these Liberal dirtbags never did bother to respond...)
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Details of Dalton McGuinty's healthcare deceptions

Further to my post here let's take a closer look at the local Liberal lies of Dalton McGuinty.

Refresh your memory with Dave Johnston's Feb.21, 2002 Welland Tribune column, titled (ironically) "Liberal leader would keep emergency in Port Colborne" - and marvel the utter lies spewed by this congenital Liberal liar:

"Dalton McGuinty made a pledge to Mayor Vance Badawey and the community Wednesday to fight to ensure the city has a hospital and an emergency room open 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week.

The pledge came after McGuinty paid a visit to Port Colborne General Hospital yesterday afternoon.

The Liberal leader was here to meet with Mayor Vance Badawey and others to discuss the revitalization of the east side; to hear about the soil contamination issue; take a tour of the Port Colborne General Hospital and discuss health care issues and to meet with local business leaders to talk about transportation and other issues.

"I met a woman in emergency here today that was admitted Monday suffering from a heart attack. Her husband drove her to the hospital. She asked me to fight to keep the emergency department open because she didn't think she would have made it to Welland."

McGuinty said the Tory government has abandoned its responsibility to protect health care services in the province.

If elected premier, the Liberal leader said he would make sure everyone has full access to quality health care in the community and province.

McGuinty, who is from Ottawa, said having a 24-hours-a-day, seven-day-a-week emergency room - and hospital - is essential to a city, especially one like Port Colborne, which is trying to grow.

"It's not just important, it's very important for a community to be competitive in attracting families and industry."

Once the provincial legislature is back in session, which might not be until this May, McGuinty will challenge the government to ensure Port Colborne General stays open and has 24-hour emergency care.

While at the hospital, he was given a tour of the facility by Port Colborne General site administrator Cheryl White.

"We toured the entire hospital, including the emergency room and at the end of the tour we spent a few minutes with Larry Tokarchuk (chief executive officer of the Niagara Health System)," said Mayor Vance Badawey.

Badawey had wanted McGuinty to spend time in a meeting with the hospital's standing committee as it discussed the Niagara Health System's Strategic Discussion paper, but that didn't happen.

"I was told by the standing committee that it would prevent free discussion from happening.

"I wanted Dalton to hear about the discussion paper from the standing committee and the health system, to give him more of an understanding of where everyone is coming from. It's extremely unfortunate he didn't get to hear that," said the mayor."

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What's Dalton McGuinty's Liberal pledge worth? What has Dalton's duplicitous word ever been worth?

Isn't that the ultimate underlying focus of the Reilly Anzovino coroner's inquest?

McGuinty's 2002 pandering promise to keep Port Colborne's ER open was a lie. It was a blatant, shameless bait for votes and publicity; it now should be used in a criminal trial against this liar's fraudulent government.

Back then, opposition leader McGuinty was proclaiming he would challenge the government to keep the Port Colborne emergency room open. Back then, a smug McGuinty was accusing the Tory government of abandoning its responsibility to protect health care services in the province.

Now, there is no ER: McGuinty's Grits closed it; McGuinty's Liberals abandoned their responsibility to protect health care services in Niagara.

Back then, a glib McGuinty told us "I met a woman in emergency here today that was admitted Monday suffering from a heart attack. Her husband drove her to the hospital. She asked me to fight to keep the emergency department open because she didn't think she would have made it to Welland."

Back then, cardiac patients were saying to McGuinty they couldn't make it to Welland; now, trauma patients have nowhere else to go but to Welland or Buffalo, seeing as McGuinty's Liberal also closed Fort Erie's ER.

Now, McGuinty's new scape-goat for blame is the LHIN - which was created by health minister George Smitherman just for this very purpose!

Back then, McGuinty said a 24-hour, 7-day a week ER in Port Colborne was "very important for a community to be competitive in attracting families and industry"; now, apparently, this is not so very important anymore.

Back then McGuinty said he would make sure everyone has full access to quality health care in the community and province.

And many believed him.

On this, and many other issues, Dalton McGuinty's Liberals have become serial liars.
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Oh, and by the way - mayor Vance Badawey accepted lying Liberal McGuinty's phony "pledge"! How could one Liberal possibly lie to another? Yet: Badawey then went on to run as a candidate FOR the Liberals - provincially in 2003 and federally in 2015!!
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McGuinty's Liberals refuse to say how many patients are exported from Ontario to the United States

Tom Blackwell wrote a column regarding Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams' decision to obtain cardiac care in the States rather than in Canada, see "Little need to go to U.S. for heart surgery", (National Post, Feb.3, 2010, here).

Blackwell reported this:

"Dr. Feindel said he is aware of only a single non-experimental heart operation not available in Canada: one to repair a rare aneurysm in the part of the aorta descending through the chest. While about 11,000 heart surgeries are carried out in Ontario every year, only one or two patients are sent to Baylor University Hospital in Texas to undergo the complex aorta operation, he said.

A half-dozen or so other Ontario patients are sent to the United States yearly for emergency heart surgery that is closer at hand in the States because the patient lives near the border, said Kori Kingsbury, CEO of the Cardiac Care Network."

Only a "half dozen or so" cardiac patients are sent annually from Dalton McGuinty's Ontario to the States, out of 11,000? Where is the actual source of Kori Kingsbury's information? Is this publicly available? Was Rick Laporte (see here) one of these lucky annual six patients in all of Ontario?

My local Ontario Liberal MPP, Jim Bradley, refuses to provide any information (see here; here) whatsoever regarding how many patients Ontario sends to the States, and why this is occurring in McGuinty's Liberal-dominated health care monopoly.

Just back in Mar.2008, I wrote of out-of-country health care in "Ludicrous Liberal health care"...

(see here)...

... where I commented on Lisa Priest's report “Health minister cites rules in cancer case, The province can’t fund ‘every hope mission’ to US’ aide says”, (Globe and Mail, Mar.12, 2008). Priest reported at the time (writing about Sylvia DeVries unpleasant experience under George Smitherman with OHIP's out-of-country health coverage):

"The Ontario Health Insurance Plan would not pay for her ovarian cancer treatment, because she did not fill out the prior approval form before receiving out-of-country care. OHIP also says no medical documentation was submitted that indicated that a delay in obtaining the service in Ontario would result in death or medically significant, irreversible tissue damage.
Figures obtained yesterday reveal the number of patients approved for out-of-country care has nearly tripled over the past five years.
In fiscal 2002-2003, there were 2,083 patients approved for out-of-country care. Since April, 2007, a total of 6,132 patients have had their treatment approved, according to Health Ministry spokeswoman Joanne Woodward Fraser. (Those numbers do not include the referrals of emergency neurosurgery and cardiac patients sent to the U.S. for care.)
The number of people denied out-of-country treatments has also increased, though not nearly as much. In fiscal 2002-2003, 225 patients were denied funding through the program, compared with fiscal 2007, in which 388 patients have so far been denied."

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How accurate are the numbers in Blackwell's report today, or in Priest's report of just under two years ago? If 6,132 patients (as of Apr.2007 to Mar.12, 2008, the date of Priest's report) were going to the States for various health care treatments, from Ontario alone - NOT including, as Priest points out, cardiac and neuro-surgery cases - then how many more were cardiac patients? Have the numbers of (and the rate of) cardiac-patients exported to the States from Ontario decreased since 2003? And where is this information, from 2003-2009 to today, publicly available?

Maybe Deb Matthews, or whoever the health ministry spokesperson is today, can provide these answers; maybe the health minister will confirm the accuracy of the numbers given in Blackwell's and Priest's reports.

Liberals sent Pachauri Poop-O-Gram

The National Post editorial ("The UN's enviro-activist in-chief" (Feb.2, 2010, here) talks of the 'global-warming martyr' Rajendra Pachauri's self-appointed activism, as he continues pushing his IPCC's made-up "facts" about global-warming/climate change.
GreenFear TM spreading climatalarmists TM on the municipal, provincial, and federal political levels still look to Pachauri as a guru for guidance.
We even saw Liberal Stephane Bumbledore Dion using Rajendra Pachauri in his Green Shift ten-percenters, you know, the ten-percenters which Iggy's Liberals now hate so much: see here for the Liberal Poop-O-Gram sent by MP Ken Dryden featuring Pachauri.
It's astounding that these Liberals believed so much in the BS being spouted for years at the IPCC, that they were actually proposing to govern Canada relying on Pachauri's deceptive bluster.
That was what Dion's phony Green Shift scaremongering was all about; and, what's more phonier, is that now Michael Ignatieff continues feigned indignance about climate-change.
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Funny, how in 2015, Dion and his fellow Liberal GreenFear-mongers became silent about their hero climatalarmist Rajendra Pachuari.
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