Canadian (and American) Snippets

-Public Health Verbal Diarrhea: These are the sort of the debates that go on up here. We've clearly politicized health. Obviously this is, well, unhealthy. Is not time for a national standard that all provinces must adhere to? Do I really care if Jack Layton went to a private clinic? Are we really this far up our tiny little asses? Freedom of choice is what Canadians need not communist rhetoric.

Public health has been touted as a core value in this country. The price for our misguided pride? Months (not weeks) of wait times for many surgeries in all provinces. Granted, in some cases the numbers have come off recently but they remain unacceptably high. We've traded our personal health for public health as a "core value" to enhance our collective identity. The sad thing is that while politicians and the wealthy are aware of private clinics, the less fortunate are hoodwinked into believing that free Medicare - which is really not free - is the only moral thing to do. It's sad when a person suffering pain refuses to go to a private clinic - which means outside the public health system - won't do so because they bought the government bit about it not being "Canadian." We're doing more harm than good by clinging on to a dead experiment. All we're advocating is an adjustment to it. No one wants to dismantle it as some in the media claim.

In any event, public health is not even a Canadian idea. It's a European one and they even have adjusted with the times. Two-tier medical plans exist there. Europeans are not naive like we are here when it comes to health. Guess who pays for the bureaucratic nightmare and subsequent and endless "conferences" on health? You and me.

Here's a trick I learned. The minute a politician writes a letter to the editor criticizing health and promising to work harder to fix the decrepit health care system always remember one thing: it's on your dime and with your health they play with. If they are faced with an emergency trust me. They ain't sticking around. They will bolt.

-Each a Turn Now: It's time for the Liberal party (at both the Provincial and Federal level) to be decimated (like the Conservatives were in the 1990s) to get the message. They are clearly too stupid and arrogant to "get it."

-Some Justice: $65 million smackeroos - wasted.

- Note to Quebec nationalist dreamers: I declare that separatism is dead. I thought this in 1995 and think this now. It's all for the better. Trust me.

-Overpass catastrophe continued: Well, well, well. The Johnson Commission looking into the disgraceful and criminal overpass that collapsed here in Laval resulting in several deaths has slowly been discovering that the people involved. .

Question: If the men behind all this knew they were not experts why did they not say so?

And by the way, this not an exception. Just a few years back an overpass on Blvd. Souvenir not too far away from de la Concorde collapsed also resulting in deaths. A small overpass nearby my place remains closed. Not only is there a rotten fish amongst us but fins with lots of blood on their hands.

-That ray of light you see is God's - er, Al Gore's - light. After calling the environmental platform by the Conservative party a fraud designed to "mislead Canadians" Gore added he has "no right to interfere in your decisions." Um, I think you just did, sir. You may as well hand the baton over to David Suzuki.

-40th anniversary of a dream I never saw: Expo 67 introduced Montreal to the world and it was all down hill from there. It's nice to read about it but it seems here in Montreal that's all we do. We always hark back to 1967.

Doesn't constantly harking back imply we feel the future is bleak? Ah, those were the days. Those days are gone and the Montreal Gazette sports pages need to let it go. Every piece on the subject just repeats the same old stuff. It's tiresome. We're really running out of things to say and write.

-Two wrongs don't make a right in Iraq: As I have said before, the negative consequences of a total pull out of Iraq will be high. One may have issues with the invasion and how it was conveyed and managed but the idea that a withdrawal is the only solution is the wrong one. Ironically, the "Domino Theory" that so concerned American leaders and strategists during the Cold War, may prove correct in the Middle East. Sure, history repeats itself but not for partisan reasons. Starting a war leads to unintended consequences but so does a premature exit.

In any event, once in power - should they get there - Democrats will sober up and settle into the geopolitical realities of the region. This ain't Vietnam so perhaps it's time to stop citing it.

For Democrats in Iraq, two wrongs do make a right.