Author Archives: Dan Schubart

Two Very Telling Reports Say The Same Thing

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FCDoc

One report was published by the Fraser Institute, the other by the Wait Times Alliance, and both outlined a rather dire situation for people awaiting referral to a medical specialist for treatment, delays that haven’t lessened despite injections of cash from whatever level of government. Global News aired the first report and followed up with a personal account in an on-line piece posted here (video also available).

The sum of the two reports is that we’re trying to achieve different results by applying the same processes and thinking, a mode almost universally acknowledged to produce little other than frustration. The underlying message, the same delivered several times in word and deed by Dr. Brian Day, is that we should carve out a rôle for the private practice of medicine in order to reduce wait times.

Certainly wait times might shrink for those who could afford to jump to the private side of the medical equation, but it would certainly torpedo any notion of universality and would, above all, line the pockets of some physicians and the investors who would expect to reap a benefit from the work of some and the misery of others. Piling on another ten per cent for investor profit seems a strange way to get out of the cash crunch unless the intent is to eliminate access for some clients while expediting the draining of the bank accounts of others.

There is an interesting benchmark that the two studies seem to have set for purposes of comparison: the baseline year being 1993. For those with short memories, this is the period immediately preceding Paul Martin’s book-balancing feats, accomplished largely at the expense of transfer payments, and specifically the unravelling of the universal health care system. My mother had a hip replacement in 1994 and my father had bypass surgery the same year. I don’t think either of them had time to get a referral before the surgeries were done to remedy the condition; in neither case did even a week lapse before the intervention took place.

These two reports smack of yet another stab at introducing the same chaotic and dysfunctional system of medical delivery that we see in the U.S., and what the reports scream at high intensity is that greed is the primary motivator of both these organizations.

 

 

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

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BB

It’s not a knee-jerk to speak ill of the dead, but when we see the wave of only mildly restrained praise for Bill Bennett, the Mini-Wack, on the occasion of his passing, it raises a concomitant tide of bile over the lack of willingness to point out the influence that this “titan” had on the lives of British Columbians, as well as the downstream effects that his administration has had all across the country as part of the tide of trickle-down or supply-side economics that were very much coming into fashion during the reign of Bennett II.

Bennett was well-placed in 1975 to shovel dirt on the grave of the Barrett régime when labour turned on Bullchip Dave and the media of record were full of reports of the provincial economy coming apart at the seams, all of it directly attributable to the Barrett tax-and-spend, a social-worker-on-every-corner, communist-at-the-door reign of terror.

Bennett is being hailed as an architect of fiscal restraint, meaning that he set us on the road to privatization, the swiss cheesing of the social safety net, the comforting of the comfortable and the afflicting of the afflicted, and the environmental degradation of pretty much the whole province. Some of this came briefly into sharp focus during the turmoil of a possible general strike and the resulting sell-out by Jack Munro when, for a brief moment, there was a pretty clear picture of the number of the potential dispossessed and the possible power to be wielded through unity. Didn’t happen: cold feet, trust in false idols, lack of trust, Bennett was a clear winner, and we’ve (almost) all been losers ever since.

Bennett came from a position of privilege and did all to protect and enhance that position for himself and the small élite of his ilk, and he set a pattern for a succession of premiers who continued the good work of the Rockefeller Republicans. When a person makes life so much more difficult for so many people, any praise ought to be verrrry muted and couched in the context of the deeds done.

UPDATE:

February 1, 2016

 

Evidently, we’re not done praising Mr. Bennett. A memorial gathering was held this past weekend in Kelowna and much praise was heaped on the now-deceased Premier. I know this from hearing some tasty clips on CBC Radio’s On The Island, clips from a couple of my favourite people, Pattison and Spector, commenting that Bennett seemed tough, but that it was tough love and that he always had the interests of the people of BC at heart, in addition to which, he had a knack for telling the truth. Yes, yes he did care about keeping the people of BC in their place as contributors to the Pattison economy, and yes, yes he did tell the truth, exactly as dictated by folks like Pattison and Spector (Spector who worked tirelessly for the likes of Billy Bennett and Zalm, friend to Campbell and to that stirling example of moral rectitude, Brian Mulroney). These people are so generous that they would save us from the sin of greed by being taking on all the greed they can and showing us the true path of poverty and obedience. So now can we call it a day and let Bennett stay dead?

 

Harping On A Theme

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Double_harp

Obama is leaning on TPP potential partners to expedite the ratification of the agreement. Our own Chrystia Freeland has apparently muttered things about “parliamentary debate”, a debate which, given the majority status of the Liberal Party and the obvious support that the Opposition would lend to an agreement they negotiated, is likely to happen within the confines of the Liberal caucus. I would hope that the (Not So)New Democrats would have some barbed questions for both the other parties, and if I were a Bloc MP, I would be hopping to get in on this action: TPP might mean the end of any special status for Québec in Canada, as well as any meaningful notion of sovereignty in Canada itself. At least the Libs are not saying something such as:”Yes, sir, Mr. Obama, we’ll just deploy our best government-issue rubber stamp and move into the world of total corporate governance.” Whatever else, Obama has done, the worst damage may yet be to come from the enforcement of ISDS  provisions and the chill that would likely spell the end of the ability of communities all across the signatory states to protect their local economies and environments, leaving all resources and areas of endeavour to be run on a for-profit basis by those who have already managed to sequester an insane portion of the world’s wealth for their own use and abuse. So, to work, Chrystia Freeland (may your name be a reference to a reinforced democracy than to a nation given away for nothing).

CF

 

Qui sème le vent…

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L

Pic is really from Dico Larousse and should be titled, I think, Je sème à tout vent.

The full title expression is:

Qui sème le vent récolte la tempête.

Check out France’s military and commercial interventions and it’s easy to see why Paris would be a target. The violence on both sides speaks to a failure of understanding, dialogue and diplomacy. Condemnation all around for said violence. Could last evenings events be part of the tempest of the above expression?

Also worth noting, perhaps, is the ongoing and increasingly pronounced inequality of opportunity and income that grips French society along with the rest for the Western World, and the World in general. The election of a Socialist government in 2012 has meant an extension of the same policies inflicted on the country by the neo-con/lib Sarkozy. Mitterrand taught us the same lesson. The impoverished tenement districts of many French cities are cesspits of crime, insecurity and despair, and fertile territory for the radicalization of young folks who see no future for them in society as it is presently structured.

Strange that Erica shared with me an article from Canadian Mennonite the other evening about a pastor noting that the sugar he put in his coffee in Hawaii had likely been grown a stone’s throw from where he sat, but that it had been shipped to the US mainland, processed, packaged and shipped back. He figured the little sugar packet had travelled some 16 000 kilometres before being dissolved into his coffee and returned through biological processing to its native soil. Wait, there is a link: this reminded me of the passage in Candide (Voltaire, 1759) about a runaway slave from a sugar plantation in the Caribbean area who was missing various parts of his anatomy because he tried to escape his servitude, and each time he did so, his master would remove a hand or a foot.

On nous donne un caleçon de toile pour tout vêtement deux fois l’année. Quand nous travaillons aux sucreries, et que la meule nous attrape le doigt, on nous coupe la main ; quand nous voulons nous enfuir, on nous coupe la jambe : je me suis trouvé dans les deux cas. C’est à ce prix que vous mangez du sucre en Europe. 

…some get the sugar, some pay the price.

The Islamic State is a nasty bit of business, and it’s an easy decision to deplore the violence they have visited on Paris, as well as a litany of barbaric acts committed all over the Near East and beyond. But did no one take a moment to get François Hollande to reflect on the causes and effects of his adventures at home and abroad? When he ambles through the aisles at FNAC or Galéries Lafayette, does he never consider the notion of “You broke it, you bought it.”?

 

French Karma

 

The New High Priests of Disconnect

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These Guys Will Own Us

These Guys Will Own Us

We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.

—Carl Sagan

 

The above citation speaks eloquently to the closing of libraries and the restriction of scientists’ contributions to ensuring that we have a livable planet and some creature comforts (like food, a sufficiently oxygenated atmosphere, quality drinking water, shelter, clothing, communications and all the other stuff on which society is based). It speaks to the claptrap that issues forth from legions of self-serving and greedy community “leaders” who want to continue blithely on with business as (what they deem to be) usual because it protects their position of privilege. It speaks to a wilful ignorance that allows for misdirection and malfeasance in governance at the corporate, local, municipal, state/province, national and international levels and to the trashing of the notion of an informed citizenry, a population not transfixed by the shenanigans of the beautiful people and the stunt men, by cat videos or by the next fix.

Those few who can and do invent, produce, deploy and maintain the systems on which we depend might end up forming a sort of high priesthood of Wizard-Of-Oz-like directors on whom we will all be blindly dependent. This reign might also be short-lived as the ignorant masses simply overwhelm the literate and send civilization to a tawdry end. The prospect is frustrating because of the unnecessary nature of the process and the loss of what could be a decent life for all.

Don’t argue with idiots: they’ll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

—Sarah Cook

Our own Lukashenko?

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Fifth mandate here, I wonder about Canada

Fifth mandate here, I wonder about Canada

 

Elections where held yesterday in Belarus. in which the incumbent, Lukashenko, managed, to no one’s surprise. to win a fifth term in office, per Libération, who bring the whole thing up because, in what they term a political decision, the EU has decided to lift any sanctions against Belarus because the elections seemed to go off without a hitch. This begs a couple of questions, the first of which is the concern that caused the EU to impose the sanctions in the first place, and the second of which is the haste with which the sanctions were lifted.

There has been much concern that Lukashenko’s elections have been somewhat tainted. There has been major upset in the past, I believe, and there was concern that a pattern of disruptive behaviour might repeat itself. For now, those fears are quelled, but did Lukashenko win the election fairly? This seems to have suddenly become less of a concern, and causes one to contemplate the second question, that of the quick change of heart.

Look at the map and ponder who is Belarus’s eastern neighbour. Then do the same for the southern neighbour. Do the names Putin and Potroshenko come to mind?

The EU may have started off as a project to end conflict in the area and to build an integrated and fair economy for all EU participants, but they certainly seem to have strayed from what was once their central vision.

And, yes, I have concerns about a certain more local Prime Minister who is in search of a fifth mandate and who has already, under the Orwellian Fair Elections Act, done at least part of his level best to tilt the playing field.

 

Adam and Eve

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Birds Of A Feather

Birds Of A Feather

There probably isn’t too much for me to add to what has been said by Owen Gray, or posted by Jim Scott, but I’m offended, as always, by the silliness that constitutes the dominant tenor of the discussions of events in the political landscape. Eve Adams’ defection to the Liberal Party smacks of political opportunism and her bleatings about being the victim of bullies and fear-mongering shouts of the hollowness of a message hollered down a bamboo tube. Did she not vote for all the regressive and destructive legislation that passed through the House during her tenure as a Conservative MP? Where was the crisis of conscience in the face of Omnibus Budget Bills, secret trade negotiations and the building of the structures of repression in Canadian law? She only left when it became apparent that she would not be running under the Conservative banner anywhere in Canada. Conversely, if the Liberal Party of Canada not represents her values, what does that say about what we might expect from a Trudeau régime? It’s a daunting prospect, one of those frying pan/fire dichotomies that clouds any hope of a return to some form of humanist hope for a society floundering in ignorance and lack of care for self, society and the environment. Of course, the media love the stuff: they can promote the ongoing soap opera of…

 

Ooops! Got busy, had to leave this and I’ve totally lost my train of thought. Who cares where Eve ends up? Who cares about Justin’s hair or his carbon tax? Mulcair’s daycare initiative is a vote-getting ploy. Ms. May stands up and says all the right things, but is this what her party stands for? I really like the idea of people like Leadnow.ca who are working to elect someone other than Harper, but I have a hard time at this point seeing how that would work without a load of cooperation on the part of the other three parties. They are like the Conservative, Reform and other splinters who floundered and fought amongst themselves, allowing for a succession of Chrétien governments which, in the end weren’t that much different from what Harper offers now. We just weren’t as far down the road of secret trade deals, the militarization of police forces, the suppression of dissent, the hollowing out of the real economy and the transformation of Canada into a beggared, oil-soaked dystopia (OK, not there yet, but the signs are pretty clear).  At what point do we get depressed and sneak off in a corner with a dozen IPAs in a vain attempt to dull the pain of watching anything civilized get trashed through a combination of mean-spiritedness and ignorance? I’ll (hips!) let you know when we get there.