A few weeks ago Colin Hansen – a politician in the governing party in British Columbia (BC) – penned an op-ed in the Vancouver Sun entitled Unlocking our data to save lives. It’s a paper both the current government and opposition should read, as it is filled with some very
Continue readingTag: healthcare
Rusty Idols: Hello Wildrose, Goodbye Public Healthcare
In the States, that crazed pack of screaming ideologues known as the Tea Party only hate one thing more than the idea that a black man named Barack Obama could be their President and that’s his paltry industry supporting attempt to provide all Americans with healthcare. A plan that subsidizes
Continue readingcmkl: Dirty hospitals: horror shows about cleaning, cutbacks and privatization
CBC Marketplace has a really compelling exposé of the effects of cutbacks to and privatization of hospital cleaning. Astounding. Cleaners who used to have responsibility for one floor now cleaning three. People given 15 minutes to clean a room that normally takes an hour.
Continue readingRusty Idols: Should Canada start considering EVERY American woman eligible for Refugee status?
Government mandated rape with medical instruments, laws mandating that women be forced to explain to their boss why they are using birth control pills, laws mandating that even if pregnancy will KILL the mother she be forced to carry a pregnancy to term – even if the fetus itself is dead.
Continue readingOccupy Ottawa: “Real” Citizenship Canada bureaucratic oath
Last October Canada’s Immigration Minister Jason Kenney’s office organized a bogus citizenship ceremony broadcast on Sun Media, popularly known and Fox New North. The ceremony featured six federal bureaucrats posing as newly-minted Canadians. No One …Read More
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Obamacare, birth control, and religious freedoms
The Obama administration has recently adopted a very narrow definition of religious exclusions in the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare. The effect of this is that ostensibly religious institutions such as Catholic hospitals and universities would be required, along with everyone else, to include coverage of birth control
Continue readingLarry Hubich's Blog: Labour leaders call on premiers to unite & defend healthcare
The open letter below was written to Canada’s Premiers from the Presidents of Provincial and Territorial Federations of Labour: An open letter to Canada’s Premiers: Labour leaders call on Premiers to unite & defend healthcareThe future of Canada’s healthcare system is at a critical stage.As leaders of the provincial and territorial
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Inside Ontario’s College of Homeopaths
One of the most surreal medical institutions in our country is surely the College of Homeopaths of Ontario. This agency was set up by the provincial government in 2007 to accomplish a task roughly as useful to the future of humanity as the new Ether Studies Institute which Dalton McGuinty
Continue readingcmkl: Flaherty tells the provinces ‘take it or leave it’ on health care funding
Well I feel better now, knowing that provincial governments have now joined the ranks of the scorned and disenfranchised. Unions now have some company. That whole no negotiation this is what you’re getting thing has been the hallmark of Tory policy dealing with those-who-are-not-us since the beginning.
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Next Question: Who Will Go Without Healthcare?
The range of off-the-cuff commentary on the new health “deal” from the professional media is predictably pathetic. There’s the usual variety of pro-government shills nodding sagely and agreeing that Canadian healthcare is expensive and unsustainable, even though as far as First World countries go we’re solidly middle-of-the-road, and spend only
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Fraser Institute’s New Report on Healthcare — More of the Same
The Fraser Institute has released its regular survey of healthcare wait lists in Canada, and it says the results aren’t good: wait lists are too long, an average of 19 weeks, which they say is “the longest total wait time recorded since the Fraser Institute began measuring wait times.” And
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Today, Sixth Estate Will Be Open-Minded and Agree That Homeopaths Could Eliminate Influenza From the Entire Universe Using Oscillococcinum
Getting called a racist European missionary the last time I took on the smoke-and-mirrors world of alternative “medicine” stung personally, but it didn’t bother me nearly as much as the fact that some commenters seemed to think an appropriate counter-argument was simply to suggest that I was just being “close-minded,”
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Science Works in South America, Too
IIf I had yesterday’s post back, I would rephrase the bit about serpent worship, which seems to be the chief magnet for complaints that I am some sort of racist missionary zealot. The point was that people who try to justify unproven medications on the grounds that an indigenous culture used them thousands of years […]
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Globe & Mail Confuses Medicine with Shamanism
Recently the British Columbia government ordered a B.C. physician named Gabor Maté to stop treating addicts with ayahuasca, an illegal psychotropic drug which Maté claims cures addictions. Maté had a “trial group” of a couple of hundred patients in Vancouver who have been taking the drug in their tea over the past two years. Now […]
Continue readingMy parents deserve healthcare too!
Last week the Canadian government decided to stop accepting sponsor application for parent and grandparent applications. They have decided that they can’t process any more sponsorship application for parents of Canadians who are still living abro…
Continue readingRusty Idols: First lets shoot all the …nurses?
There are thoughtful and important pieces to be said and written about the state of long term care in this country and the funding decisions by governments hostile to the public service that has brought it to the state it is. Christie Blatchford’s moronic and vicious rant that ignores funding
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: 2011 Ontario Election: Parkdale-Highpark All Candidates Forum Response
The following is my observations and reflections from attending an All Candidates Forum for the riding of Parkdale-Highpark. Click here for an overview on the candidates for this riding. While this post will obviously be specific to this particular On…
Continue readingDeath By Trolley: Buddhism for Skeptics of Religion
A non-Buddhist skeptical atheist with background in psychology, scientific research, healthcare and mindfulness meditation shows how many of the central tenets and practices of Buddhism can appeal to other skeptics. 
Death By Trolley: Kicking Addictions: Commentary on What It Takes and What Helps
Work on getting past addictions by setting effective, personally-valued goals, exercising discipline but tolerating lapses, accessing support, finding substitutions, distractions and adaptive strategies, and cultivating mindfulness and insight into emotions and thought. 
Death By Trolley: Mental Health Risks For Political Activists
Are social/political activists at elevated risk for certain mental health conditions and social problems? 