How Did We Get Here

Let me tell you a story about my early days working for the House of Commons in a non-partisan position serving all Members of Parliament and all Canadians. While we all had our own political opinions, that ranged from right to left, we all worked professionally and in a non- partisan manner to serve the House. And we all got along.

On one particular day we were on what could best be called a self-improvement course. I suppose there was money left in the professional development budget and somebody knew somebody, but that is a different discussion. This course veered into a particular direction that was critical of social programs and public health care suggesting they enabled the lazy. Many of us expressed our opposition to these seemingly American inspired ideas during the seminar. During our first break I was discussing this with a colleague, who happened to be the most right wing member of our staff from conservative Alberta, and I, from NDP stronghold Sudbury, was the most left wing staff member, and we both agreed the seminar was a waste of time and we both decided to go back to our desks and do real work for the rest of the seminar.

The point being that while we had different political outlooks we shared the same Canadian values that all our colleagues did.

There was a time, not really that long ago in the political history of our country, when people on the left respected, and even admired, right wing politicians like John Diefenbaker, Bill Davis, Flora MacDonald and Joe Clark and people on the right felt the same way about politicians like Tommy Douglas, Stanley Knowles and Ed Broadbent. There was a time when we held two Quebec referendums and national debates on Quebec separation in a respectful manner without the level of hatred that is expressed today. This was a time when Canadians had their party preferences but did not fear for their country if their favoured party lost.

I can think of a particular American multi-millionaire and another American billionaire that can share some of the blame for what is happening in Canada today. But the blame also lies with too many of us who have decided to use our ability to control the information we receive to only see what we have already chosen to believe and only listen to those we have chosen to listen to. Unfortunately this leaves too many people in a position to easily fall prey to disinformation and manipulation. But that still does not explain the level of real hatred we see expressed in our political discourse today, particularly against the current Prime Minister for everything from policy decisions to the colour of socks he might choose to wear.

How did we get here.

Postscript

It is blatantly obvious that the vast majority of the political hate (and bigotry) we are seeing today is coming from one end of the political spectrum. It is time for the centre right decide who their values better align with, the far right or the centre, and a time for them to decide who and what they want to be aligned with.

Quebec’s Bill 21 Has It All Wrong

I am writing this, not because Quebec’s “An Act respecting the laicity of the State”, commonly referred to as Bill 21, goes against Canadian values and violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which it does, but because it’s provisions will not achieve it’s supposed purpose of a secular state and civil society.

As an atheist I support secular public institutions. That means government and public institutions should be religiously neutral. The institutions should not favour one religion and include religious symbols, like crucifixes in the National Assembly or government buildings, hospitals or schools named after saints or popes. It does not meaning everyone working in the public sector needs to be an atheist.

Quebec has historically been a Roman Catholic Christian society. That historical majority, with or without individual symbolism, will see itself within government and public institutions. For public institutions, like schools, to be truly religiously neutral they must reflect all of Quebec society and it’s people of various religions. That inclusiveness and diversity, like justice, must not just exist but must be seen to exist. Quebec’s Bill 21 has it backwards.

The Bottom Line on the Parti Québécois Proposed Values Charter

I was going to write a long blog post on this but since so much has been written about it I think this captures the spirit and intent of the proposal succinctly.

The bottom line on Quebec's proposed values charter is that you can visit a hospital named after a saint with a crucifix in the lobby and be guaranteed not to be treated by a Muslim doctor in a hijab because they want to remove religious symbols from public institutions.

We Must Stop Stephen Harper and the 20% from Destroying Canada

There has been lots of discussion about how Stephen Harper's majority only represents 40% of voters because of the way our electoral system works. But, in reality, his agenda has much fewer supporters.

We must remember that the Conservative Party is a coalition. It is not a coalition in the sense that the proposed Liberal-NDP coalition (with an accord with the BQ) was. That proposed coalition was the product of compromise and an agreed to written common program.

This Conservative coalition is a coalition of perceived necessity where the old Progressive Conservative Party supporters have been convinced that the only way to keep the Liberals out of power is to support a Reform Party Canadian Alliance dominated Conservative Party. It is clear that Stephen Harper's agenda does not represent the values of the former Progressive Conservative Party, but it did get elected with the votes of it's supporters.

So now we have a ReformaTory government dominated by the 20% of Canadians who support the extreme right wing American-centric Reform Party Canadian Alliance ideology of Stephen Harper.

And they want to turn Canada into a mirror of our American neighbour, clearly a failed state if there ever was one. Have no doubt about it. Stephen Harper was not lying when he said we would not recognize our Canada when he was finished with it.

Stephen Harper's values are not Canadians values.

Canadians chose Tommy Douglas as the Greatest Canadian because he gave us Medicare, our public health care system, and we have consistently stated (as documented by public opinion polls) that public health care is the most important Canadian value and the most important thing that defines us as Canadians.

Stephen Harper wants to destroy our national health care system. He is on record as wanting to eliminate the Canada Health Act provisions that require provinces to meet national standards to receive federal funding. The next step will be to eliminate all federal funding, likely under the guise of trading tax points for direct federal funding. He has stated, using constitutional provisions as a justification, that the federal government should turn health care completely over to the provinces. We all know he wants to do that to promote more privatization and weakening of the public system and it's deterioration into a two-tier system, or worse.

Stephen Harper and the 20% do not represent Canadian values and what the vast majority of Canadians want when it comes to our cherished public health care system.

Stephen Harper believes that there are Canadians whose lives are less worthy of protection than other Canadians. He believes this because he believes in dividing Canadians into good people and bad people and those that are addicted to drugs are bad people that should be punished rather than provided with the treatment they need.

He opposes harm reduction measures (more properly called lifesaving measures) for addicts such as safe injection sites and needle exchange programs, even though they have been proven to save lives and even help rehabilitate addicts, because these programs may inconvenience or offend "good Canadians". He knows the "bad Canadians" these programs serve do not vote Conservative, because they do not vote.

But this is all part of the ReformaTory Conservatives war on drugs and tough on crime agenda that has been proven to be such a failure in the United States that even right wing governments and politicians in states like Texas are abandoning it. But Stephen Harper likes it because it fits in with his anti-science anti-fact ideology-based strategy that preys on peoples fears.

And even though crime is declining in Canada, the reporting of crime in the media is increasing, as is it's depiction on American television shows, and some Canadians do fear our country, and especially our cities, becoming the crime-ridden places they see portrayed in the media.

Of course logic would say that if you were really concerned about crime your policies would emulate those countries where crime is lowest, not the country where crime is highest. But facts and logic are not part of Stephen Harper's ideology. Fear and the desire for revenge are better vote-getters, so Stephen Harper thinks.

Stephen Harper and his 20% of supporters are clearly out of touch with Canadian values. What we have seen so far is only the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. If he is elected to another majority, no matter how phony a majority it is, he will see it as a mandate to finish the job of destroying the Canada that we all know and love.

Stephen Harper and his 20% must be stopped. We must put our political differences aside to save our country.

We need a one time electoral coalition agreement for the next election that provides that Liberals and New Democrats do not run against each other in any constituencies that the Conservatives have any chance of winning.

This coalition agreement should be short term only to allow for the election of a government pledged to undo the worst of the Harper ReformaTory measures and bring in democratic and electoral reforms that will see the next election run under a form of proportional representation.

Because it will be short term, with an agreed to program, and will be followed by an election under proportional representation, neither the NDP nor Liberals need worry if the candidate selection process is not perfect. There is no need to let partisan protectionism come before the necessity of saving our Canada from Stephen Harper's desire to destroy it. That is what it is about and we must put all partisan differences aside to save our country.

The next election will then be run under proportional representation and will be the first to elect a truly representative House of Commons. I have my own ideas on how such a proportional representation system should be structured which I will write about in a future post.

This election will, in all likelihood, not produce a majority government because all Canadians do not think the same way, but most do share similar values and the elected representatives will reflect this.

This new way of electing governments will require parties and Members of Parliament to work together. It will eliminate one party, and more importantly one despotic leader, from having complete authoritarian control of the government. Indeed it will, no doubt, reduce the powers of all party leaders and increase the powers of individual Members of Parliament.

We have, not only a chance to not only save our country from Stephen Harper, but a chance to reform our electoral system so that 20% of the people that want to destroy our country will never be able to seize power again.

We must seize that opportunity or our children and grandchildren will never forgive us.

The Debate: Canadian Values Win

The most interesting thing I noticed about the debate was where all the leaders, or at least all of the federalist leaders, agreed.

These were on what I would consider to be the most basic of Canadian values, but values that many of us suspect are not dear to the heart of Stephen Harper, yet he provided vigorous defences of them - public health care and multiculturalism.

It speaks well to their broad support among Canadians that not even Stephen Harper would publicly oppose them knowing it would be political suicide.

The other issues I particularly noticed were the ones that were only raised by Jack Layton, electoral reform, particularly proportional representation and aboriginal issues.

Jack also gets some points for language, being the only leader to use the term ""hashtag" in the debate and "commentariat" during the post debate scrum.

Talking to Americans About Health Care

A Message From The Fifth Column To Our American Friends And Neighbours

As a Canadian, who like the vast majority of Canadians, would never give up my public health care system, I find the debate in the United States over health care to be quite perplexing. In fact in Canada whenever the prospect of a parallel private system is brought up the public quickly makes it known that a two tier system is unacceptable and any increased private role in the system is undesirable.

Indeed when I observe what is happening in the United States it sometimes appears that the best that can be hoped for is a compromise, a compromise that in all probability will not have the efficiencies of a universal single payer public system and a compromise that may end up being simply a government subsidy to the insurance industry.

But no matter what happens, the bottom line is that I do hope that our American neighbours at least end up with a system that does not see the middle class continuing to face losing their homes and having to declare bankruptcy due to health care costs and the poor continuing to die prematurely due to lack of health care.

What, of course, upsets us most in Canada are the misrepresentations and lies about the Canadian health care system (and public health care systems in general) that have become part of the debate in the United States.

It seems, and I do not want to get sidetracked into a different debate here, that some of the opposition to health care reform is driven by other agendas, and shall we say an inability of certain groups to accept the results of the recent United States election.

But I do want to raise one philosophical difference between Canadians and the Americans that health care opponents are trying to take advantage of.

This is the fact that Americans see themselves as more individualistic than Canadians and see government in a much less positive light than Canadians. Canadians on the other hand think in much more social and collective terms and see government as a means for the people to do things collectively.

At least that is the stereotype that the opponents seem to be using in decrying any government role in health care as being socialism and thus evil. Socialism is not a dirty word in Canada, and neither is liberalism. We like our single payer public health care system – call it socialized medicine if you like.

Interestingly enough, one of the differences in our political history, and one that relates directly to the establishment of Medicare (as we call our public health care system) in Canada has been the role of religion in politics. As a Canadian I find the role of the so-called Christian right in American politics to be perplexing, indeed absurd at times. While there are right wing Christian influences within our Conservative Party, the most significant religious influences in Canadian politics have come from the left, from the Social Gospel, led by preachers like J.S. Woodsworth, Stanley Knowles and Tommy Douglas from the CCF and NDP, who first proposed such things as public welfare, public pensions and Medicare, all of which have become part of the Canadian social fabric.

Indeed,Tommy Douglas, who, as Premier of Saskatchewan, first established Medicare in Canada, over the objections of the health care and insurance industries, even battling a doctors strike, was chosen by Canadians as The Greatest Canadian.

So how does Canadian Medicare work.

The Canada Health Act sets out the basic principles of Canadian Medicare.

Administration: - All administration of provincial health insurance must be carried out by a public authority on a non-profit basis. This authority must be accountable to the province or territory, and their records and accounts are subject to audits.

Comprehensiveness: - All necessary health services, including hospitals, physicians and surgical dentists, must be insured.

Universality: - All insured residents are entitled to the same level of health care.

Portability: - A resident that moves to a different province or territory is still entitled to coverage from their home province during a minimum waiting period. This also applies to residents which leave the country.

Accessibility: - All insured persons have reasonable access to health care facilities. In addition, all physicians, hospitals, etc, must be provided reasonable compensation for the services they provide.

What that means is that you go to your doctor and you get taken care of. You go to the hospital and you get taken care of. You are not asked for payment and you receive no bills. Yes you pay through your taxes and sometimes through premiums, depending on the province's funding system.

You choose your own doctors and you and your doctors decide what is the best treatment option. There is no one from the insurance industry approving your treatment. There is no one from the insurance industry denying you treatment because you've been sick before. There are no "co-pays" or payment caps. The minimum wage earner or welfare recipient receives the same quality of care as the corporate executive. No one can pay extra to jump to the front of the line. And the quality of care is excellent.

My last visit to the hospital involved a migraine that would not go away, and though I had a doctors appointment booked later that week I decided to go to the emergency department because I was getting fed up with the pain. I did have to wait awhile to see the doctor, then I got put on an IV pain reliever and waited some more, while the pain decreased. The doctor then saw me and referred me for a CAT scan and said it might be a few hours before they could take me, but actually it was about 15 minutes. The CAT scan was clear so no worries about brain tumours. We talked about putting me on beta blockers, which I was already discussing with my family doctor, but just waiting for test results to confirm I did not have asthma (from another hospital visit where I arrived early for my appointment and was able to have the test done right away). After seeing my family doctor I was put on beta blockers and have hardly had a migraine since.

I could relate all sorts of stories of the excellent care received by myself, my family and friends from our public health care system.

The most important benefit of public health care, especially for the poor is regular preventative care. When you have to decide between providing the necessities of life for your family or paying for a routine check-up, more often than not the routine health care is ignored, in some cases until it is too late. People die because of that. This is particularly important for healthy baby check-ups. When you have to decide between buying food for your baby or taking him to the doctor for a routine check-up what do you think the decision will be.

Yes there are problems. Wait times for elective and non-urgent procedures can be longer than they should be and we currently have a shortage of family doctors. These are not problems caused by the nature of the public health care system. Indeed adding a private option would only divert resources from those that need it most to those that can pay to jump to the head of the line. These are problems that to some degree require more funding and to some degree require the training of more doctors and specialized technicians.

There is one problem that I do consider systemic and that is the lack of coverage for prescription drugs outside of hospitals as part of the national system. That being said, private insurance coverage for prescription drugs is a fairly common employment benefit at a reasonable cost and the provinces do have programs to pay the drug costs of low income earners or residents with high drug costs in relation to their household income. But a national Pharmacare program is necessary to complete Canada's Medicare System

The other argument that is made in favour of the American completely private health care system is that only private for profit health care provides research and innovation. Have these people never heard of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (or for that matter NASA). Indeed more research is probably done in government facilities than in private ones. When it comes to hospital research, it is not whether it is a for profit hospital that determines whether research is done, but whether it is a teaching hospital. Indeed Canada, and other countries with public health care systems all have internationally respected teaching hospitals that are doing leading edge medical research.

Public health care is at the top the list when Canadians are asked what it means to be a Canadian, Indeed the idea of for profit health care or anyone getting better or faster health care because of their wealth or income is something Canadians consider to be unethical and immoral. Universal single payer public health care is a basic Canadian value.

And just so that I am completely clear, despite the lies that Americans have been told, there are no government bureaucrats involved in Canadians personal health care decisions and no death panels. There are no insurance companies denying care due to pre-existing conditions, There are no "co-pays" and there are no payment ceilings.

Final Words

I would hope that Americans do not let the misrepresentations about the Canadian health care system prevent the implementation of health care reform in their country. Indeed, I fear that the opportunity to implement single payer universal public health care for the United States has already been lost. And the public option is threatened by the massive lobbying campaign that is dominating the media. Health care reform is something that may not be attainable if left to the politicians. If the American people want health care reform they must stand up and demand it. Now is the time for the silent majority to be heard.


I have not included any statistics or links with these comments as I wanted to keep it to my own words but for those that are interested in further information I am providing the following:

Canadian Medicare and the Canada Health Act

Canada's Health Care System (Medicare)

Canada Health Act - Health Canada Information

Canada Health Act (text from Justice Department)

Canadian Health Coalition

Canadians (and Americans Living in Canada) on Canadian Health Care

Former Conservative Prime Minister Mulroney supports Obama's health-care fight

Defending Canada's Health Care: Truths and Lies - Jack Layton

Keep Canada Out of the U.S. Health-Care Debate - Bob Rae

Canadians Defend Their Health Care System

Universal Health Care Message to Americans From Canadian Doctors & Health Care Experts

Debunking Canadian health care myths

A puzzled Canadian ponders surreal U.S. health-care debate

Americans Who Can't Go Home

What they don’t want you to know about Canadian health care

My brain and the Ontario health-care system

The Truth About Canadian Health Care

Debunking the profiteers' lies about healthcare

What Shona Holmes wants for you......Here are the facts

Tommy Douglas

The Greatest Canadian - Tommy Douglas

Prairie Giant: The Tommy Douglas Story

Kiefer Sutherland introduces the Tommy Douglas Showcase

Tommy Douglas Showcase

Douglas, Thomas Clement - The Canadian Encyclopedia

Have A Holly Jolly Season of Cultural Diversity

Well the godless communist Fifth Column is about to take a break for the Christian Capitalist holiday season.

That is, of course, if you listen to some Christian proselytizers who would have you believe that Christians are the only ones celebrating at this time of year and the most terrible thing anyone could do, and an affront to god as well, is to wish non-Christians best wishes during their celebrations.

Ever since Europeans first set foot in this country Canada has been a multicultural and multi-religious country, and even before that, as our aboriginal peoples also have a variety of cultural traditions. We are a country with freedom of religion but no official religion.

Not only is this the Christmas season, but it is also the time of the winter solstice and the beginning of winter, a season that is very much a defining aspect of being Canadian. There is nothing more Canadian than winter and getting out and enjoying and celebrating it. It is something shared by all Canadians, no matter their cultural or religious backgrounds.

And of course, for those Canadians that are religious, it is a shared season of religious festivals for numerous faiths, including many of the “world's great religions”.

We have a real opportunity here, as Canadians, to turn this holiday season into a celebration of our diversity. That is not to take anything away from Christianity or other religions, who can, and still should, celebrate their religious festivals.

Indeed, the Christian community could use this opportunity to untether the secular aspects of Christmas from the religious celebrations of Christianity, freeing it from the commercialism that has overpowered it.

This is an opportunity for all Canadians to come together and celebrate beliefs shared by all the great religions, as well as humanism, the spirit of love, peace and caring for each other. We could combine the secular aspects of the winter season with these shared beliefs and turn it into one big Canadian festival of diversity.

Parliament is Our House - Keep It “Open”

Despite the concerns of Members of Parliament that the Parliament Buildings not become a fortress, the house of Commons security service is again increasing security measures.

According to the Ottawa Citizen NDP MP Yvon Godin and Liberal MP Garth Turner have both expressed concerns over the new measures:

NDP MP Yvon Godin said he has visited legislative assemblies in other countries where uniformed guards carry weapons and he felt it to be intimidating. "Parliament is a place where I want people to come in and feel like home," said Mr. Godin. "I don't want people to come in there and see people with guns."

"I don't know what the threat is," said Mr. Turner. "I don't understand, as a guy who works in these buildings all day like you, why we need people to protect us with sticks and guns."

As one who worked on Parliament Hill for 33 years I have never felt in danger, even before the security measures initiated after “9/11".

Parliament makes decisions to send Canadians into harms way whether as police officers or military personnel, often justifying the decisions on the basis that these Canadians are protecting our democratic way of life or fighting for democracy. They should be willing to take a small risk to keep Parliament democratic and open to the people.

The security services are focused on security and unfortunately they do not seem to understand that Parliament is a special place - it is the Common Peoples House, thus, the House of Commons. The people must have access to their lawmakers and to the lawmaking process. They must be able to freely watch democracy in action and have free access to their representatives without feeling intimidated.

And of course there is the symbolic aspect which should not be dismissed. Symbols are a way for a society to express its values. Armed guards within Parliament can be seen as being symbolic of a police state or military rule. Do we really want to send that message to Canadians.

Abolishing The Senate - An Easy Solution

New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton has called for a national referendum on the abolition of the Senate, while others, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper want to reform it, while the expert think abolition is unlikely.

Certainly at a time when politicians and political institutions are perhaps at their lowest in public respect, the Senate is the least respected institution and Senators the least respected politicians.

Politically, abolishing the Senate is an easy solution.

The real question is not whether Senators are doing a good job or whether the institution as it is constituted now is useful. The real question is whether our federal government requires two legislative chambers, a bicameral system, when the provinces function fine without them. Do we need a “chamber of sober second thought”.

In many ways the provinces deal with jurisdictions of a more administrative nature, such as health care, education and transportation infrastructure, while the federal Parliament is the one that reflects Canadian values.

Although health care administration is under provincial jurisdiction it was when the federal Parliament adopted Medicare as a national program that it became the most sacred of all Canadian values, along with national social programs.

As I type this I cannot help but think of the major role the New Democratic Party has played in establishing Canada’s national values, from inventing Medicare in Saskatchewan to opposing capital punishment, which recent polls indicate has become entrenched as a basic Canadian value.

As with the capital punishment decision, it is the federal Parliament that decides what we as a society consider to be right or wrong, in its responsibility for the Criminal Code. It decides who our friends and enemies are and what Canadians are willing to fight and die for, in it’s responsibility for foreign and military policy. It decides who we let immigrate into the country and become Canadians. It decides, on behalf of all Canadians, what our responsibilities are in the world in protecting and promoting equality, human rights and a sustainable environment. It is the level of government that ensures Canadian values are entrenched in our laws and public policies.

The Fifth Column proposes, for purposes of discussion, that we consider establishing a New Chamber with a more focused role.

That role would be to ensure that legislation complies with Canadian values, and in particular, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The New Chamber would also retain the “sober second thought” role of identifying flaws and unintended effects in legislation before it is passed, and sending it back to the House of Commons, basically saying “did you really want to do that”.

The New Chamber would be different. It would not be appointed. It would not be elected. It would be selected randomly from the population similar to the jury selection process. It would not be made up of politicians and it would not be divided by party allegiances. It would be an attempt to represent the people directly, rather than indirectly through elected representatives.

The New Chamber would not initiate legislation. That would be the role of the politicians that we elect on the basis of their policies and personal character. It would, as previously stated, provide an oversight role in ensuring that legislation complies with Canadian values and it would undertake studies on matters of public interest and policies and present non-partisan reports to the House of Commons for consideration.

This proposal would definitely not be an easy solution.