The Conservative Movement spreads north, killing and looting as it goes…

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

“… 68% of Republicans believe the U.S. has the best health system in the world, compared to only three in 10 Democrats. …” — http://www.perrspectives.com/blog/archiv…

Canadians will smack privatization down—they always do whenever it pops up.

Did Sicko play in Canada? Do Canadians have any idea how bad a profit based health care system is?

Notice how nicely I did not say Kanucks?

Any, all Canadian commentary invited, desired, welcomed. There are interesting compare-contrast thoughts to share, not just on health care but on the transformation of “conservative” from the older meaning of stick-in-the-mud prudent to rape-and-pillage corporatist statism. Even as they watched what was happening to us down South, Canadians threw out a respectable if dithering Liberal government and handed the henhouse keys to the foxes. I don’t understand why, and would love to hear about it - while we are close cousins we don’t see things exactly the same way, and that’s a good thing.

amberglow, it is true that once people feel ownership of a right they are loath to give it up. Witness the tenacity over gun ownership, even by people who don’t have one. While I’d rather hear from Canadians, I’m inclined to agree that they’ll hang on to the system but it will be a fight now and instead of building it is being degraded. Like our infrastructure here, it will have to be rebuilt to get it properly functioning again. Meanwhile the Harper government is mimicking the Bush/Cheney Gang in many other ways, most strikingly the environment, individual civil rights and torture, and I’d love to hear from Canadians about those as well - one planet and all.

DC Blogger, Sicko had its world premier in London, Ontario where some of the filming was done. Dear friends were involved in the reception logistics and spent quite a bit of time with Moore, who they said was absolutely lovely to work with and a fine gentleman all around. He chose London because the people there were so nice and so helpful on a personal level, and they are. Gratifying when a hero turns out to be a decent person. The film was a big hit across Canada, not least because any opportunity Canadians have to feel superior to “Americans,” they take it. After we stole Gretzky, can’t blame them.

it’s not like he can build a coalition with Quebecois or some of the other parties to actually privatize it, is it?

He’s nowhere near as powerful as our Pres, which is another plus for you—and your system/Parliament is much stronger, i think.

Are you asking the new Canadian Correntians?

’Cause I’m American, apple pie and all. But I love Canada, and Canadians, many friends and much wonderful time in their country - including Quebec.

What I see is the neocon strategy of deliberately degrading government services to undermine public trust, telling whatever lies they need to do it, and slowly bit-by-bit taking socialized services and individual rights apart. They want to destroy the community and establish a plutocracy.

A parliamentary system is often much stronger than ours. The Prime Minister and the legislature are of the same party - or at least the same coalition of parties - and so they can act with impunity so long as they hold that power. Absent a crumbling of party control no new election will be held for another year or more and meanwhile Harper can do as he pleases. Public sentiment needs to be considered, but erosion is the plan not sweeping destruction. Take a little, let the people adjust, then take some more; same as here in the US.

—his party is not as strong as when we have just Dem or GOP in the Executive, or in the Exec and Congress.

he has to keep a majority/coalition together, or he’s gone.

bringiton said: “The Prime Minister and the legislature are of the same party - or at least the same coalition of parties - and so they can act with impunity so long as they hold that power.”

At present, the ruling Conservatives hold only 127 of 308 seats in the House of Commons, giving them ’minority’ gov status. The Liberals (centre to centre-left, depending on your POV; some say even centre-right, but whatev) hold 97 seats, the Bloc (separatist but generally left-ish) hold 48, and the NDP (social dems, usually reliably left) hold 30. There are also 4 ’Independents’ (mixed bunch) and 2 vacant seats. (Wiki)

This means that Harper—vile as he is—has to find a partner in at least one other party to get his ’vision’ through the House. Now, you’d think all those other lefter-than-Harpo parties would easily c**k block his shenanigans, right? *Bzzzt* Not quite. The problem is that the largest oppo party, the Liberals, are all over the f’g place, and often don’t whip their MPs to vote as a bloc. And it’s not always predictable, as some Liberals are oddly socially conservative, yet fiscally progressive/lefty and vice versa.

And with war, terrorism etc, we have a troubling collection of ’humanitarian hawk’ Liberals, like Michael Ignatieff (who worked with Samantha Power at the Carr Center/Harvard; Iggy’s an Obama man, natch).

So…we don’t always know what’s gonna happen on any given vote. The NDP and Bloc are usually reliable, in terms of voting down Harper, but there are exceptions to this, too. For e.g. the Bloc is happy to support Harper’s efforts to give the provinces more power, as it fits their separatist agenda. This is problematic in terms of health care, as there is growing inequality among the provinces.

And that brings me to another NB point: health care is considered a provincial matter, in terms of execution and organization. In Ontario, where I live, we had a mean-spirited Conservative thug for a Premier for 8 years (95-03). Mike Harris’ “Common Sense Revolution” utterly gutted health care in this province. The CSR was straight out of Thatcher/Reagan and borrowed heavily from von Hayek’s ’Road to Serfdom.’ The opening line of the CSR? “The people of Ontario have a message for their politicians — government isn’t working anymore. The system is broken.”

Anyone who’s read Naomi Klein’s “Shock Doctrine,” can predict what I’m gonna say next. Harris used the “crisis” of Ontario’s deficit as an excuse to slash social programs (including health care), slash taxes, and privatize state-owned entities like Ontario Hydro. The health care sector got privatization-lite, or “public-private-partnerships” (P3s). Nurses were laid off in massive numbers and hospitals were closed or merged (cutting beds, services) in a hamfisted attempt to cut costs. It was done with all kinds of cruelty, too:

Harris compared the laid off hospital workers to the people who lost their jobs after the hula hoop fad died down in the early 1960s, commenting “Just as Hula-Hoops went out and those workers had to have a factory and a company that would manufacture something else that’s in, it’s the same in government, and you know, governments have put off these decisions for so many years that restructuring sometimes is painful” (The Globe and Mail, 6 March 1997).

But…Harris definitely had an enabler in our federal government. A “Liberal“ federal government, too (*sigh* Jean Chrétien, and his finance-minister and rival, Paul Martin). Chrétien/Martin also inherited massive deficits from their predecessors (Mulroney’s ’Progressive Conservatives’ heh heh) and used that deficit to proclaim a “crisis” in Canada. They claimed that Canada was in danger of hitting a “debt wall” and that Moody’s and S&P were threatening to downgrade our national credit rating. The only choice was to slash provincial transfers (for health care, mainly) and gut unemployment insurance, etc. Drastic measures needed! Man overboard! Debt wall! Debt wall!

Except that there wasn’t, and Moody’s later told Toronto Star reporter, Linda McQuaig that Canada was never in any danger of having its rating downgraded. The guy in charge of rating Canada’s credit status at Moody’s, Vincent Truglia, explained that he had been bullied by Canadian CEOs and bankers to “issue damning reports,” but he refused, b/c he thought Canada an “excellent, stable investment.” (Shock Doctrine, pp. 308-310).

But, no matter. Federal transfers to the provinces were slashed in the 90s and our Conservative Premier used that + the “crisis” of Ontario’s deficit to slash & burn our health care system. Four years after he got the boot, our newish “Liberal” Premier McGuinty has done sweet f-all to remedy the damage.

One last thing before I gotta go…please don’t underestimate the role of the ’professionalz’ in these efforts to privatize or fight-against-universality. There are WAY too many doctors in Canada who push for ’two tier’ or partial privatization in this country. The head of our Canadian Medical Association is the worst of the worst, but he’s far from unique. Alas, some MDs have been fighting universal health care since its inception, in Canada. You need only read the history of Tommy Douglas (Kiefer Sutherland’s grandpa!) to understand the power of MDs to lobby against Medicare (1962 Saskatchewan doctor’s strike).

So, our once decent medicare system has been starved, and doesn’t “work” as well as it would with full funding. It’s failure to “work,” is used as evidence of the failure of socialized medicine. So we should privatize!!!!1! No. But you see how these guys work: create a crisis and use the results as evidence that the original system never worked in the first place. Clever buggers.

Sorry for the long post! I’ve got *lots* to say about this, but I’d better leave it at that for now. Cheers,
GDK
Ontario, Canaduh

http://hopeandonions.blogspot.com