Bring Out Your Dead!

"Cattle!" I exclaimed watching the news today of long line-ups for H1N1 flu shots across Toronto. There have been varying reports of wait times to get the vaccine. Two hours at the International Centre, and I could of sworn I heard 7 hours at one clinic. The City of Toronto has exploded into full on Swine Flu hysteria. People are cutting in line in front of the vulnerable, they're pulling their kids out of school, they're flooding the ERs for every minor ailment, and they're freaking out if anyone coughs or sneezes. Well, at least that's what the news was saying.

Walking along Front Street to the CBC building on an dreary Wednesday morning, everything seems to be moving along as normal, or as normal as Toronto gets. Aside from the hand sanitizers and various workplace safety posters scattered around, there was nothing to indicate the hysteria on the news. I don't for a second doubt that it's not happening. I must admit the panic over H1N1 has taken me back somewhat. You'd think this was a full on mass outbreak of the Bubonic Plague or Small Pox. Anyone see The Omega Man or 28 Days Later?

Taken back yes, but surprised no. The UN's World Health Organization has been stoking Swine Flu as the next big pandemic that would replicate the 50 million dead from the Spanish Flu in 1918. The Swine Flu has killed 6,000 people worldwide so far. This is considerably less than the 250,000 to 500,000 the Seasonal Flu kills over the same six month period. Governments and the media have done an excellent job in containing H1N1 but have failed on maintaining public calm.

The disease is not what I would call a pandemic. It's just the regular flu. However, governments and the media have been pushing people to this panicked state. When a 14 year old Toronto boy died of it this week, that was the spark that ignited the powder keg of panic that had been festering for some time.

The problem with this is that the Swine Flu will peter out like any other Seasonal Flu. People will look back at it and say "we got all worked up over that?" It's not the first pandemic the WHO panicked about and got wrong. Remember how the H5N1 Bird Flu was going to be the end of us? Repeated false pandemics highlight the need for restraint on the part of global and national health bodies. Of course you want to contain a disease before it becomes a pandemic. However, if you panic and it doesn't pan out, the public will eventually stop believing you. It's the classic Boy Who Cried Wolf dilemma.

Governments need to act with calm reserve in these cases to make sure people who are at highest risk get treated first. The massive rush of sheep to the immunization centres is an example of a colossal failure on the government's part. Since panic was openly encouraged, people who had no business getting the shot were cutting the line. Now there is a shortage of vaccine for the people who do need it most.

Our society is really in a shameful state if we just go to pieces over nothing like this. Hopefully, we'll learn from our mistakes next time.

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Paying For Others to Have Kids?

There's a bit of a debate raging right now over whether the Ontario Government should fund in-vitro fertilization. Honestly, I really haven't been following this story too much but I do have some comments on it. According to the Toronto Sun, a panel of experts has suggested that the provincial government should pay for the fertility treatments of women under the age of 42 including gays, single parents, and those who are HIV positive. People obviously do have a right to bare children should they choose to. However, the last two have me bothered. Heterosexual and gay couples obviously have fertility issues not by choice. One due to health concerns, the other due to a supposedly hardwired sexual orientation. It is also more likely that the children will be raised in a stable home. Studies have shown that children with two active parents tend to fare better than those with single parents at pretty much every aspect of life. Ann Coulter in her book "Guilty" argues that willing single moms, those who deliberately choose to raise a baby without a father or any other second parent, should not be entitled to government support. I tend to agree with her on this subject. I've heard all to many stories of single women getting in vitro from sperm banks just because they want someone to give them unconditional love or they believe they are unlovable. Not exactly the best mental state to raise a child in involuntary conditions, such as divorce. Choosing to do so intentionally is just plain selfish.

Then there's the suggestion that HIV positive people are entitled to such treatment. I must admit I'm confused by this isn't explained vary well. Is it the mother who has HIV that's getting the treatment, or is it the father with the disease? In the case of the former, would the baby not be in serious risk of contracting HIV? Is some sort of surrogate involved? Do we have to pay them for their services if so? Also, even though AIDS fatalities have dropped significantly over the years, the parent is still at high risk of premature death from, lets face facts, a 100% preventable disease, leaving the child at an equally high risk of becoming orphaned. I get the feeling that this panel really hasn't examined the social aspects of this issue beyond whether it's a parents right to have a child.

Of course this begs the question. With all the children in this country up for adoption, why are we encouraging people who may not be able to take care of their kids to have their own biological children? Furthermore, why are people so obsessed with having biological children to begin with? Many parents who have adopted have expressed that they love that child as much as any biological child. There are thousands of kids out there that need a good home. Simply put, if you cannot have your own children, why would you not pursue this avenue? You will have far greater impact on an adopted child's life than you probable would your own. I know I would certainly consider it if I were in this situation. Rather than pay for in vitro, the government should instead be streamlining the adoption process to make it faster for fit parents to bring their child home, as well as open the ability to adopt any available child they want. (of course I'm speaking of the rubbish which often requires adoptive parent and child to be the same race or cultural background) This would be money well spent and would make a huge difference in some child's life.

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Banning Bottled Water Not Only Dumb, Dangerous Too

I've guess you've probably heard by now that the Australian town of Bundanoon has banned the sale and consumption of bottled water entirely from the small rural community. The community's residents voted overwhelmingly to ban the product on environmental concerns, citing the amount of bottles that end up in the landfill. Other communities have adopted partial bans, notably London Ontario, which does not sell the product at city owned facilities. I chided that on the basis that other, far less healthy products which are sold in the same bottles continued to be sold. Steven Malloy in his book Green Hell however says that pretty much all containered soft drinks will be next. Cans as well I presume, though maybe glass can slide by. I bet the beverage industry will be thrilled to bits that the eco-warriors are trying to put them out of business.

Another thing struck my mind though when reading the article about the total ban in this Australian town. It's not to far away from happening in other jurisdictions. Not only is it dumb and highly reactionary to a non-existent problem, it's dangerous too. Ever been to Mexico? If you drink the tap water in some places, foreign locals, you can get violently ill from it. Moctezuma's Revenge anyone? Tourists are advised to always drink bottled water no matter where they are as different regions have different microbes and drinking water standards. Also, the Government of Canada recommends that factory sealed bottled water containers be kept in emergency preparedness kits, with enough to supply your family for three days. Factory sealed bottles keep better than ones you fill on your own. In the event of another Walkerton or Hurricane Katrina, bottled water is a vital life saver when tap water becomes unreliable or non-existent. Human lives are worth more than worrying over a few bottles in the landfill. I'm not bashing tap water. I rarely drink bottled water myself. However, outright banning it is simply foolishness.

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Swine Flu Should be Wake Up Call For US Immigration

Everybody is now panicked over the so called swine flu that's gripping Mexico. So far, the flu has moved into the United States and Canada. Most of the current cases in the United States have come from people who visited Mexico City in recent days on business and vacation. However, I think it should act as a wake up call over America's issue of illegal immigration from that country. This is where those who favour illegal immigration on humanitarian grounds fail the logic test. The problem with allowing people to come into your country illegally is not just a security matter but it is a public health concern as well. This type of immigrant slips past screening for communicable diseases and if they are infected with something like the swine flue, they are at high risk for passing it on to the general population. Remember that these countries do not have the same health standards that we do. While we can get vaccines to make us immune to many deadly diseases, they may not be available in poorer countries. In reality, the risk of this happening is relatively low but that does not mean it cannot happen. It's not discrimination against these people when it is known that such illnesses are in the wild. We need to take more precautions when people from there enter our borders.

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Noise Pollution

With all the talk about global warming and such, one form of pollution which can be just as harmful to one's health seems to get ignored. That is noise pollution. My current living situation went from a quiet neighbourhood to the equivalent of living next to the 401 in three year's time. I have found myself living in my guest bedroom just to be able to sleep at night, as it is on the opposite end of the house facing away from the road. Studies have shown that too much exposure to high levels of loud, unwanted noise over a long period can have serious long and short term health consequences. These range from elevated stress and irritability to high blood pressure and hearing loss. There has been a lot of debate on the subject and what frequently comes under attack are things such as leaf blowers, lawn mowers, and fuel powered radio controlled model cars and planes. However, what people forget is these objects are not run continuously. Your neighbour might run a leaf blower for a couple of days a year, for maybe one hour tops. The sort of 24/7 noise is rarely if ever dealt with in Canada. I've had a lot of time to consider the issue and have tracked down some common sources of this form of irritation.

The Backup Alarm
You know this one well if you've worked or live near a construction site. Beep, beep, beep. It goes for hours on end. These alarms are installed into commercial vehicles supposedly as a safety feature to let people know when you're backing up. Implemented by law, they were originally supposed to alert people from being run over. I have never heard of a single case of this happening though. The high pitched, constant beep serves more to irritate people than prevent them from being run over. People should try paying attention instead. I personally think these should be banned all together as they are a major source of noise pollution, especially if you live near new developments like I do. These do nothing to enhance safety.

The Engine Break
A feature on diesel engines, it uses engine compression to slow down the vehicle rather than using a traditional fiction break. They work especially well for large vehicles such as tractor trailers and dump trucks. However, they are considerably noises, especially on trucks that have poor exhaust mufflers. This is especially a problem in older vehicles. They make that burrr, bum bum bum, which is said to sound similar to a jackhammer but is 10-20 times louder. Laws against these are varied. Many municipalities forbid the use of them near residential areas though these laws are rarely if ever enforced. Truck drivers are a slimy bunch and often disregard these so called "insignificant" laws restricting where they can go. Tougher fines and better enforcement would nip this problem in the bud. The cops could make a mint.

The Motorcycle
My model aircraft are limited to 90dB at three meters. That's why I find it ironic that they hammer us so hard on noise limits but motorcycle engines are often significantly louder. Now, I can understand why motorcycle drivers have tuned their bikes to be loud, because not all of them are. Bikers want cars to be able to hear them coming since bikes are frequently overlooked by drivers. However, some are so loud that they go beyond reason. Stricter noise limits should be placed on bikes for them to be street legal.

The Thrush Muffler
The teenagers seem to love these. You put them on your exhaust and it's supposed to turn a 1990 Honda Civic hatchback into a 1969 Dodge Charger. Unlike what many stupid kids think, these don't improve the car's performance one bit. They also make it sound more like a bus or a tractor that a supercharged muscle car. The solution here is the same for motorcycles, stricter exhaust noise limits for cars.

The Sound Barrier, or Lack There Of
Many roads within municipalities have suddenly become main thoroughfares when they were not before. New houses also seem to be cropping up that are adjacent to main roads. The problem is that municipalities are refusing to build sound barriers to reduce the noise level for these people. In new developments, the developers usually put them up but for the older residents who suddenly find themselves living next to a main road are often crap out of luck. This has been my fight with the Town of Milton. Spend $74,000 for a sound barrier for me and my neighbours? Pass. Build a $1 million glass wall imported from UK for new City Hall? Heck yeah!

Poor Urban Planning
One of the biggest sources for noise pollution isn't the objects generating the sound but the fact that these objects are placed too close to residential areas. Take my mall issue for example that seeks to place a huge shopping plaza behind my house and widen the road to a main truck route.
More interest is being put into potential tax dollars rather than properly designed neighbourhoods that separate main industrial centres and busy commercial facilities from residential areas. Everything now is just a hodgepodge where anything can go anywhere without regards to noise or other forms of pollution generated.

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Top Ten Failures In McGuinty's Tainted Legacy

How do you write yourself into the history books as one of the worst leaders a province has ever had in its history. Simple, just follow Dalton McGuinty's legacy and you'll do fine. Here's a list I've compiled of some of the more notable events of the last five years.

1. Implemented the Largest Tax in Ontario History
McGuinty ran on a campaign promise that he would not raise taxes, even solidifying it in writing by signing an agreement with the Canadian Taxpayers' Federation. In his first budget, he implemented the "Health Care Premium" so that all Ontarians would pay their "fair share" to hire more doctors and nurses due to a shortfall caused apparently by Mike Harris's cuts. The premium is roughly $900 per person per year and appears within your income tax. It goes into general revenue rather than a specific fund for health care. Health care services have arguably have seen little to no improvement despite the massive funding increase.

2. Put the Province in an Energy Shortage
Get rid of your old fridge, caulk your windows, replace light bulbs with the crappy twisty ones as stated by David Suzuki in the Powerwise commercials for the Ontario Government. When McGuinty was elected in 2003, he promised to close all of Ontario's coal fired generating stations by 2007 to reduce carbon emissions. However, there were no plans to build new power plants to replace them. It turns out that closing down just one major coal station, the Lakeview Generating Station, sparked a massive power shortage in the province. Ontarians were forced to put in "Smart Meters" as an excuse to charge you more for electricity and force you to conserve. (As a side note, the debt retirement charge on your hydro bill is actually a tax that goes into the province's general revenue. It is not used to pay down the debt of the former Ontario Hydro as claimed. This tidbit was obtained from publically available budget documents which provide a breakdown of tax revenue streams going into general revenue.) Large sums of money were wasted on conservation programs and buying power from out of province. Money which could have been put to retrofit existing power plants with clean coal technology. The rest of the coal generators are still open as of 2009. It would take more than a decade to replace the plants with nuclear power, a plan that was hacked out just last year, long after the coal closure deadline had passed.

3. Destroyed the Environment
McGuinty had a lot of egg on his face after the Oakridges fiasco. For a refresher, McGuinty had promised during the election to shut down a major housing development along the environmentally sensitive wetlands known as the Oakridges Moraine, near Holland Marsh. Unfortunately doing so was technically illegal since the contracts allowing them to build had been in place since well before he was elected. Being a lawyer, he should have known this. However, I suspect he knew all along and it was said simply for token populist purposes. However, it backfired and went down as his first broken promise; first of many. In 2005, the McGuinty Government passed the Places to Grow Act and the Greenbelt Act, apparently in order to prevent urban sprawl. In reality, the Places to Grow Act has accelerated it to the point of being out of control. Outlying GTA communities have been swallowed up by massive unchecked growth, putting huge tolls on their original residents and the surrounding environment. The Greenbelt Act is impotent at best and has led to housing developments almost up to the base of the Niagara Escarpment, a UNESCO biosphere reserve. Plans even called for putting a highway on top of the environmentally sensitive cliffs at one point. Even Toronto is not immune. The city now has a street literally named "OMB Folly" as a monument to these laws. Environmentalism is only chique when it deals with fake issues like global warming and federally regulated safe pesticides. If McGuinty and the OMB had their way, they'd turn Ontario into ecumenopolis of cookie cutter houses.

4. Caught Buying Votes
An Indian-Canadian cricket club that had asked the province for $100,000 in taxpayer funding to establish their team. They surprisingly found themselves with a $1 million cheque mailed to them, authorized by the premier's staff. That's more than a little suspicious and not the first or only incident. $250,000 was given to build a massive Sikh temple in Mississauga. The owners of the Khalsa Darbar had lost their charitable organization status shortly before that, and had been linked to a radical Sikh separatist group in India. This was all part of an odd $32 million fund set aside for ethnic minority groups. A fund which had little to no fiscal transparency or accountability. Targeting specific ethnic groups, namely new Canadians citizens with free money, well, let's just say it's a little less than ethical. I wonder what the going rate for my vote is. I'm a little short on cash right now. See below for the reason why. The slush fund fiasco would have destroyed his hope of reelection if it wasn't for the incompetence of John Tory. Tory may be a nice guy, as people keep saying, but he wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. More like a spoon.

5. Let People Go Blind but Put Breast Implants in a Guy
One of the first things the McGuinty government did was take away eye exams from OHIP coverage. These didn't cost the government much (a pittance of $80 a pop) but it has taken a toll on low income earners with eye troubles. I guess poor people don't need to see. Chiropractics were also delisted so I guess it's ok for poor people to be blind and have a bad back too. However, the government thought it was ok to allow sex change operations to be covered. So it's ok for poor people to be blind and have a bad back but at least they can go from male to female on the taxpayer's dime, and vice versa. Joy!

6. Nanny Statism
The McGuinty government has spent much of its time in office on developing petty bans. You can't put pesticide on your lawns, you can't smoke in the car, you can't own a pitbull, etc. Nanny statism is a tactic used to distract the public from real issues by creating issues out of non-issues. Did you get that? Good. Oh on the pesticides; what happens to all those people who do that for a living now that they're banned? I personally think we should have Liberals banned while we're at it.

7. From Have to Have Not
Ontario went into the McGuinty leadership term as the economic engine of Canada. Now the largest province by populaton is considered to fall under "have not" status and requires equalization payments for the first time in the history of the federal program. McGuinty actually positioned this as a good thing, because the government would now get the money from the feds "it deserves." I guess people loosing their jobs and recent university/high school grads not being able to find work is a small price to pay for "fairness". We're now below Newfoundland in terms of economic performance for God's sake. Ey's the by who built the ship, McGuinty's the by that sank 'er.

8. Created an Unfriendly Environment for Business
The federal government warned McGuinty to cut business taxes to encourage companies to stay. Everybody knew a recession at the time, except McGuinty. It was just like how he didn't know about the deficit in 2003 that everybody else knew about. There must be so sort of massive conspiracy afoot, that's the only explanation! Now many big corporations, such as Daimler Chrysler, and threatening to pull out of the province all together due to the high cost of doing business here. The government is now scrambling to throw money at them with no guarantees they'll remain in Ontario. This economic plan would be akin to me emptying my wallent into the toilet, fushing it, and expecting to retrive its contents from the sludge at the sewage plant a week later.

9. Raising Taxes During a Recession
According to Keynesian economics, which plays a big role in liberal theory, governments have two duties in regards to the economy. Raise taxes and save during good times, cut taxes and spend during bad times. The Ontario Liberals raised taxes and spent during good times, and raised taxes and spent during the bad times. Ontarians got a nasty surprise in the 2009 budget when they found out many staple goods would now be subject to an 8% sales tax due to harmonization. "Gee, nobody's buying anything because they have no money so you know what we'll do to fix that? We'll increase the sales tax and make them pay more!" This is just incredibly asinine.

10. Making Rae Look Fiscally Responsible
During McGuinty's years in office, annual government spending has tipped the scales at $18 billion. Rae's biggest budgets only managed to top $9 billion in the early 90s. When adjusted for inflation, McGuinty's budget is still $6 billion more than Bob Rae's! Once again this goes against Keynesian economics. McGuinty is trying to spend his way out of a recession but spent to much when times were good, so there's no money left. The province will be in deficit for six years, compared to the one year it was under Eves due to the Dot Com Burst and 9/11 crashes. It will take decades to repay that level of debt, and more government belt tightening if we manage to get someone with half a brain running the province again. Civil servants better start making their strike signs now before they're taxes so much, they can't afford coroplast and 2x4s.

Now for the top ten successes of the McGuinty Government.

1. ...........
I'd better get back to you guys on this one. I'm head first in the barrel as we speak, spatula in hand.

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Go Blind but Have Great Breasts

I'm a bit slow off the mark with this story since the news has been unusually quiet about it. I had caught the tail end of this on the TV news but I had no idea what they were talking about. The Ontario Liberals have announced that OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance Plan) will now cover sex change opperations. I did a double take reading this in the Sun this morning. This is yet another in a string of nonsense plans McGuinty has announced this month. The other two being the cigarette wall coverup and the pesticide ban.

The whole concpet of changing one's sex has always puzzled me. I fail to see why anyone in a right mental state, gay or strait, would want to do this. Even so, though you can make a man look like a woman, he will still be a man so in essence it's just putting lipstick on a pig. I can dress up like Superman for Halloween but that doesn't mean I can leap over tall buildings. To me, this sort of gender confusion comprises a mental illness, not a sexual orientation, and it should be treated as such. The Liberals' choice to cover this is outrageous since it is a gross misuse of medical resources and public money just because some nutter guy wants breasts. Perhaps what makes me particularly mad is the fact that this sort of thing is being put before priority medical treatments. For example, in 2004, the Liberals announced that OHIP would no longer cover the cost of eye exams, which cost the system the princely sum of $80 a visit. I would say that good eye health is critical given that so much of our society and human evolution revolves around us having good sight. Dentistry is another one. It has never been covered by OHIP. Doctors have been saying for years that oral health can have drastic effects on the rest of the body. So essentially, what the Liberals are saying is that it's ok to be blind and have rotten teeth but putting breast implants in a guy and cutting his nuts of is priority.

Once again, I think the Liberals have become vastly out of touch with the society they claim to represent. This is a classic case of putting the issues of a very small minoirty of people before the greater good of society as a whole. Our medical system in this country is in decline and always strapped for cash yet we always seem to find money for this stuff but nothing else. People should be outraged by this and the fact that their not is a sad statement of our society.

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Pot Hypocrisy- Why Medicinal Marijuana Should Go

The marijuana issue has always puzzled me, especially concerning the so called medicinal use of the drug. There are a couple of news stories about it this week. The first concerns an auditor general's report that found Health Canada has been undercharging people for the drug. Another story involves an Oakville bar owner who has so far spent over $20,000 fighting in court because he would not allow a medicinal marijuana user smoke on his property. He said it was bothering other customers. It's illegal to serve intoxicated customers. It is also illegal to allow people to smoke pot in or near bars under the Ontario Alcohol and Gaming Commission's rules but the Human Rights Tribunal says this guy must allow it. Since the human rights people are federal, their ruling trumps the OAGC. 

For many people, marijuana is the drug of choice given that its relatively safe and non-addictive compared to other narcotics. Still, numerous reputable studies have come out showing that smoking pot is as carcinogenic as smoking several cigarettes at once, that it lowers brain power, and lowers sperm counts. It's also an intoxicating substance. The whole irony over the pot debate is how we treat people who smoke tobacco in our society. We rail against cigarette smokers for being dirty. Cigarettes cause cancer and therefore lead to an unjust burden on our health care system. Numerous bans have been put in place to the point where people won't be able to smoke tobacco in their own homes. However, when it comes to marijuana, party down man and let the high times roll. Does pot cause cancer? That's a big check. Does second hand pot smoke bother other people? Definitely. So why does out society treat it differently than cigarettes when it is just as bad as smoking tobacco? I suppose the primary difference if that marijuana is not physically addictive. It's certainly mentally addictive though. I knew people in high school who smoked several joints on a daily basis and "needed" their pot fix to relax. 

One of the big issues though in favour of legalizing pot it the huge amount of money we spend (and some argue waste) on fighting the war on drugs. If it is sold through the government legally, they argue, we won't have the problems we do now with crime associated with drug use. I don't really buy that since all it does is become another huge money maker, and we know that the government regulating tobacco certainly hasn't stopped illegal cigarettes from being sold. 

Now to the topic at hand I originally intended to discuss. Should medicinal marijuana be legal? I don't think it should be. The medicinal benefits of pot are dubious at best. The idea behind it is to give a natural alternative to people in pain who can't take harsher pain killers. We already know it can cause cancer. If someone like Pfizer made a drug that was carcinogenic, which the government knowingly sold, there'd be huge uproar in society. It has happened. You'd have every ambulance chaser from late night TV commercials on them like white on rice. Secondly, I have to question what pain killing properties pot has that a bottle of scotch doesn't. Surely modern medicine could develop a pain killer for people who can't take harder drugs without exposing them and others to the carcinogenic and intoxicating nature of marijuana. We're at the point where even the Netherlands, arguably the pot capital of the world, is beginning to scale back on the drug. Keeping it legal is just a prescription to play Chech and Chong. There is no need for marijuana to be legal, whether it is medicinal or not.

The second issue at hand is whether this is really a human right, as the Human Rights Tribunal is claiming? As far as I know, there is nowhere in the constitution that says people have a right to health care. There is also nowhere that says people have the right to take drugs, legal or otherwise, wherever they want. That's what makes the mentioned bar owner's case particularly obscene. If no right exists, then I have no obligation to allow you to do something on my property which I and my customers don't agree with. If what the lawyers for the marijuana smoker are arguing is true, then all laws preventing people from smoking in buildings would be trumped. I can't honestly see the tribunal making the same ruling if this man arguing against the bar owner were a cigarette smoker instead. There is definitely a double standard between cigarettes and pot in our government, despite them being essentially the same thing. 

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Premium Issues

Back in 2003, Dalton McGuinty promised, in writing that he would not raise taxes. He won that election and then proceeded to levy the biggest tax increase in Ontario history. That was the controversial Health Care Premium. The vast majority of people are unaware of how much health tax they are paying, since it's hidden within income tax. Knowing people who work within payroll, it actually equates to $700 - $800 on average. Surely this has improved health care, right? Well, no. Wait times are still high and there is still a doctor shortage. Some would say service is getting worse, and we're actually paying more for less. I agree with that. Even routine things must be booked months in advance. The health premium is one of many hidden taxes that Ontarians pay. Another example is the so called "debt retirement charge" on your hydro bill, which directly does into general revenue. If people would actually take the time to look at the Ontario government budget reports, they'd be surprised about where taxes come from and how much the government actually spends on things. The reports are freely available online.

So now that we're in election mode, the opposition is trying to make the health premium a major issue. Once again we have Dalton promising he will not raise taxes, but refusing make that promise on camera or in writing. Why should we believe him? On the other hand, you have John Tory planning to scrap the tax. Howard Hampton wants to cut the tax for low income families and plans to reduce it by $450 for middle income earners. Hampton's plan still doesn't solve the problem, since the tax is in place. McGuinty is still blaming Mike Harris, even though he knew about budget issues before he made the "no new taxed" promise.

I'm still a fan of two tier health care for solving the problem. It would give some extra income into the system since high income earners will use it instead. It would relieve some of the pressure on the public system, and the high income earners would still be paying tax into it. It would also give Canadian doctors more incentive to remain in Canada. To keep doctors working in the public sector, we could mandate that a doctor has to work so many hours a week in public hospitals and clinics to maintain a valid doctor's license.

As for the taxes themselves, I think we as Canadians simply pay way too much already. Governments are running surpluses. It's ok to save for a rainy day but the government is not and should not be a for profit organization. Europeans have high taxes but get far better public service. As it stands, Canada's health system is really no better than the US system in which we constantly attack. Sure, everyone is entitled to equal service here no matter their income, but by the same token, that equal treatment usually amounts to only the bare minimum, if that. There is nothing about Canadian health care to be proud about. Ontario is particularly bad since there are more people in the GTA than hospitals can handle, and it's usually the GTA hospitals who are capable of providing more advanced services. We're paying through the nose, having our savings whittled away, so the government can provide sub-standard services.

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