The listicle thing reminds me of an old Soviet joke,
A nursery school teacher is telling her charges: "In the Soviet Union , all the families have nice apartments. In the Soviet Union , all the adults have well-paid jobs, and all the children have sweets and toys." Suddenly, a kid bursts into tears. "What's the matter?" asks the teacher. "I wish I lived in the Soviet Union !!!" the kid blurts out.
Ask any Canadian how they would rate Canada as a place to live and most would prefer it to any other.
In spite of the issues we face, most Canadians feel we are better off than other countries.
Ask Canadians what is in store for us in the future and their confidence wanes.
Canadians are far from certain about the path our leaders are taking us and whether the sacrifices they are being called on to make will lead to a better quality of life for themselves and their families.
What has been accomplished by us and for us in past is looking unlikely to be duplicated.
But until we acknowledge broader, structural problems in Canadian health care — it is a horrifically expensive, inefficient and (by useful international comparisons) utterly mediocre system
Next time you find yourself abandoned on a hospital gurney waiting hours and hours to see a physician make a point of asking the person writhing in pain next you what he or she does.
That person may turn out to be a butcher, a baker or a candlestick maker.
But, dollars to doughnuts, that person will not be a cabinet minister.
And that is because our dear leaders have access to a parallel health system in which a person admitted to emergency does not risk dying after waiting two days to see a doc as happened to someone recently in North Vancouver.
Until we have leaders who have to live with the consequences of the policies they impose on the rest of us what are the chances anything will really change?
This isn't Hogwarts, there is no parallel ER on the 2 1/2 floor. Here in Ottawa where many of our federal Politicians receive care they get the same rough treatment that most of the rest of us plebes do. I have laid in a gurney at the Heart Institute and have conversed with cabinet minsters and MPs as we have patiently endured the indelicacies and delays of various tests and interventions. The Senators that DO receive preferential treatment are the skating kind. They have their own surgeons/doctors and physios on staff. If they receive a hockey related injury (and presumably a non hockey one as well) they'll get imaged immediately and will have a surgeon and OR standing by for immediate treatment. Of course they pay dearly for that privilege and frankly would not be able to operate a high level hockey team without that kind of access.
CvdG, thank you for your comment bit I respectfully don't believe you at all.
I simply don't believe that cabinet members, the PM, the Premiers, etc. have to wait. I believe that the don't get into the line except at the head of it, as in, "You're in now, boss."
The definition of plebes absolutely does include politicians, senators (non-hockey), etc. but the top, the policy makers, not at all.
If one of JT's children developed cancer, do you think they would languish on a waiting list to see a specialist or to obtain treatment? Neither do I.
What happened in LGH is very sad and very unfortunate. The elderly woman who died wasn't just languishing on a gurney in the ER waiting room totally ignored by nurses and doctors for 2 days. She was admitted the day after she arrived at the ER with cardiac symptoms. While there were no beds, not in the ER nor on any of the wards, she was being monitored. Was being in the waiting room optimal? Of course not. But was she abandoned for two days and then died because no one took a look at her? No, that is not what happened. I know from experience that they will give precedence to heart problems over a broken arm for instance. But you cannot pull beds and equipment or staff out of thin air by scolding and misrepresenting what happened. The day that woman died was the busiest on record ever, for LGH as they dealt with being incredibly short-staffed.
Things have to change. The problems are not being ignored but solutions are difficult. Being snarky about cabinet ministers is a foolish argument. How many elected government individuals at all levels do we have across Canada? Mayors and MPs, and MLAs and all the rest of the alphabet soups. I haven't a clue but let's say there are 5000 across Canada and some of them occasionally will find themselves in need of medical care. Might they find themselves being attended to more quickly than you or I? Maybe, depends on the hospital I would think. Really, I don't care. It's not an issue that I can see and should a CM be in the emergency waiting room squawking and moaning about what a VIP he/she is and making unreasonable demands (like ordinary people do too) funnel him through as quickly as you can. No one wants to hear about it. Our "leaders" for the most part do live with the consequences of their own policies. Of course, there will be change if only because every election you get to choose someone else if you are not happy with the current crop. Not everything can be fixed the moment it is identified and usually, it's not a single thing but many many complicated intermingled things with real people trying to hold it together.
The Supreme Court of Canada nowadays has about as stellar a reputation as that other infallible institution, Canada's Health Care system. Both have seen better days and are symbols of Canada's decline.
Canadians put a grossly naive level of trust in their institutions. It's sad.
I don't hold the SSC in high regards. Frequently their decisions leave me rather pissed off as they change this law here and let this go there. They're just above Trudeau in my regard and he's at the bottom of a very deep pit.
You see nothing that pleases you or gives you any optimism, nothing at all? And you truly believe that it's gov or law or pols who must make a difference?
MP Gerretsen might want to check out the list of countries ranked according to their GDP per capita.
When he has done so, maybe he could explain how a country like Switzerland, which has no natural resources other than cuckoo clocks and alpenhorns, manages to outperform our country which is blessed with huge amounts of natural wealth from, fertile soils to forests to hydrocarbons.
GDP is not a great way to indicate the monetary value of a country. If you don't understand Canadian to Swiss GDP, and I don't think you do, stop looking at listicles.
The thing about the Trevor Tombe piece from last October was that it was very obvious to even the average financially knowledgeable reader that it was filled with holes. Even the comments on that piece from back then made that clear. Somehow it took almost a full year for that man to realize his errors. While there can be some credit given to his mea culpa, that should not shine over the fact that his analysis was fundamentally flawed in the first place.
I had said this in one other comment previously, but The Line needs to have a proper Editor for articles about the economy and finance. I hope they have the resources for it soon.
PS: At this point I wonder if any interview by any so-called experts should be treated purely as opinion and not as some proper analysis of facts.
I agree. I’ll also note that tooting one’s horn for having female only contributors only, isn’t a good thing. I found their insight ill informed and missed the mark. I’d prefer a knowledgeable and thoughtful piece over virtue signalling…cuz gender.
Gerry Butts is the worst. Much of what is wrong with Canadian politics today is attributable to him, or to people like him. I realize there are people like this in all the federal parties, i.e. Teneycke, Byrne, etc. But he's the worst, and the PMO still runs like it did when he was officially employed. I'm skeptical that he no longer enjoys influence with the PM... doesn't seem like the type to take his comeuppance and retreat to the corner. Here he is still cheerleading for his erstwhile boss and, as pointed out the article, doing so from an illogical and poorly-reasoned standpoint. He's the worst. Maybe the Line previously wrote about this but I'm surprised at how little attention media seem to pay to the Butts, Byrnes and Telfords of the world. The personal political ideologies of these unelected staffers seem to have a great deal of sway on what happens or not at the policy level.
I know, right? Where do these guys get off having friends? Friends that other people don't like. It should be forbidden, like lobbyists (tho we all know about lobbyists, right?) to have anything to do with their friends while they are in "power". Once they have been kicked out of the big chairs, then they can do barbecues and beers and hang out like normal people. No election or political advice, no pet projects. Look at Byrne; Harper, Ford, and now PP. This is the most powerful woman in Canada and she is unelected! Personal political ideologies! Almost as if they were normal people which obviously they aren't. It must be stopped!!
The listicle reminds me of a survey someone did as a joke to illustrate the issue of content validity-- are you measuring what you think you are. They did a random survey of people in the Czech republic and asked if they believed "Knowlton Nash was the most beautiful woman in Canada." 75% said yes.
I have a nephew that graduated from an Ontario University with very high marks but was not accepted at that university's medical school nor any of the others he applied to in Canada. He was accepted to a well known US medical school. He is going to school in the US now and will probably have to practise in the US to pay back his student loans due to the difference in cost. The Ontario university accepted nearly 25% foreign students to the medical school. These students may stay in Canada or may return home. I don't know if this is to help finance the school but it seems that we limit the opportunities to graduate more doctors while millions of Canadians have no family doctor. I assume the same happens in nursing.
I expect if we had some private clinics that would deal with orthopedics, ophthalmology and outpatient procedures (don't worry provincial health still pays) some number of nurses could work in a less stressful environment without shift work. Those still working in hospitals would be less busy with the offloading to private clinics and less stressed.
You'd have to dig way back, but I recall an article some years ago about how the Canadian Medical Association was "taken over", by a new slate of directors in the early nineties. These new directors were *very* concerned that too many doctors were being graduated with dire future consequences for doctor compensation in the 21st century.
So went the article, a half-dozen barriers were put in the way of medical degrees in Canada, along with all those infamous barriers to foreign doctors being accredited here, leading to an already-clear shortage when the article was written. And that was a good decade back.
I don't know about the CMA limiting the numbers but I wouldn't be shocked. I was shocked though that enrollment was so limited and that the would take foreign students over qualified Canadians. I can see them opening spots for foreign students if there was extra capacity but I guess money talks. I did read this though from 2018: If Canada needs more doctors, why hasn’t medical school enrolment increased? https://www.cmaj.ca/content/190/42/E1266
Dan. Read the article. It says why enrolment hasn't increased. It also costs on average $150,000 to get a doctorate. Depending on the field it rises to $250,000 or more in student loans. Probably even more today. Yes, there are loan forgiveness programs but like residencies, there are not enough. My GP did her residency in NFL. She loved it but it took years before she could move back to BC which meant relocating her family and a million other details. Now her office has med students who are working towards general practice in a way to help add the numbers eventually. It's a slow process.
Lou I read the article and it doesn't explain 1) Why 25% of positions go to foreign students who will likely return home or 2) Why there a so few residency positions. If they can't enroll students but we don't have enough doctors, why are there so few available residencies? Perhaps the cost/price per student would go down if they allowed more students.
So doctors like your nephew could return to Canada but chose to stay in the US? Exactly the same scenario for foreign students here, no? They all have student loans to pay. And foreign students do pay a lot more than locals for the privilege.
That is correct. He would like to return to Canada but he would like to pay off his student debt and thinks, at this point, that practising in the US would allow him to pay it back faster. I have never seen any background information on foreign students that are studying in Canada, but anecdotally, there seems to be a number that come from well to do families in the Middle East or Asia and for whom loans are not required. I wonder if we have 1/4 of our available spots saved for foreign student just for the extra tuition income.
BTW Currently there are more than 13,000 internationally trained doctors in Canada who are not working as doctors, according to the Internationally Trained Physicians’ Access Coalition. Of those doctors, 47 per cent are not in the healthcare field at all.
The section on the healthcare situation is excellent.
One element that was omitted is the impact of immigration on the system - particularly that arising from the family reunification program.
As the writer acknowledges, Canada already has a problem with its aging demographic - inviting more aging people into Canada is only going to make a bad situation worse.
Don't forget immigration,. The government is planning on doubling Canada's population in the next 25 years, including 1000s of elderly people who will require tons of (not) free heathcare in an already over stretched system.
I think the conservatives, assuming they win, will not change anything.
Oh and to be fair, I live in Germany and daily I see articles about how stressed the HC system is here. But there is one major difference, it's, per capita, 3 to 4 times the size while hospitals are stressed there is only minimal waiting times for most surgery's.
Sticking with inflation, I gather that half of inflation is energy prices. Half!
And the "wrong" prediction was made three months before the war, which all the most-savvy analysts were saying was just bluster and show, in mid-February. NOT being wrong would have been the incredible thing.
I missed all the apologies from those who didn't predict the war, or for that matter, didn't predict the Afghan forces dropping guns, right on day one. Or didn't predict the Iraq War would go so badly.
Journalistic apologies are far fewer, and further between, than those from professors.
The Hub's feature was based on the NYT feature of several journos admitting they were wrong about something. Well, guys? We're waaaaaaaiting....
Of course you're waiting. You're waiting because we both had these already and you missed them. I thought that the second wave would be no biggie, based on UK data. But the UK just lagged and then, boom, we were getting hit again after Thanksgiving. Said as much in a column. Jen, likewise, thought Alberta could pull off the Best Summer Ever, was wrong, and said so in a column.
We're ahead of the curve on admitting our blown calls.
I'll have to look back! And you're both too young to be the Iraq War screwups who then failed upward (most of them at the Post and Times, our most-honoured platforms, though Canada's own National Post pundits still have, alas, jobs too).
If only that generation had retired in disgrace about 2010, you guys would be running newsrooms by now.
As a Nova Scotian, I don’t know whether Lucki provides a convenient target for NS RCMP who did not conduct themselves in glory or whether changes are needed on all fronts. RCMP in NS privately notified their own family members of the danger but did not send out a public alert. This is unacceptable. The behaviour of Lucki needs to be examined but not at the expense of taking the spotlight off NS RCMP actions in 2020.
On a happier note, good to see so many female opinion writers and you using Trevor Tombe - I follow a lot of Canadian economists on Twitter because they base opinions on facts rather than emotion.
As a former Nova Scotian, I completely agree with you. Lucki feels like an unfortunate distraction but mostly I don't care. Have we had a good RCMP Commissioner in recent history? SH gave us one who wasn't even a cop and ended up a total dud. Didn't he have anger issues? Do we need one? Seems a rather crappy thankless job. Maybe just spread the workload across 5 or 6 worthies and should one do a face plant the others could carry on.
At least in BC the RCMP are no longer investigating themselves when things go sideways. Not all provinces have adopted that.
What gets measured and by whom is critical to scores and rankings. Most Canadians aren't really considering uprooting themselves to move to Austria, Denmark, or Singapore, depending on what means the most to them.
I would suggest simply ignoring the listicles. They are usually in response to a comment that is as lame as the listicles themselves. They aren't info, they are memes and not particularly good ones except that they seem to make some folks irritated as hell. Like DTs blackface memes. There are so few good memes on Twitter anymore. Even the word meme is a misnomer.
Is this maybe the beginning of the end of Twitter and similar apps? We can hope so.
I think you are right I just don't think that it's institutional i.e. part of an official program like the Senators have with the Ottawa Hospital system. There is a one official program that does accelerate access at least in Ontario, those people who are receiving workman's compensation (it's on every intake form). Other than that no I don't think there is a formal VIP program for MPs & Senators (though wouldn't be surprised if the PM got preferential access). Having said that I do think plenty of people get faster access, as wait lists are maintained by individual doctors not by the hospital or OHIP. Of course those doctors have limited access to ORs so it's not something they can do all the time but I know that it happens. That's inevitable, you can argue it's morality but it would be almost impossible to police by the province.
The listicle thing reminds me of an old Soviet joke,
A nursery school teacher is telling her charges: "In the Soviet Union , all the families have nice apartments. In the Soviet Union , all the adults have well-paid jobs, and all the children have sweets and toys." Suddenly, a kid bursts into tears. "What's the matter?" asks the teacher. "I wish I lived in the Soviet Union !!!" the kid blurts out.
Ask any Canadian how they would rate Canada as a place to live and most would prefer it to any other.
In spite of the issues we face, most Canadians feel we are better off than other countries.
Ask Canadians what is in store for us in the future and their confidence wanes.
Canadians are far from certain about the path our leaders are taking us and whether the sacrifices they are being called on to make will lead to a better quality of life for themselves and their families.
What has been accomplished by us and for us in past is looking unlikely to be duplicated.
But until we acknowledge broader, structural problems in Canadian health care — it is a horrifically expensive, inefficient and (by useful international comparisons) utterly mediocre system
Next time you find yourself abandoned on a hospital gurney waiting hours and hours to see a physician make a point of asking the person writhing in pain next you what he or she does.
That person may turn out to be a butcher, a baker or a candlestick maker.
But, dollars to doughnuts, that person will not be a cabinet minister.
And that is because our dear leaders have access to a parallel health system in which a person admitted to emergency does not risk dying after waiting two days to see a doc as happened to someone recently in North Vancouver.
Until we have leaders who have to live with the consequences of the policies they impose on the rest of us what are the chances anything will really change?
This isn't Hogwarts, there is no parallel ER on the 2 1/2 floor. Here in Ottawa where many of our federal Politicians receive care they get the same rough treatment that most of the rest of us plebes do. I have laid in a gurney at the Heart Institute and have conversed with cabinet minsters and MPs as we have patiently endured the indelicacies and delays of various tests and interventions. The Senators that DO receive preferential treatment are the skating kind. They have their own surgeons/doctors and physios on staff. If they receive a hockey related injury (and presumably a non hockey one as well) they'll get imaged immediately and will have a surgeon and OR standing by for immediate treatment. Of course they pay dearly for that privilege and frankly would not be able to operate a high level hockey team without that kind of access.
CvdG, thank you for your comment bit I respectfully don't believe you at all.
I simply don't believe that cabinet members, the PM, the Premiers, etc. have to wait. I believe that the don't get into the line except at the head of it, as in, "You're in now, boss."
The definition of plebes absolutely does include politicians, senators (non-hockey), etc. but the top, the policy makers, not at all.
If one of JT's children developed cancer, do you think they would languish on a waiting list to see a specialist or to obtain treatment? Neither do I.
Or, at least, that is my belief.
That is simply not true.
What happened in LGH is very sad and very unfortunate. The elderly woman who died wasn't just languishing on a gurney in the ER waiting room totally ignored by nurses and doctors for 2 days. She was admitted the day after she arrived at the ER with cardiac symptoms. While there were no beds, not in the ER nor on any of the wards, she was being monitored. Was being in the waiting room optimal? Of course not. But was she abandoned for two days and then died because no one took a look at her? No, that is not what happened. I know from experience that they will give precedence to heart problems over a broken arm for instance. But you cannot pull beds and equipment or staff out of thin air by scolding and misrepresenting what happened. The day that woman died was the busiest on record ever, for LGH as they dealt with being incredibly short-staffed.
Things have to change. The problems are not being ignored but solutions are difficult. Being snarky about cabinet ministers is a foolish argument. How many elected government individuals at all levels do we have across Canada? Mayors and MPs, and MLAs and all the rest of the alphabet soups. I haven't a clue but let's say there are 5000 across Canada and some of them occasionally will find themselves in need of medical care. Might they find themselves being attended to more quickly than you or I? Maybe, depends on the hospital I would think. Really, I don't care. It's not an issue that I can see and should a CM be in the emergency waiting room squawking and moaning about what a VIP he/she is and making unreasonable demands (like ordinary people do too) funnel him through as quickly as you can. No one wants to hear about it. Our "leaders" for the most part do live with the consequences of their own policies. Of course, there will be change if only because every election you get to choose someone else if you are not happy with the current crop. Not everything can be fixed the moment it is identified and usually, it's not a single thing but many many complicated intermingled things with real people trying to hold it together.
The Supreme Court of Canada nowadays has about as stellar a reputation as that other infallible institution, Canada's Health Care system. Both have seen better days and are symbols of Canada's decline.
Canadians put a grossly naive level of trust in their institutions. It's sad.
I don't hold the SSC in high regards. Frequently their decisions leave me rather pissed off as they change this law here and let this go there. They're just above Trudeau in my regard and he's at the bottom of a very deep pit.
They're still just lawyers :)
And, jumped up one's at that.
Everything is a symbol of Canada's decline as far as you are concerned.
What can I say, the country is in decline and our self serving chattering classes are the most significant cause of it.
You see nothing that pleases you or gives you any optimism, nothing at all? And you truly believe that it's gov or law or pols who must make a difference?
MP Gerretsen might want to check out the list of countries ranked according to their GDP per capita.
When he has done so, maybe he could explain how a country like Switzerland, which has no natural resources other than cuckoo clocks and alpenhorns, manages to outperform our country which is blessed with huge amounts of natural wealth from, fertile soils to forests to hydrocarbons.
All ears, Sir.
Cuckoo clocks, alpenhorns, and location, location, location.
Who knew that being landlocked with no deep sea ports was a competitive advantage?
You forgot the Swiss Army knife.
GDP is not a great way to indicate the monetary value of a country. If you don't understand Canadian to Swiss GDP, and I don't think you do, stop looking at listicles.
The thing about the Trevor Tombe piece from last October was that it was very obvious to even the average financially knowledgeable reader that it was filled with holes. Even the comments on that piece from back then made that clear. Somehow it took almost a full year for that man to realize his errors. While there can be some credit given to his mea culpa, that should not shine over the fact that his analysis was fundamentally flawed in the first place.
I had said this in one other comment previously, but The Line needs to have a proper Editor for articles about the economy and finance. I hope they have the resources for it soon.
PS: At this point I wonder if any interview by any so-called experts should be treated purely as opinion and not as some proper analysis of facts.
I agree. I’ll also note that tooting one’s horn for having female only contributors only, isn’t a good thing. I found their insight ill informed and missed the mark. I’d prefer a knowledgeable and thoughtful piece over virtue signalling…cuz gender.
You really missed the point didn't you?
I love it when someone's opinion is "obvious" and they know that everyone else (who is average) agrees.
Because we know that economics is science, hard and fast, and we all believe in science.
/s
Gerry Butts is the worst. Much of what is wrong with Canadian politics today is attributable to him, or to people like him. I realize there are people like this in all the federal parties, i.e. Teneycke, Byrne, etc. But he's the worst, and the PMO still runs like it did when he was officially employed. I'm skeptical that he no longer enjoys influence with the PM... doesn't seem like the type to take his comeuppance and retreat to the corner. Here he is still cheerleading for his erstwhile boss and, as pointed out the article, doing so from an illogical and poorly-reasoned standpoint. He's the worst. Maybe the Line previously wrote about this but I'm surprised at how little attention media seem to pay to the Butts, Byrnes and Telfords of the world. The personal political ideologies of these unelected staffers seem to have a great deal of sway on what happens or not at the policy level.
I know, right? Where do these guys get off having friends? Friends that other people don't like. It should be forbidden, like lobbyists (tho we all know about lobbyists, right?) to have anything to do with their friends while they are in "power". Once they have been kicked out of the big chairs, then they can do barbecues and beers and hang out like normal people. No election or political advice, no pet projects. Look at Byrne; Harper, Ford, and now PP. This is the most powerful woman in Canada and she is unelected! Personal political ideologies! Almost as if they were normal people which obviously they aren't. It must be stopped!!
The listicle reminds me of a survey someone did as a joke to illustrate the issue of content validity-- are you measuring what you think you are. They did a random survey of people in the Czech republic and asked if they believed "Knowlton Nash was the most beautiful woman in Canada." 75% said yes.
Congrats to Knowlton!
I have a nephew that graduated from an Ontario University with very high marks but was not accepted at that university's medical school nor any of the others he applied to in Canada. He was accepted to a well known US medical school. He is going to school in the US now and will probably have to practise in the US to pay back his student loans due to the difference in cost. The Ontario university accepted nearly 25% foreign students to the medical school. These students may stay in Canada or may return home. I don't know if this is to help finance the school but it seems that we limit the opportunities to graduate more doctors while millions of Canadians have no family doctor. I assume the same happens in nursing.
I expect if we had some private clinics that would deal with orthopedics, ophthalmology and outpatient procedures (don't worry provincial health still pays) some number of nurses could work in a less stressful environment without shift work. Those still working in hospitals would be less busy with the offloading to private clinics and less stressed.
You'd have to dig way back, but I recall an article some years ago about how the Canadian Medical Association was "taken over", by a new slate of directors in the early nineties. These new directors were *very* concerned that too many doctors were being graduated with dire future consequences for doctor compensation in the 21st century.
So went the article, a half-dozen barriers were put in the way of medical degrees in Canada, along with all those infamous barriers to foreign doctors being accredited here, leading to an already-clear shortage when the article was written. And that was a good decade back.
I don't know about the CMA limiting the numbers but I wouldn't be shocked. I was shocked though that enrollment was so limited and that the would take foreign students over qualified Canadians. I can see them opening spots for foreign students if there was extra capacity but I guess money talks. I did read this though from 2018: If Canada needs more doctors, why hasn’t medical school enrolment increased? https://www.cmaj.ca/content/190/42/E1266
Dan. Read the article. It says why enrolment hasn't increased. It also costs on average $150,000 to get a doctorate. Depending on the field it rises to $250,000 or more in student loans. Probably even more today. Yes, there are loan forgiveness programs but like residencies, there are not enough. My GP did her residency in NFL. She loved it but it took years before she could move back to BC which meant relocating her family and a million other details. Now her office has med students who are working towards general practice in a way to help add the numbers eventually. It's a slow process.
Lou I read the article and it doesn't explain 1) Why 25% of positions go to foreign students who will likely return home or 2) Why there a so few residency positions. If they can't enroll students but we don't have enough doctors, why are there so few available residencies? Perhaps the cost/price per student would go down if they allowed more students.
So doctors like your nephew could return to Canada but chose to stay in the US? Exactly the same scenario for foreign students here, no? They all have student loans to pay. And foreign students do pay a lot more than locals for the privilege.
That is correct. He would like to return to Canada but he would like to pay off his student debt and thinks, at this point, that practising in the US would allow him to pay it back faster. I have never seen any background information on foreign students that are studying in Canada, but anecdotally, there seems to be a number that come from well to do families in the Middle East or Asia and for whom loans are not required. I wonder if we have 1/4 of our available spots saved for foreign student just for the extra tuition income.
BTW Currently there are more than 13,000 internationally trained doctors in Canada who are not working as doctors, according to the Internationally Trained Physicians’ Access Coalition. Of those doctors, 47 per cent are not in the healthcare field at all.
https://tinyurl.com/yc7cz9dr
The section on the healthcare situation is excellent.
One element that was omitted is the impact of immigration on the system - particularly that arising from the family reunification program.
As the writer acknowledges, Canada already has a problem with its aging demographic - inviting more aging people into Canada is only going to make a bad situation worse.
Yeah, best just leave the old folks behind because of course they are nothing but a burden. /s
Yeah, you can bring them with you so they can burden someone else who already paid not to be a burden.
Don't forget immigration,. The government is planning on doubling Canada's population in the next 25 years, including 1000s of elderly people who will require tons of (not) free heathcare in an already over stretched system.
I think the conservatives, assuming they win, will not change anything.
Oh and to be fair, I live in Germany and daily I see articles about how stressed the HC system is here. But there is one major difference, it's, per capita, 3 to 4 times the size while hospitals are stressed there is only minimal waiting times for most surgery's.
Sticking with inflation, I gather that half of inflation is energy prices. Half!
And the "wrong" prediction was made three months before the war, which all the most-savvy analysts were saying was just bluster and show, in mid-February. NOT being wrong would have been the incredible thing.
I missed all the apologies from those who didn't predict the war, or for that matter, didn't predict the Afghan forces dropping guns, right on day one. Or didn't predict the Iraq War would go so badly.
Journalistic apologies are far fewer, and further between, than those from professors.
The Hub's feature was based on the NYT feature of several journos admitting they were wrong about something. Well, guys? We're waaaaaaaiting....
Of course you're waiting. You're waiting because we both had these already and you missed them. I thought that the second wave would be no biggie, based on UK data. But the UK just lagged and then, boom, we were getting hit again after Thanksgiving. Said as much in a column. Jen, likewise, thought Alberta could pull off the Best Summer Ever, was wrong, and said so in a column.
We're ahead of the curve on admitting our blown calls.
The greatest sign of character is admitting when you were wrong. There aren't nearly enough people doing it; especially those who win elections.
I think Roy Bender has been to one too many Roger Waters concerts....
I was listening to The Wall today. Still great.
The music is great. Roger Waters views are, well, weird.
I'll have to look back! And you're both too young to be the Iraq War screwups who then failed upward (most of them at the Post and Times, our most-honoured platforms, though Canada's own National Post pundits still have, alas, jobs too).
If only that generation had retired in disgrace about 2010, you guys would be running newsrooms by now.
As a Nova Scotian, I don’t know whether Lucki provides a convenient target for NS RCMP who did not conduct themselves in glory or whether changes are needed on all fronts. RCMP in NS privately notified their own family members of the danger but did not send out a public alert. This is unacceptable. The behaviour of Lucki needs to be examined but not at the expense of taking the spotlight off NS RCMP actions in 2020.
On a happier note, good to see so many female opinion writers and you using Trevor Tombe - I follow a lot of Canadian economists on Twitter because they base opinions on facts rather than emotion.
As a former Nova Scotian, I completely agree with you. Lucki feels like an unfortunate distraction but mostly I don't care. Have we had a good RCMP Commissioner in recent history? SH gave us one who wasn't even a cop and ended up a total dud. Didn't he have anger issues? Do we need one? Seems a rather crappy thankless job. Maybe just spread the workload across 5 or 6 worthies and should one do a face plant the others could carry on.
At least in BC the RCMP are no longer investigating themselves when things go sideways. Not all provinces have adopted that.
What gets measured and by whom is critical to scores and rankings. Most Canadians aren't really considering uprooting themselves to move to Austria, Denmark, or Singapore, depending on what means the most to them.
I would suggest simply ignoring the listicles. They are usually in response to a comment that is as lame as the listicles themselves. They aren't info, they are memes and not particularly good ones except that they seem to make some folks irritated as hell. Like DTs blackface memes. There are so few good memes on Twitter anymore. Even the word meme is a misnomer.
Is this maybe the beginning of the end of Twitter and similar apps? We can hope so.
I think you are right I just don't think that it's institutional i.e. part of an official program like the Senators have with the Ottawa Hospital system. There is a one official program that does accelerate access at least in Ontario, those people who are receiving workman's compensation (it's on every intake form). Other than that no I don't think there is a formal VIP program for MPs & Senators (though wouldn't be surprised if the PM got preferential access). Having said that I do think plenty of people get faster access, as wait lists are maintained by individual doctors not by the hospital or OHIP. Of course those doctors have limited access to ORs so it's not something they can do all the time but I know that it happens. That's inevitable, you can argue it's morality but it would be almost impossible to police by the province.