June 13, 2008

-The problem with the NDP is that they can never confront the reality of their own policies. A perfect example is carbon tax.
The NDP is faced with the problem of deciding how to attack it. Perhaps because they wanted the companies to pay for it, not the consumer.
If you believe in global warming, you believe carbon emissions are a bad thing. The best way to attack it is to attack the consumer’s comsumption of carbon emissions. The emission of carbon is based on consumption. A carbon tax is the most pervasive way to attack that emission.
The NDP has never found reality to be a strong suit.
-The health care wait time insurance that is being proposed in BC is very exciting. The CBC reporter that was covering it could not help question whether it was legal. Typical Canadian.
I have to admit that between provinces, such insurance might run into legalities, depending on whether the provinces bother to enforce the Canada Health Care Act. Any number of provinces don’t, including Quebec, Alberta and BC where there are private clinics. Manitoba has them too.
We all know about the hypocrisy and stupidity of the system. This health care wait time insurance is the best example yet of how dysfunctional our system is and how lots of us are in denial about it.
It’s a great idea: you pay $1,300.00 a year and your whole family gets up to $5 million in insurance for health care provision outside of your province. I have to say that I have no idea how anyone will be able to stop a company from selling insurance to people to get health care outside the country. If the proceeds are used to pay for the health care of a person in the US, for instance, and the claim isn’t made against a health ministry in any province, what does the government of Canada or any province have to do with that? Nothing.
Frankly, I think you may see more of these sorts of approaches without euphemistic titles. One day, I suspect you’ll see global health insurance, like travel insurance.
If the choice is between waiting for the system to become more rational and attack the wait times problems and getting a guarantee you won’t have to wait more than 21 days for a procedure through affordable health care insurance, it’s obvious what the choice is going to be for most people who can afford it. At $1,300.00 a year, it will be affordable to an enormous segment of Canadian society.
-Bill C-38, the bill to mandate 5% ethanol content in fuel, is nothing more than a farm aid bill. That’s why it’s supported by the two parties with the most farmers in their caucuses: the Liberals and the Conservatives. For them to wrap themselves in the flag and fuel independence and global warming while we see corn riots going on in Mexico is obscene.
We should be ashamed as a party. And those members of our caucus who represent consumers (and which one doesn’t?) should vote against this.
-Raw sewage was pumped into the Ottawa River from Aylmer. I know this because the sailing launch that my dad used for sailing was only a few yards away from the bubbling outlet in the river. My father and the rest of us had to make sure we showered after sailing so that we did not get any poisonous material on our bodies from the dirty water.
The Ontario side did not do this. How is it that Aylmer was able to do this without attracting the attention of Environment Canada? After all, that raw sewage didn’t just stay on the Quebec side. It almost certainly affected the Ontario side. Therefore, an effluent over interprovincial boundaries becomes a federal matter and concern.
There is the double irony of the fact that it was occurring at the doorstep of Parliament and other federal installations. I’m sure some of them contributed to it. Why didn’t Ottawa intervene?
The answers appear unattractive, but it raises the question as to why the federal government could not intervene and stop this sort of activity either through penalties or through court orders. It’s certainly an example of the double standard that some governments are held to in this country with regards to issues like the environment and the lackaday attitude of the federal government to environment issues. The US federal government and the all-powerful EPA appear in stark contrast.
Where is our superfund to clean up REAL pollution? We don’t have one. And we don’t have an EPA with real power. That might not be such a bad thing. The EPA has been known to overreach. But we have raw sewage being pumped out in this country. Someone need to control and stop this.