Opinionated Fool

That’s apparently the Dalton Mcguinty approach to things. In the legislature this past week, it came out that the review, which was previously cancelled rather on the hush hush, ended up never actually being started to begin with. So all this time of saying Ontario’s government had things in hand with the investigation, they were primarily blowing smoke.

The article goes on to say their latest reasoning behind it was because the starting of that contract would have been a duplication of the auditor general’s efforts–funnily enough, the same reason they used to cancel it. Question of the day, from the opinionated fool: which lie is the real lie? Or does Dalton McGuinty expect tax payers to just buy whatever he spits out? Between Ignatieff and McGuinty, I’m having trouble seeing why anyone’s surprised at the number of elections, both provincially and federally, the liberal party of Canada hasn’t actually won.

Oh, you’ll never hear Dalton McGuinty saying that–he’s too busy stressing the economic advantages so far as the creation of new jobs is concerned. Which, okay–we all could use a little good news on the job creation front. But I kind of like the idea of being able to aford rent at the same time. That’s something the opposition parties are saying won’t be quite so likely should the new HST go through. Now, if you’ve been a regular reader in the 3 short weeks since I started randomly spouting off my nonsense, you’ll be well aware that I’m nowhere near being an economist. But I can do basic math. And more jobs plus higher rent plus a higher tax overall equals not a very pretty situation. Or very happy voters. And when your party’s in trouble federally, plus you’re not exactly doing very well provincially in what is probably one of the largest, if not the largest, vote-getting province in the country–we’re not counting Quebec, here–you probably don’t want any of your basic math equasions to add up to not very happy. Of course, I’m not a politician either so maybe there’s some hidden strategy here. Hopefully that works out better than your national counterparts, Dalton. I generally don’t like to have to toss more than one person from the same party into the opinionated deadpool.

Even the pro-healthcare advocates have to realize that. If the government does nothing, or gives the impression of doing nothing, you will have problems. The same would be and has been said about any other government run system–education, social security, pensions, etc. An example of the problems you might notice was posted to the Sudbury Star (Sudbury, Ontario) earlier this morning. It outlines an example of what can go sideways if the government doesn’t keep its ear on the healthcare situation.

Ontario’s government, under Dalton McGuinty, has let the Sudbury hospital situation slip just a touch out of controll. And, in fact, it’s not the only issue of its kind in the province–in fact, emergency room wait times are probably one of the biggest complaints against Ontario’s implementation of the healthcare system. It’s not a liberal versus conservative issue, however–British Columbia’s healthcare system, under Gordon Campbell’s government–also a liberal government, has significantly reduced those same emergency wait times in its own province. So what’s the difference between the two, and can people on both sides of the border learn from it?

Simply put, the difference is money. The BC government has committed more of its resources to fix its problems with the healthcare system than has Ontario at this point. And, while Ontario’s healthcare system is still a better alternative than is the system currently in the US, both can easily learn from what’s presently being done in BC. Ten hours’ wait in the emergency room, while still not anything to write home about, is still better than the average of twenty found in Ontario.

That having been said, emergency room wait times are not a Canadian healthcare issue, as evidenced by a study released in January of 2008 that noted emergency times south of the border were on the rise. Much the same as up north, general overcrowding and a shortage of resources is being blamed for the wait times. The only difference between the Canadian and American problems at this stage of the game is the many people who right now don’t have health insurance in the US–the very thing pro-healthcare advocates are critical about when it comes to their current system. A problem that can be, and is slowly being in some cases–like the case in British Columbia, delt with by increasing the amount of money dedicated to healthcare spending. Of course, it might also be helpful if the Ontario government maybe starts pulling some of that healthcare expense out of things that just plain aren’t working out.

That’s the general message Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty is leaving many, after he quietly ended a review of Ontario’s latest attempt at establishing a system of electronic health records. the investigation was to look at the organization’s procurement practices since its creation, and table a report on its findings this summer. The province’s auditor general had first made the request to have the investigation dropped, saying it would duplicate his own investigation, the report from which is due in September. I’m all for not going over things unnecessarily, but to simply pull the plug in the independant review–particularly when you’re already on thin ice where this organization’s concerned–well, that’s just not the smartest thing to ever come out of Toronto. Particularly when it was the current government that created the organization, the current government who ordered both reviews, and the current government who cancelled one of them. And this would be the better alternative to the conservatives, according to some. I’m still not entirely sure on that. Right now, he seems pretty equal with Canada’s prime minister.

That’s what an article in the Welland Tribune is sort of hinting at, outlining how the Ontario premier may be heading in the direction of damaging liberal support in the province. The article highlights the proposed harmonized sales tax (hst), among other recent Mcguinty initiatives, that the article’s author says have contributed to turning Ontario into a “have not” province. If the article does in fact demonstrate the kind of support liberals in Ontario–the largest vote-getting center in Canada, comparable only to Quebec–can expect, Michael Ignatieff may indeed have Dalton McGuinty to thank, and quite probably blame, for it. Not what a man who came back to Canada from the US to accept leadership of the federal liberal party wants to have to deal with. Particularly when that same party is still about neck deep in trying to recover from its own problems from the previous 13 years of government.