Federal Government Moves to Strip Power from Top Public Health Scientist

 Demoting Chief Public Health Officer more about politics than promoting health Buried in the current omnibus budget bill being studied by parliament this week is a plan to demote the Chief Public Health Officer of Canada. He will no longer hold a deputy minister rank, he will have no direct

Private Delivery of Healthcare Can Work in a Publically Funded System but Comes with Risks

 What the rest of Canada can learn from Alberta’s experience If you look at an old map of Canadian healthcare policy, just near Privatization Island is a big warning: “Here be dragons.” So it proved for Alberta Health Services last month when a seemingly innocuous decision—to swap the tender for

Quebec Health Reform Bill 10 Puts Health Minister At Center

 Micro-management of the health system not the answer  Quebec has begun the process of reforming its beleaguered health-care system yet again with the introduction of Bill 10. But will Bill 10 fulfill its promises of reconfiguring the organization and governance of Quebec’s health and social services? There are three clear

A New Paradigm for Cancer Prevention

 There have been several advances in the treatment of cancer over the last 20 years. We have new targeted oncology drugs with fewer side effects and improved technology allowing for more sensitive and earlier detection. Evolving research guides oncologists not only when to use chemotherapy, but more importantly, when not

The IBEW Has Spent 120 Years Building a Better Canada

 Photo courtesy of IBEW Canada  When it comes to unions, there are few who can boast a longer presence in Canada than the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW). The IBEW has been around since 1899. Today, it represents 67,000 members working in construction, utility, manufacturing, government, telecommunications and railroad

The Importance of Follow-Up Care After An Emergency Room Visit

 Why Too Many Canadians Are Falling Through The Cracks Television shows have popularized the theatrical entrance into the hospital emergency room: patients racing down hallways on gurneys with worried doctors and nurses running alongside--great drama. How most patients leave the emergency room isn’t quite as dramatic, but the facts tell

Mayor’s City Builder Award Shines Light on Vulnerable Youth

 Bill Robinson receives his Mayor's City Builder Award from Mayor Jim Watson and Councillor Marianne Wilkinson. Image courtesy of City of Ottawa.  When Bill Robinson meets me for coffee, he talks youth at-risk. Who are these children? Robinson replies: It’s a baby born into poverty. It’s a kid facing family

Five Things Most People Get Wrong About Canada’s Health-Care System

 By Kathleen O’Grady and Noralou Roos A recent court challenge before the British Columbia Supreme Court threatened to change the rules of the game for the Canadian health-care system—should the challenge have made its way to the Supreme Court of Canada and found success there. Dr. Brian Day of the

Letter To The Editor: A Response From The Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse

 The following letter from Rita Notarandrea, CEO of the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse, is a response to our August 27th article Canada Slow to Respond to Prescription Opioid Crisis by Dr. David Juurlink. I agree with Dr. Juurlink’s assertion (in his August 27 article, Canada Slow to Respond to

Public Service Week: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

 Twenty-two years ago, then-MP Marlene Catterall introduced a private member’s bill recognizing the third week of June as National Public Service Week, a week to celebrate the work and achievements of the people who make up the Public Service of Canada. The bill was the idea of the Professional Institute

Why Canadian Medicare Should Neither ‘Go Dutch’ or ‘to the Dogs’

 Canada’s health care system faced some provocative comparisons recently. First was Sarah Boston’s new book, Lucky Dog, in which she details her personal experience with thyroid cancer and navigating the Canadian health system. Boston, a veterinary oncologist, claims Canadian dogs often have better access to health care than their human

To Fix Temporary Foreign Worker Program, Look to Solutions in Canada’s Unionized Meat Industry

 As the National President of Canada’s largest food workers’ union, I am disappointed by the Harper government’s lack of leadership in fixing the Temporary Foreign Workers Program (TFWP). Quite simply, the TFWP is broken, and the latest announcement by Minister Kenney – regarding minor adjustments to the number of TFWs

Taking the Private Out of Privacy

 “It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information,” Oscar Wilde, A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated By reading this blog post you have created a marketable product. If you use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flikr, Google+, Tumblr, YouTube, Instagram, Foursquare or even

Why Canada Shouldn’t Compete with the U.S. for the Worst Performing Health System in the Developed World

 B.C. Court Challenge Looming The latest Commonwealth Study ranked Canada’s health care system a dismal second to last in a list of 11 major industrialized countries. We had the dubious distinction of beating out only the Americans. This latest poor result is already being used by those bent on further

Citizens and Parliament Must be Consulted on Election Rules

 The Harper Government’s Bill C-23, Fair Elections Act is currently before the House of Commons, and it should come as no surprise that the Conservatives are using the bill to manipulate the rules that govern how Canadians vote. After all, the Harper Government has been at odds with Elections Canada

Governments have a responsibility to get the big things right

 By David McGuinty. Governments have a responsibility to get the big things right. Transportation safety is certainly one of them. Commercial vehicle driver fatigue is a serious issue that deserves our attention. However, there is often confusion about jurisdictional responsibilities for transportation regulations. According to Transport Canada, “Provincial and territorial

Time to Tackle the Rooming-House Paradox

 More than 30,000 homeless Canadians daily, thousands more part of the ‘hidden homeless’ On any given night, thousands of Canadians languish in ramshackle housing, line up at shelters or sleep in our streets and alleyways.  This situation is not limited to our big cities, with the Homeless Hub estimating that

Opposition Leader Tim Hudak says with Ontario facing unprecedented job losses and a massive deficit, six million in bonuses to LCBO management is wrong

 Premier Dalton McGuinty recently announced that the Ontario government is considering selling off crown assets such as the LCBO to reduce the deficit. Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak is convinced that such a move is not the right way to go. "Selling off crown assets is the wrong approach to

Farmers In Crisis: While the Provincial and Federal Government Argue – Farmers Pay the Price

 Ontario's leading agricultural agencies recently signed a joint letter to Ontario Agriculture Minister, The Hon. Carol Mitchell, expressing their concern that the McGuinty government and the federal government do not have a strong enough sense of urgency about Ontario agriculture. "We are living the crisis every day on our farms

Mr. Immigration Minister, It’s Getting Heavy: An Open Letter to Jason Kenney From Lainie Towell

 Dear Honourable Jason Kenney,   I wanted to thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to appear on CTV's Canada AM, to discuss immigration/marriage fraud. After I spoke on Canada AM about my fraudulent ex-husband who misrepresented himself to the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA )and

Afghanistan and the Polls: Change the Question – Change the Numbers

 Quick media conclusions on polls released regarding Canadian participation in the Afghanistan mission are flawed. Part of the difficulty in interpreting the polls lies in the fact that the two principal polling firms involved with the longest databases use very different questions in their polls. Strategic Counsel, which is the

Have you no shame — The shocking expenses of our unelected city managers

 By Claire Tremblay & Dan Donovan Shocking. That's how Auditor General Sheila Fraser described the waste of $100 million of taxpayers' money in her February 10 report to Parliament on the Liberal government's sponsorship fiasco in Quebec. But for jaded Canadian taxpayers, the waste of their hard-earned money is nothing

JAWS Technologies bites back against e-criminals

 Seldom does a company offer a cash prize to anyone who can prove its product is defective. But that's what JAWS Technologies Inc. did in 1998, to demonstrate that its 4096-bit encryption key was virtually unbreakable. JAWS offered US$5 million to anyone who could break the code. Of 569 hackers

Heroes betrayed —The Merchant Seamen story

 By Cliff Chadderton It is mid-January of 1940 in "an East Canadian port." Canada is at war. The recruiting offices are open. You see a poster of a soldier in a tin hat. You recall the slaughter of the trenches in Flanders in World War I and mutter: "No thanks."