If the Public Sector Unions are “for the Middle Class” or “Working Families”, then why do they promote the socialist party at election time? Here’s the OPSEU (Ontario Public Service Employee Union) Head Office 100 Lesmill Rd. North York, ON M3B 3P8 on 9/12/2011, proudly displaying NDP election signs.
NDP Election Signs at OPSEU Headquarters - #1
Here’s the people’s candidate, Dr. Bob Hilliard!
NDP Election Signs at OPSEU Headquarters - #2
Filed under Ontario Politics
When Sarah Palin used rhetorical flourish to warn Americans of “Obama’s Death Panel” back in August of 2009, she was mocked and derided by liberals, and sniped at by jealous establishment conservatives. Well, fast-forward to March 2011 in Canada – land of Obama’s dream of nationalized health care – and the debate over the use of the drug Herceptin in the treatment of breast cancer in young women. When 34-year-old mother of two Jill Anzarut went to the press and Facebook to advocate for the drug, which is being denied to her by the Ontario Ministry of Health, our (Liberal) Health Minister chose to respond with jaw-dropping honesty:
“We cannot have a health system where the stories that land on the front page of the paper determine our health-care policy. It would be unfair to those who do not get their stories on the front page if we were to give priority to those who do.”
With these 49 words, Deb Matthews exposes what Palin was so presciently warning about: that nationalized health care ends up becoming about turf-protection, central control, dehumanization of individuals, and a monopoly on health service rationing to a clique of “masters of the universe” who end up thinking their number-crunching degrees in epidemiology give them moral license to determine who deserves to live and die.
Not convinced? Want to give Matthews benefit of the doubt, or deny the truth of what she said? OK, don’t take her word for it. Let’s go straight to the words of Diane McArthur, Assistant Deputy Minister and executive officer, Ontario Public Drug Programs, Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, as published in her own words as a letter to the editor in today’s National Post:
“I would like to clarify the Ontario Public Drug Program review process in response to Matt Gurney’s recent article. The Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care’s process for evaluating new and expensive cancer drugs is based on the best scientific evidence. The Ontario Public Drug Program relies on a thorough assessment of scientific data and clinical evidence by its expert advisory committee, the Committee to Evaluate Drugs (CED) and the CED/Cancer Care Ontario sub-committee, which includes cancer experts, to develop funding recommendations for all cancer drugs.
As a result, the Ontario Public Drug program is one of the most generous drug benefit programs in Canada.
Ontario’s Compassionate Access Program component of the Exceptional Access Program provides an opportunity for me, as the executive officer of the Ontario Public Drug Program, to consider requests for drugs or indications where the Committee to Evaluate Drugs has not reviewed a drug or where there are rare clinical circumstances in immediately life-, limb-or organ-threatening conditions. This program is not a mechanism to provide an exemption from the evidencebased criteria. The Exceptional Access Program Compassionate Review Policy is available on the Ministry’s website.
The ministry will continue to make funding decisions on drug products based on the advice of experts. We regularly review our criteria as new evidence is brought forward and/or standards of practice change. It is our responsibility to ensure that in addition to providing the best coverage we can, all funding decisions are made on the best available clinical and scientific evidence.”
Trying to put a positive spin on the government monopoly on drug rationing, MacArthur confirms what Palin, and the Health Minister herself, made clear:
1) Initial decisions on drug coverage are made by an “expert advisory committee”.
2) Ontario’s committee is a smiley-happy-face-committee that is most generous to the little peoples!!!
3) If you’re not satisfied that Ontario’s committee is smiley and happy and generous to the little peoples, you can apply to another smiley happy committee – the committee of ME!!! DIANE MACARTHUR!!! BEARER OF GOVERNMENT GIFTS!!! And my SUPERPOWERS as head of the EXCEPTIONAL ACCESS PROGRAM!!!!
4) But if I, DIANE MARCARTHUR, BEARER OF GOVERNMENT GIFTS decide to quell the PR nightmare my administration is experiencing by granting you, suffering nameless victim who doesn’t fit into the expert panel’s number-crunching criteria yet insists on advocating for your own life, the drug that you want, I’ll find a way to cover my ass with another expert report (commissioned by me to give me the answer I need to provide cover to make it look like our system consists of something other than the government exercising a monopoly on the arbitrary rationing of health care services.)
Put it in your pipe and smoke it, Palin-haters of the right and left! (And you too, brainwashed Canucks…)
UPDATE: The bureaucrats announce, to no one’s surprise, that they will fund the patient’s treatment after all. The death panel comes through for Ms. Anzarut, and the minister announces what a wonderful world it is!
Next time a newspaper editorial tries to convince you that Ontario’s multi-billion-dollar HST tax grab is a good thing for the people of the province, ask the newspaper this: if it’s so great, then why did you pay the Canadian Newspaper Association to spend months lobbying (successfully) for an exemption?
Without control of the high ground on moral issues, conservatism is lost. What remains is the soulless image of the capable administrator, counting beans and biding time, until power is once again handed back to the heroes of “progress”.
The reason I bring this up today, is that the ultimate soul of true modern conservatism – the protection of all forms of human life, via resistance to abortion, infanticide, embryo-destroying research, and euthenasia – has now been ripped out of the federal Conservative party, thanks to the new regime of ex-Harris-ites who are now in full control of the Prime Minister’s office. After being challenged last week by Stephane Dion to explain his view on abortion, the PMO gave the Liberal Party an unthinkable gift: full capitulation on the issue. First, the words of Kory Teneycke, Stephen Harper’s Director of Communications, former Harris senior policy advisor, and right-hand man of new PMO chief of staff, and former Harris inner-cirlce advisor Guy Giorno, upon throwing pro-life Alberta MP Ken Epp and his Unborn Victims of Crime Act under the bus:
“I think it is important that Canadians understand what is on our agenda and what is not on our agenda,” Kory Teneycke, the Prime Minister’s communications director, told reporters following a news conference.
“What is on our agenda is being tough on crime and punishing criminals, and what is not on our agenda is re-opening a debate on abortion. That clarity I think is helpful for Canadians, especially as we go into a period where they might be forced to make a choice.”
Next, the words of Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, a well-known pro-life advocate, who has obviously been cowed from above by the Harris PMO:
Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, whose government is expected to go to the polls this fall, said he will introduce his own competing bill that would make pregnancy an aggravating factor for judges to take into account when sentencing those who assault expectant mothers.
But he stressed that he intends to make it clear that the new law is worded in a way that “leaves no room for the introduction of fetal rights.”
The message to social conservatives couldn’t be more clear: shut up, your views only serve to cost us votes. I couldn’t disagree more. When you take away social values, what do you have left? Fiscal conservatism, whose only pitch to the public is the mundane, visionless promise that they will be good administrators; versus liberals, whose pitch always claims the moral high ground of “social justice”, and always includes vast generosity with the public purse to the special interest groups who mobilize the voting public.
The Liberal Party may be intellectually bankrupt, but the liberal vision inspires people of a certain mindset, and the liberal agenda is great at buying votes. The Conservative Party is proving itself to be nearly as visionless, offering no coherent vision of Canada’s future, and punting on the very issues that can energize the base and make our country a better place.
The Harrisites should have learned this lesson by now. After years of governing in soulless bean-counting fashion, not an ounce of goodwill had built up for the Ontario PC party, and when Mike Harris handed over the reins to the even more soulless policies of the milquetoast Ernie Eves, the voters deserted the party and handed over Ontario’s government to a Liberal who was universally considered by pundits to be unelectable. Stephane Dion bashers – myself included – should take note. Mr. Harper, also take note: you’re being led down a very dark path.
At least Epp vows to fight on.
Ontario’s Minister of Health proudly announces Thursday: Sex Change surgery will once again be covered by the province’s socialist health care monopoly.
Amazing! The province must be swimming in funds! All problems in the health care system must have been solved, if we can now provide the resources for sadly pathetic, psychologically disturbed adults to have their bananas turned to peaches.
Perhaps we should call Sylvia de Vries, who would be dead by now if not for the good fortune of living across the river from Detroit’s Henry Ford Hospital, and tell her the good news. And while we’re at it, call Stephan Marinoiu, nearing bankruptcy to pay for his son’s autism therapy, to let him know. Hey, see if Lindsay McCreith wants in on the celebration:
(An aside: for an idea of the state of conservatism in Ontario today, here’s the Tory PC’s reaction to the story: “The Progressive Conservatives declined to comment on the issue, saying they wanted to wait and hear something more from the government than Smitherman’s musings to reporters.”
As part of this age of stupidity and denial, a coalition of busybodies, politically-correct liberals, Christianity-bashers, Jew-haters, and radical atheists continues to wage war against what is, to me, the most obvious of all overarching facts of modern Western history: that the sustained periods of freedom, innovation, fairness, justice, and prosperity that have been enjoyed in our gilded age were created and defended by the Judeo-Christian moral code, and by leaders who were strong believers. Today’s battle by these folks: the Jihad being waged by Dalton McGuinty and Ontario’s governing Liberal Party against The Lord’s Prayer. Curmudgeonly liberal-minded Jewish commentator Larry Zolf does a nice job defending the centuries-old daily recital here. The Oakville Beaver did a hilarious re-writing of the prayer back in February, found here.
I fear that the vast majority of those who believe it should be expunged from public life have never stopped to consider exactly what The Lord’s Prayer actually says (a hint: you won’t find a single sectarian word). Here it is:
Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name.
(Yes, indeed, it accepts the concept of a singular supernatural God, which horrifies atheist absolutists, but should offend no one else.)
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.
(A call for man to work towards making life in this world as heavenly as possible – the noble aim of every idealistic public servant, whether religious or not.)
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever.
(Another call for humility – a reminder that there is something much bigger and stronger than our own egos, intellects, and material desires – a message any politician needs to hear few minutes.)
Amen.
(That’s a religious word. AHHHH!)
My question to those who wish to make this prayer illegal in the public square: which of the sentiments expressed is offensive to you? If you’re intellectually honest, you’ll say: the acceptance of the concept of God. If you’re a muddy-thinking liberal, you’ll say: “it’s not offensive per se, but, you know, like, separation of church and state, right?” If you’re a knee-jerk secular Jew, you’ll say: it’s a Christian prayer, can’t you see? (no, I can’t…Jesus must be between the lines). If you’re a conventional soulless non-practicing-Christian-Canuck, you’ll say: we don’t need these old concepts and corny sentiments, and go back to getting your news from Jon Stewart and your moral compass from Gray’s Anatomy.
The province of Ontario should be able to do better than Dalton McGuinty as Premier. We’ve suffered through four years of absolutely pointless, amoral, non-leadership from this Liberal creep, and it appears the sleepwalking zombies of my home province are ready to reward him with four more. Wednesday looks like it will be a sad day for Ontario.
Columnist Christina Blizzard was in on the Toronto Sun’s editorial board conference call with McGuinty Saturday, and came away feeling sickened by his impending victory. Read the entire column here.
McGuinty was so sanctimonious and smug, so settled in the groove of his message track, you know he’s on cruise control until Wednesday. That’s when voters will obediently do the knee-jerk thing and send him back to Queen’s Park.
…Ask McGuinty why people are about to give him a new mandate, despite his broken-promise record, and you get this: “We have kept the overwhelming number of our promises.” Huh? Coal plants? Tax hikes? Autistic kids? Tolls on the 407?
…The most offensive part of his message track was his response to my colleague Michele Mandel, who asked about the way he has criticized parents who put their children in faith-based schools — other than Catholic ones — as “segregation and sequestration.”
Again, he was back on track.
“I don’t think it’s right to divide our kids. I think we should bring them together,” he said. Well, that’s not quite answering the question. The Liberals are the ones who have successfully positioned this as a divisive policy — and this province’s large Jewish community, along with Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus and any other group that would like to educate their children in their faith are collateral damage.
Asked if he would apologize to the many Jewish groups that are deeply wounded by his statements about their schools, McGuinty came perilously close to a “some of my best friends are Jewish,” kind of response.
“I have got a great working relationship with Bernie (Farber, spokesman for the Canadian Jewish Congress) and the United Jewish Appeal. The fact is we don’t see things the same way,” McGuinty said.
Well, there are ways of saying that without tossing grenades during an election.
Just as good is David Warren’s Friday piece from the Ottawa Citizen, “A miserable choice for Ontario”. Some highlights:
Frequent readers of this space will guess I usually vote Conservative. The more attentive will recall that I bear something approaching ill-will towards the sitting Liberal premier, Dalton McGuinty, the apostate Catholic whose government has never done anything that did not annoy me. It began with their big fat lie, promising not to raise taxes before the last election, then raising them substantially the moment after they came to power, and trying to pass it off as an administrative technicality.
This is a government whose principal legacy will be its refusal to enforce the Police Services Act, and direct court orders, at the Caledonia native land claim stand-off, effectively withdrawing police protection from Caledonia residents being intimidated by politically motivated thugs.
But every day and in every way this government delivers itself of smug, posturing, politically correct, profoundly cynical, minor affronts to tradition and public order.
And in typical Liberal-machine fashion, they launched into their re-election campaign by tossing a big red herring on the table, making the central issue John Tory’s proposal to provide government funding for certain private religious schools, with lockstep support from the liberal media. An easy distraction from any serious discussion of the government’s appalling record.
Yet Mr. Tory’s proposal was itself a cynical gambit, to capture a conservative, rural constituency that he does not understand. (blogger’s note: I believe this sentence would be more accurate if the word “rural” was replaced with the word “ethnic” – as in, the influential Jewish community of Toronto).
He is a typical “technocrat” candidate for premier, with his senior executive background in a heavily regulated industry, who swims with the tide when he can find it. I have no confidence that he has any principles beyond his own desire for visible personal success, and am hardly alone in doubting that he believes in anything he says….
I advise others to vote for whichever candidate is likeliest to defeat the Liberal. Meanwhile I advise my reader to vote “early and often” against the noxious “MMP” referendum proposal, about which I wrote last Sunday. Killing “proportional representation” as dead as possible is, I think, the closest we can get in this election, to exercising real civic responsibility.
Our “first-past-the-post” options are ugly enough, without letting the political parties stack safe party lists with candidates who are even uglier.
Here’s where I stand: like Blizzard, I am shocked at how this sorry excuse for a Premier could possibly be fooling Ontario voters again. Like Warren, I’m not a Tory fan at all, and am frustrated that he’s the “conservative” choice. But given the choice, I’m voting for my PC candidate all the way, simply because Tory is our only hope of getting rid of the Libs. And, like Warren, I’m voting against the MMP voting proposal, because we certainly don’t need to make our Provincial legislature bigger and less accountable, while empowering more fringe whackos and party hacks.
Filed under Ontario Politics
Is it just me, or is this the worst campaign commercial you’ve ever seen? Debuted – voluntarily! – by McGuinty as part of tonight’s Ontario Provincial Election leadership debate:
What message is he trying to convey here? “Hi, I’m a weasel.”? “Politicians must lie to get elected.”? “Don’t trust me.”? John Tory should be buying time to air this fiasco!
Filed under Ontario Politics
Could John Tory have picked a better wedge issue on which to fight the Ontario election? Yes. Could he have chosen a better proposal on educational reform, like a charter school program? Certainly. Is John Tory’s platform conservative? Not at all. But Christina Blizzard of the Toronto Sun has me convinced: the religious school funding issue will be, in the end, a political winner for Tory, and possibly a fatal blow to Dalton McGuinty’s re-election prospects.
Blizzard’s column today exposes the astounding hypicricy, illogic, and foolish politics of McGuinty’s battle against the Tory proposal. After eviscerating McGuinty for using Catholic school children as election campaign props yesterday morning, and pointing out once again that McGuinty was raised in Catholic schools, sends his kids to Catholic schools, and has a wife who teaches in a Catholic school, she makes this prescient political observation:
What is most troubling is the tone of McGuinty’s attack on private religious schools. He seems to imply they are somehow inferior.
I don’t think Jewish, Hindu or Muslim parents are going to make the kind of financial sacrifices necessary to keep their kids in private religious school if they weren’t getting results.
No, I think this issue is turning on McGuinty. It is insulting for people of other faiths to be told their religious schools threaten the social fabric — but Catholic schools don’t.
In the final analysis, Ontario voters will be forced to choose Tory’s least-bad option: let Catholic schools keep their funding, but offer equal support to other faiths. McGuinty’s ludicrous support for the status quo is, without a doubt, a worse option to most reasonable voters.
Filed under Ontario Politics, The Sinking Ship Liberal
The Ontario election campaign has heated up over the issue of education funding. John Tory came out swinging with a plan to bring religion-based independent schools into the public system – a big-government solution that should send conservatives running for the hills, and independent school administrators cowering in legitimate fear of having educrats from Queen’s Park meddling into their business.
Premier McGuinty returned with, to use a tennis metapor this U.S. Open season, a volley that caromed off his racket and into his own face, when he attacked Tory’s plan for being “divisive”. Andrew Coyne beautifully eviscerates McGuinty and his hypocricy in today’s National Post:
The position he is attempting to defend is that public funding should be available to schools professing the Catholic faith, and no other. The opposition Conservatives’ position, that funding should be available equally to all religious schools, is consistent, at least as between faiths — though why religious schools should be preferred to secular is a question the Tories might wish to answer. But the Liberal position is simply incoherent.
With Tory now in the ridiculous position of having to invent a creationism policy on the fly, it’s time to ask the question that, for all the hundreds of articles written to date, I haven’t seen asked: WHAT ABOUT CHARTER SCHOOLS? It’s the ultimate conservative solution to public education: let parents and communities decide how to educate their children, within the boundaries of a charter of responsibilities that include testing on the basics of the provincial curriculum.
I can only guess as to why Tory chose the big-government educrat policy over Charter schools or, at the very least, a return to the Harris/Eves tax credit scheme that was overturned by McGuinty his first days in office.
The issue has done nothing to help Tory’s fortunes. It has opened up a can of worms that has made both parties look bad to various constituencies. But with the power of incumbency and the powerful inertia of the status quo behind him, a draw on this issue means McGuinty, for all his hypocricy, wins.
Where, oh where, does a small-government conservative turn? I’ll still turn to Tory. Demonizing religious education as “divisive” is as low as McGuinty has ever gone – this crass, soulless politico simply has to go. And implying that Jewish or Protestant schools should be thrown into the same category as Islamic Madrassas – that’s simply beyond the pale.
Filed under Ontario Politics, Social Engineering Gone Wild
Flaggman's Canada 