Rebecca Walberg

We’re accustomed to thinking of Canadian healthcare problems in terms of splashy failures and gross inefficiencies - people dying in ER waiting rooms, cancer victims who have to pay for their own chemotherapy, 18 month waits for surgery.  The problems with our healthcare system are pervasive, though, and cause a lot of problems that don’t register on the radar for most of us, but nonetheless cost the system time, money, and sometimes lives.  If all Canadians had an Electronic Health Record - think the medical equivalent of a credit report, with the basic facts easily accessible by anyone you allow to acces it - we’d spend less money, repeat fewer tests, and get treated more safely and effectively.  More on EHRs and the high cost of not investing in our system sensibly here.

Last week, a Saskatchewan aboriginal man pled guilty to neglect causing the deaths of his toddlers when he took them out in -50 winds almost naked and they froze to death.  Although he claimed at the time to have been too drunk to dress them, he managed to dress himself in more adequate clothing, and also to get himself to safety while his daughters were dying of exposure.  Right now, two Manitoba natives are on trial for the murder of a 5 year old girl.  Phoenix Sinclair, the woman’s daughter, was treated with a level of sadism and cruelty that is reminiscent of the worst of Abu Ghraib, by her own mother and her mother’s live-in boyfriend.  There are recriminations flying all around about who is to blame for what, but so far nobody is talking very much about the profound dysfunction that lies at the root of both of these criminal cases, as well as the pervasive child abuse, substance abuse, mental illness and teen suicide that plague First Nations: the collapse of the family.  My column on this topic, paired with two other takes on it, is in today’s Winnipeg Free Press.

One of the challenges facing military thinkers in the 21st century has been how to adapt the model of warfighting that has been developed over the past four centuries to a world in which the biggest threats come from groups that aren’t armies, don’t control a specific territory, and owe allegiance to no nation or government. John Robb, a blogger, ex Special Forces soldier, and businessman, has written a thought-provoking book on this subject, which I review for Canadian webzine C2C here.

Introduction:

The diabolical genius of the 9/11 attacks was the way in which a small and loosely organized group of terrorists slipped around the behemoth of the US military and security apparatus, rather than attempting to directly engage it. The greatest threat to American domestic security and the American military abroad turned out to be not another nation or its armed forces, but a determined consortium using only tools that can be cheaply and easily purchased, such as cell phones and box cutters.

John Robb, a technology consultant with an engineering degree from the Air Force Academy, a business degree from Yale, and years of experience in counterterrorism as a special forces operative, sees a parallel here with the decline of Microsoft. For years, that company was the unquestioned leader in computer software, with competitors such as Novell, Corel and Netscape, which quickly lost out whenever they tried to compete with Microsoft head-on. Instead, the most serious challenger to Windows comes from Linux, an open source operating system which is freely distributed, and improved upon by its users. Robb believes that the future of organized violence will be similar: the age of the colossus is past, while agile, adaptable and only loosely hierarchical organizations will dominate from now on.

After a campaign in which he has been one of the louder conservative voices criticizing Sarah Palin, and at best a muted and reticent supporter of McCain, David Frum writes a convincing post about why he’s voting for McCain and why other American voters who value smaller government, increased freedom, national security, small-c conservatism and politicians with integrity should do likewise.  He also addresses the Palin issue, to wit, why Republicans or conservatives who aren’t delighted with her addition to the ticket should still vote McCain-Palin.

His first point:

10) No elected official in American life has contributed more to the security of the nation than John McCain. Latterly, McCain was the most senior and most forceful advocate of the strategy that has saved the day in Iraq. For that reason alone, he deserves your vote.

Read the rest here.

I’ll take an expanded Conservative minority over a Liberal majority, minority, or coalition, but I can’t summon up the energy to pretend that last week’s election was anything to celebrate.  Why can’t Conservatives win full stop?  Are they still perceived as a western party, simply Reform rebranded?  Gerry Nicholls suggests that this is proof that incrementalism doesn’t work, or at least works only on a geologic time scale, and not one appreciable to humans.  He thinks we’ll be going through the whole circus in about a year’s time.  I think that’s pessimistic; as I write in a column aimed at Americans trying to make sense of our election, Harper can probably govern as if he had a majority, simply because the wrath of all Canadians will fall upon anyone who triggers an election in the near future.

Social conservatism was roundly ignored in 2008, and motivating the base enough to come out and vote Conservative might have made a difference.  It worked in Winnipeg South in 2006 and then again in 2008.  Rod Bruinooge is an example who should be studied by CPC riding associations that lost by narrow margins, as I explain in a column for the Edmonton Journal.

Much of the debate about climate change, emissions, and what steps should be taken focuses on what does or does not cause climate change, what policies can make a difference, and how far we must shift to be “green.”  Left off the table is any honest appraisal of how good environmental intentions hurt the poor.  Skyrocketing fuel costs, combined with higher grocery prices as farmers sell to biofuel companies as well as food manufacturers, are trivial to limousine liberals, a burden upon the middle class, and devastating to the poor.  Here’s an excerpt from my column on this for the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix:

Escalating fuel costs harm the poor disproportionately, acting as a de facto regressive tax. Thus, American families at the median income level pay five per cent of each household dollar for energy and those with lower incomes spend 20 per cent on energy, while households under the poverty line see fully half of their budget spent on gas, heating, and other fuel costs.

As in the U.S., certain minorities in Canada are disproportionately poor. To artificially inflate fuel costs therefore is not only an issue about class and wealth, but about race, and the disparate impact of carbon taxes and related policies must be acknowledged.

The full article is here.

A “wish list” for meaningful healthcare reform, at Canadian webzine c2cjournal.ca, is here.

And a column that I wrote two weeks ago, giving the outline of the election’s events and priorities for an American readership, is online here, at the website for The American, the magazine put out by the very influential American Enterprise Institute.  If I were writing it today, I’m not sure I’d be as optimistic.

One of the more distressing aspects of the culture war is the way in which consumerism, mass media and the popular culture in general seem to conspire against parents’ best efforts to raise sane, healthy, happy kids. An interesting new book, So Sexy So Soon, takes on this theme from a liberal perspective, and it is refreshing to see that proponents of healthy childhood from across the spectrum can agree on the importance of letting kids be kids, and not tiny, sexualized and commercialized adults, for as long as possible. I reviewed this book for the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada, and the full review is posted here.

This weekend, Brian Sinclair, a 45-year-old Winnipeg man with a complicated medical history, died in the waiting room at Winnipeg’s major teaching hospital after waiting for 34 hours. He was referred to the ER after being seen at a clinic four blocks away. Nobody at the clinic saw fit to help him get to the hospital, beyond putting him in a taxi, despite the fact that he was (obviously) hours from death. The ER has stated that it is the responsibility of the patient to get in touch with the triage desk, and claims that Sinclair failed to do so. Since then, it has been disclosed that Sinclair died of complications from a bladder infection, and that a catheter change and antibiotics would almost certainly have saved his life.

Already, the great responsibility shuffle has taken place, with spokesmen for the clinic and hospital tacitly or explicitly blaming the victim, the system, and anyone but themselves. While the medical inquest, which will be overseen by a doctor who isn’t afraid to point fingers, may identify individuals who are at fault, there can be no question that poor management of ERs is largely culpable for this death. My editorial on the topic, published in the Winnipeg Free Press today, is here.

On Tuesday, Stephane Dion spoke to a packed hall in Winnipeg South Centre, a riding that is expected to be fiercely contested in the next election. Instead of demonstrating strength and vision, the Leader of the Opposition exposed his weaknesses and the fragility of his platform.

The topic of the meeting was Dion’s Green Shift plan. Despite promoting this tax on carbon production, Dion conceded that a market-based cap and trade system would likely be in the works under a Liberal government. He spent as much time slamming Harper’s policies as he did explaining his own, and in the process revealed a fundamental lack of understanding of economics and government.

His major criticism of the government’s approach to limiting pollution was that it would make emissions more expensive without benefiting the environment. The fundamental purpose of any incentive program, though, is to decrease pollution, and raising the cost of carbon production would intrinsically encourage industry and consumers to look for carbon-neutral alternatives, thereby benefiting the environment.

Dion’s grasp of economics seemed even shakier when he excoriated the government for ending the days of budgetary surpluses. A surplus results when the government has collected more taxes from Canadians than it needs, money that Canadians could be saving or spending themselves. Eliminating surpluses by cutting taxes is therefore an excellent sign, indicating that the government has learned how to get by with less, and is leaving more money in the pockets of Canadians.

The reality of a carbon tax is that it would raise the price of necessities. Most Canadians eat food that has been transported some distance, which would cost significantly more under a carbon tax scheme than it does now. Heating a home is not a luxury, nor is it cheap even today. Few cities provide public transportation adequate to truly replace driving. For everyone but condo-dwellers in the downtowns of big cities, Dion’s carbon tax would dramatically raise the cost of living.

In Winnipeg, Dion argued that this would balance out. The carbon tax, he claims, would be used to finance income tax cuts, including refundable tax credits for households too poor to pay much tax. This may or may not work on paper. In reality, though, there is very little precedent for governments eliminating taxes. The major exception in Canadian politics has been the Harper Conservatives, who followed through on their promise to cut the GST. Dion, on the other hand, pledged to renew efforts to create a national daycare program, and increase subsidies for home renovations. Plans like that don’t come cheap, and make it less likely that a carbon tax would be the basis for a revenue neutral tax reform, rather than simply a massive tax hike.

The standing room only audience cheered enthusiastically whenever Dion slammed Harper, but couldn’t summon up much energy for the man himself. Dion came across in Winnipeg as the stereotypical academic that he used to be: brainy but disconnected from the people he hopes to lead, uncomfortable speaking off the cuff, and more suited to lengthy discussions about theory than to implementing solutions.

A platform can’t be built entirely on the environment when Canadians are dealing with healthcare waits, increasing costs of living, and an incipient economic slowdown. Unless Dion and the Liberals figure this out and add some substance to their campaign, the Conservatives could well win a majority this time.