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Recent Posts
- Video: Occupy Toronto Day 1
- No progress without addressing inequality – Himelfarb
- Time for a review of Ontario’s P3 program
- What took us so long? Time to occupy Bay Street
- Competition for home care contracts blocks information sharing and coordination — OHC
- OPSEU Diablogue easier to reach
- Voter turnout and the value we place on government
- Hearings begin on Ford complaint against anti-poverty doctor
- Health care and Andrea Horwath’s hair – the election winds down
- Study reignites controversy over cancer risk of shift work
- Hudaks says he may legislate public sector wage freezes
- Libertarian believes in survival of the fittest
- Election 2011: Funding restraint ahead for health care
- Tax cuts or health care?
- Parties promise more home care, but will that be what we get?
Blogroll
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- Dr. Michael Rachlis web site
- Facts & Myths about Medicare Sustainability – CCPA
- False Positive
- Friends of the Ajax-Pickering Hospital
- Leftwords: Defending Public Health Care
- Ontario Election Health Care Pledge
- Ontario Government Sunshine List
- Ontario Health Coalition
- Ontario Public Service Employees Union
- Operation Maple
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Video: Occupy Toronto Day 1
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Armine Yalnizyan, Eddy Almeida, Gord Longhi, Natalie Mehra, Occupy Toronto
No progress without addressing inequality – Himelfarb
Alex Himelfarb says taxes are a proxy for the kind of government we want, yet for too long taxes were the third rail of Canadian politics – you couldn’t talk about it.
If we can’t talk about the future, we lose the ability to exercise democratic control.
With protest movements growing around the world, the conversation is beginning to change, and remarkably, it is happening at a time of great economic crisis.
Former Clerk of the Privy Council – the most senior bureaucrat in Ottawa and an advisor to two Canadian Prime Ministers – Himelfarb spoke in Toronto last night as part of the TVO Big Ideas series.
Time for a review of Ontario’s P3 program
Dalton McGuinty fought the 2004 provincial election vowing to stop two public-private partnership hospital deals. After he got elected, he not only signed off on deals to build Brampton’s William Osler Health Care and the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre, but he opened the door wide to more than 30 additional privatization deals.
Using the private sector to design, finance, build, and operate public infrastructure has been controversial from day one.
In Britain, where they refer to P3s as Private Finance Initiatives (PFI), there has been considerable documentation into how these privatized hospitals have cost much more, distorted public priorities and inflated long-term debt obligations.
What took us so long? Time to occupy Bay Street
It took weeks before the mainstream media paid attention, now the Occupy Wall Street movement is rapidly taking up root in cities across the world, including plans for an occupation of Toronto’s Bay Street beginning October 15.
Author and activist Naomi Klein recently visited the New York occupation. In copies of her speech handed out to protestors, she notes that while the TV pundits are baffled about why citizens are protesting, people around the world are asking ‘what took you so long?’
Competition for home care contracts blocks information sharing and coordination — OHC
The Executive Director of the Ontario Home Care Association recently wrote to the Toronto Star making claims about home care agencies being more accountable and transparent. Sue VanderBent also says home care agencies have better client service indicators than ever before. Of course, those who are having difficulty accessing home care in Ontario may beg to differ on the question of access and quality. Natalie Mehra, Executive Director of the Ontario Health Coalition replies to VanderBent below:
OPSEU Diablogue easier to reach
OPSEU’s Diablogue, which provides ongoing commentary and news about Ontario’s health care system, is now easier to reach.
The BLOG has a simper URL to remember: https://diablogue.org
The BLOG works well on mobile media too. Download our QR code and scan it on your iPhone, Blackberry or other mobile devices.
QR codes are a kind of bar code that allows you to access our BLOG quickly by scanning it on your mobile device.
OPSEU health care locals will be sent fridge-magnets later this month with the new address and QR codes. Put it on your filing cabinet or your fridge and be sure to come back.
Voter turnout and the value we place on government
The federal Conservative majority elected in May was a surprise to many when polls had shown the NDP and Conservatives neck-and-neck in the days prior to the election.
When EKOS Research looked at how they could get the polling outcome so wrong, they came to the conclusion that their polling was right but their forecasting was wrong given the very substantial difference in turnout among age groups.
Among non-voters, EKOS shows the NDP paid the heaviest price, with 32.1 per cent of non-voters supporting the party compared to slightly less than 25 per cent for the Liberals and Tories.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Conservative EKOS, Elections, Liberal, NDP, Voter Turnout
Health care and Andrea Horwath’s hair – the election winds down
It’s not even election day and the media has already begun navel gazing about why voters ignored the platforms and got hung up on the minutiae of the horse race. The National Post is doing so by trying to analyse the content of Twitter posts. Do they really think this represents the views of typical Ontarians?
Posted in Health System
Tagged Andrea Horwath, Dalton McGuinty, Liberal, NDP, Ontario Election Party Platforms Health Care, PC, Tim Hudak, Tory
Study reignites controversy over cancer risk of shift work
A Danish study recently published in the European Journal of Cancer will add new fuel to the controversy around the health impacts of shift work.
Posted in Health and Safety, Health System
Tagged Cancer, Danish study, Shift Work
