Issues, ethics, memory
There has been stunning news recently about hundreds of older people dying of COVID-19 in long-term care facilities (LTCs), most of them private, for-profit homes. In some cases those people had been left alone and drenched in their own urine and faeces. This is absolutely shocking and unacceptable. Advocates for the frail elderly, and unions... Continue Reading →
A friend travelling in Europe pleaded recently on Facebook for information to help her respond to a fellow tourist, an “alpha male” from the US, who was criticizing the Canadian health care system. He claimed, for example, that he had seen statistics showing that 20% of Canadians go to the US each year for elective... Continue Reading →
The Liberals promised in the recent federal budget to look into pharmacare and they lured Ontario’s health minister Dr. Eric Hoskins away from provincial politics to lead consultations on how to proceed. This may be mostly a ploy to thwart the NDP which, along with the labour movement, has been trying to build support for... Continue Reading →
Vancouver orthopaedic surgeon Dr. Brian Day is challenging a law that prohibits doctors from working in both the public and private health care systems simultaneously and extra billing their patients while they do so. Day did some boxing in his youth and now, bizarrely, he compares himself to the late Muhammad Ali as a kind of... Continue Reading →
The current debate surrounding Bill C-14 — the legislation regarding medical assistance in dying — is a reminder of how Canada has become a more secular society in which organized religion plays a diminished role in public life. My own parents, both in their 50s, died within 16 months of one another in the 1970s. During... Continue Reading →
I belong to Ottawa’s Parliamentary Press Gallery and had access to a rich variety of information circulated during the 2015 federal election campaign. The most impressive advocacy that I saw was the Demand A Plan campaign, which was launched by the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) and several supporting groups. Now, that campaign has been shortlisted... Continue Reading →
As Prime Minister-designate Justin Trudeau stood before an election night crowd in Montreal on October 19, he quoted former Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier, saying: “Sunny ways my friends, sunny ways.” Referring to his Liberal party’s convincing upset victory in capturing 184 seats, well beyond the 99 for the Conservatives and 44 for the NDP,... Continue Reading →
The existing health care accord between Ottawa and the provinces and territories is set to expire on March 31, 2014 and the long term consequences are alarming. The issues are complex and the amount of money involved is in the many billions, but the key to understanding what is happening is this: Canada has a... Continue Reading →
I worked for years in newsrooms and each December we would produce what we called Year Enders, which summarized the most significant stories that we had covered in the past 12 months. In that tradition, I have reviewed Pulpit and Politics for the year past and this is a brief summary of what I have... Continue Reading →
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that President Obama’s Affordable Care Act for health reform is constitutional but the country’s Catholic bishops remain staunchly opposed. When the president signed the ACA into law in 2010, the bishops claimed that it would force insurers to pay clients who received abortions and birth control services and advice.... Continue Reading →
Pulpit and Politics 