A busy weekend for some.

A wonderful weekend, sunny and brisk, but some of us were busy. The Northumberland Citizens Coalition certainly were. Parading in front of Vic Hall and signing petitions. The embedded video is courtesy of Rick Jansen - thanks Rick.

Naturally the road claimed me. Talk radio was the only relief and it was again repetitive and entertaining. Boy those hosts do love to talk about the same things don't they? The Helena Guergis deal and the Polish airliner crash were the biggies. But in the HG affair the original report in the TO Star carried a throwaway line that stuck with me and has been bypassed by all the commentary heard so far. The reporter speculated that the reason that Rahim J got off his cocaine charge might have been because he agreed to roll-over on his dinner-mates for other charges.

In the case of the Polish airliner tragedy the "Spaceman" on AM640, carried on in the vein he always mines - that one-world government and the illuminati are to blame. This time with the backdrop of the "Katyn massacre" tied to Prince Charles's recent visit to ancient heritage sites in Poland and the strange happenings of past events on the same date. fancifull stuff but he does make the hours pass easily!

But back to the local campaign by the Health Coalition folks. Tonight the campaign to educate and encourage goes to Cobourg Council. Local folks will be asking Council to support the efforts to retain services and pass a motion to that effect. Watch it on Channel 10.

Sunshine List Fascinating Reading

My eyes are bugged out from scrolling through the Province's annual Sunshine List of public sector employees who earn more than $100,000. Of interest locally is the Northumberland Hills Hospital, whose CEO is already in the daily paper assuring us again just how lean a machine their management team has become.

I guess when you took home $230,969 last year, the value of money takes on a different perspective from the rest of us, given the median wage in our area was only about $27,000 and change. According to the Sunshine List, when you leave out the one registered nurse who worked a lot of overtime, the management team pocketed about $950,000 between the seven of them, not including taxable benefits. How many others linger just below the cut-off is unknown, there could be a few, there could be many more amongst the 38 administrative positions the union counted. Reading newspaper archives I learned that management costs, as a percentage of the paid workforce, has risen from 4.4% two years ago to 6% now. Tell me how that represents cuts to management as claimed by the CEO recently, because I don't understand.

Having decided to check out the List for the Central East LHIN, I found just 4 names at the top of the heap, earning $710,508 between them. Who knows how many lower paid employees there are, hanging around looking for hospital services to eliminate in our region? If their pay scale is anything like the senior staff, the costs must be enough to run a few diabetes clinics.

How about the Community Care Access Centres, those co-ordinating, home care service providing people? You know, the ones who have to come up with the long term care beds the hospital wants to eliminate. Well, our Central East region employs a total of 30 of them who made the Sunshine List, and together they earn a whopping $3,432.882! Again, the lower tier employees aren't listed here, and who knows how much they take home for their efforts.

Finally, we have the Haliburton Kawartha Great Pine Ridge District Health Unit, who also provide health care services and programs in our neck of the woods. The Medical Officer of Health takes home $212,418, followed by the Director of Oral Care at $157,851. The Director of Communicable Disease Control and her Assistant together made $223,563, leaving four others on the Sunshine List at about $105,000 each for a grand total of just over a million dollars.

That is one giant pile of taxpayer money going to top executives; money that isn't spent on actually providing health care directly. If our region is indicative of the rest of Ontario, and I suspect our high end wages are lower here, it's no wonder health care costs have gotten out of hand. If doctor's wages were included, I might just have a heart attack, although at least a doctor can treat me for it, unlike the coffee slurping, kiwi eating folks at the top.

I can hardly wait to see the numbers for the County, Children's Aid, and school boards. That will truly be the icing on the cake.