A new think on it, but an old idea!

With the closing of the "Thinkers' Conference" in Montreal yesterday we should all be thinking anew. How about this for an old idea, but we should look at it again. In 2008 (source cbc) Kevin Page estimated that the additional cost of the military in Afghanistan could cost 18 Billion dollars in 2011. Well we are nearly there (2011) and due to the non-transparency of the Harperites we still don't know the real cost of the war, and we should.
But whatever the cost we should stop it. Follow Bob Fowler's observations and stop our war. Put the money back into transfer payments to the Provinces for heath-care.

We can have a "peace dividend" - let's collect it!

A Guest Post - short and to the point

Martin Partridge

How's this for an idea? Let's immediately stop building the ridiculous ice rinks on D'Arcy Street and direct as much of the thirty-frickin-million dollars as possible to the real needs of our citizenry, in particular the hospital's capital and operating shortfalls. I think we're crazy to be throwing money away on frills as we enter the tightest fiscal period in almost a century.

Get it right Lou

In this quote Lou Rinaldi exposes his ignorance of the situation at the local hospital, "Northumberland-Quinte West M-P-P Lou Rinaldi says he's saddened by the emotional debate over the future of hospital services ."
It is no emotional debate Loo, it is a dispute about private billing, the outsourcing of services and the inability to provide OHIP funded services to local people. As the former Medical Officer of Heath, for Northumberland said recently, "Health Care is available but not accessible!"
If the nearest OHIP funded rehab clinic is in Oshawa, who will be going, on their dime, there? Will ambulances be ferrying stroke victims to rehab?
But even more importantly due to the lack of detailed financial statements the public does not know just how costly the Rehab Clinic is. OHIP funds in one side and hospital expenses on the other. What expenses get assigned to the Clinic, are the costs fair and properly apportioned? How much is the shortfall, if the Clinic was not paying its way with OHIP revenue and why cannot the subsidy, if there was one, be continued?
All we know is that people who need rehab will not be getting it and how much more of a burden will that be to the health system at large?

Download the petition here and get 10 of your friends to sign it.
Sign the online petition here

Sunday #2

I would love to talk about what Cobourg Council is doing on Monday evening but cannot. The Town's website is down and the agendas (ae) have not been posted for three weeks. A management problem that needs to be fixed.

Sunday #1

So was Earth Day good to you? How does shutting the power off in your house cure the world's environmental problems - it doesn't, but you can join the herd and do it.
Being captive to the radio for hours on end does give one plenty of intersting things to listen to. Late night talk radio, on Friday night featured a section on the ways of Monsanto and Dow Chemical's ambitions to control the world's food supply through the use of Genetically Engineered seeds. These seeds have built-in pesticides, as the plants are not sturdy enough to survive in a quasi-natural state. These built in pesticides are killing the bees and bats that used to pollinate the natural seeds. Silly animals they can't tell the difference between robot seeds and natural ones so they just flit from plant to plant, unfortunately ingesting lethal doses of poison.
In another side of the argument, not content to destroy the environment these giants of industry have manipulated the price of seeds to rip off the taxpayer. In a recently instituted price hike the amount of the price hike was equivalent to the government subsidy for growing the crop. Farmers are now locked into these suppliers through manipulative seed contracts and are faced with ruin from high seed prices and low farm prices. Watch out for our food supply and leave the bloody lights on!

Another good meeting

In a well run meeting people feel that they have accomplished something when they leave. As it was last night at the Cobourg Public Library where 75 concerned citizens met at the second meeting held to discuss the recently announced healthcare cuts.
A big surprise to the organisors was the discovery that Bill Patchett was in the room. He spoke after the organisational details were dealt with and impressed the crowd. The meeting flowed well with updates from Peggy Smith, the co-chair representing the inside workers and Patty Park the community co-chair. Doug Allen, a member of the research team at the Ontario Health Coallition, the group coordinating the flow of information amongst the resistance groups in the Province told the assembly of similar cuts all over the province and said that despite healthcare cutbacks due to hospitals being in deficit some hospitals had received "top-up" funding to cover some deficit. His advice was to concentrate on swaying the local MPP on to the side of the protest. "A few Liberal MPPs have got on board and are fully supporting their constituents in this battle"
Patty park told of her efforts to get a meeting with Lou Rinaldi, the local MPP, "I phoned his office early Monday morning and left a message, the office person got back and said that he was booked up for three weeks!. There appears to be no willingness to meet with us to discuss this issue!"

Petitions were handed out (click here to get one to print off) to those who said they could get signatures and Linda Oliver has plenty of them.

Other items developed during the discussion of the "Action Plan" are: a planned march and gathering on Saturday April 10th at Victoria Hall at 10am, an offer to join with others from all over the Province at Queen's Park on April 7th. A bus will leave N'land Mall at 8.30am for the rally and another meeting, probably at the Best Western next week at 5.30pm.

Bill Patchett then spoke to the group. Revving up older and jaded, but concerned, people isn't easy but Billy P managed to do it. With remarks based on the premise that "You own the hospital, you paid for the hospital - it's ours" he made his point well and most people believe that he is on side with his massive source of energy and anger directed toward saving the hospital. "If we allow the removal of services in 8 to 10 years after more cuts we will not have a hospital. We have to be strong, we have to work as a team or else we will lose our volunteers"
Talking about the fact that the MPP has to support the group Bill went on to say, "Lou's a good friend of mine but the people want him to stand up and get on board. I'll be all over him if he doesn't - I think he will be on board"
As the meeting finished all were urged to join the Hospital Association by the 22nd of April so that they can attend the AGM in June.
All in all a good meeting.

Big weekend for Liberals

The Liberal party of Canada is hosting a talkfest for the interested in Montreal this weekend. Called Conference 150 it is dubbed a "thinkers conference". Already it is being dissed by Harperites, story here, so it must be striking a nerve. The framework is of an innovative nature (perhaps because it is, it riles the neo-cons) because although it is limited to a number of participants the whole conference is interactive and local associations have rented space for local thinkers to get together. In fact in NQW we have two such events. One is being sponsored by Andrew McFadyen and has rented space in the Brighton Lions Centre look here for details, and another has been organised by the nominated candidate Kim Rudd and will take place at the Cobourg best Western Motel.
The interesting thing about these duelling "thinkfests" is that I received the first one from the McFadyen camp thus making me think that the Ruddites are still playing catchup in local Lib affairs. Not a good thing to be doing when an election may be imminent. Strike that no election until the 78 MPs (our own included) have qualified for the pension in late Spring.
Still any conference that has the Harperites apoplectic suits me just fine

Now would be a good time

To test the theory that raising the minimum wage kills jobs. That mantra has never been proven to a conclusion or else the MW would never be raised from the minimum. The President of the West Northumberland Chamber of Commerce has put herself on the line in this story here . Mrs Thrasher, owner of Boston Pizza says her business cannot absorb the costs of an increased wage bill and she will have to cut jobs. Up until this point the argument of lost jobs has never really been put to the test, it has been thrown around as a talking point in the decades old battle of higher minimum wages. Rather like the mythical "diaper on the beach" no real economic evidence has been produced to back it up. But now if the threat is so real we should be able to watch the job numbers, in Ontario, go down on a comparison basis in August (after the layoffs go out in July).
I hope some evidence will be seen even if it is only to prove or disprove the mantra. Perhaps then we can get on with making the minimum wage a "living wage"!

We need a lot of angry folks

The only way to get any attention these days is to be angry. The recent hospital cuts demonstrate this. Despite province-wide cuts, all the same and all over the province some hospitals have been able to make changes and how did they do it? Lots of angry people keeping the pressure on local pols and MPPs. Talking to the hospital administrations or Boards will not work because they have made their minds up. CAO Biron is not going to change his mind about the bottom line no matter how many bigwigs schmooze him. Talking behind the scenes may work if you want something from someone who can make changes but in this case the changes are systemic and can only be changed by the government.
So how do we make the government listen? Take on the local MPP. He seems to think that the local cuts "Are not the end of the world". Well Lou if you keep that up you will be running against a conservative candidate flanked by Doug Galt and we all know that Doug Galt gained his reputation as a constituency man by putting his job on the line for this local hospital. Run a cardboard cutout of Doug Galt talking about saving the hospital against Lou and Lou will be history.

So if you want to have your say about local action join the organizers at the public library tomorrow at 5.30pm.

N.B. click on the image to read it

Fear Mongering at its Finest

It looks like the federal government has expanded its campaign of trying to frighten Canadians into the international sphere. Our foreign minister, Lawrence Cannon, tested out the new strategy at a recent speech to the Economic Club of Canada in Toronto recently. No doubt the elite were empowered and gratified to hear that our country, in addition to protecting the interests of our citizens at home, imagines itself charged with the responsibility to deliver safety and freedom across the entire globe, all for our benefit when we travel.

As reported in the Toronto Daily Star by reporter Linda Diebel, Cannon delivered a speech that was "dark and described a bleak and scary world" riddled with terrorism, drug dealing and crime. The nuclear threat posed by Iran and North Korea featured prominently too, just in case the other concerns weren't enough to make us truly frightened.

Just what is this all about? Do they think their scare mongering about imaginary crime waves at home is so successful they just want to go Big on the international stage too? Or is the scare mongering about Canada not successful enough, so they are adding the international component to jack up the volume? Maybe it's just posing for the G-20 Summit this summer, which is what his speech was supposed to be about.

Whatever the reason for it, I don't like it, and I don't think scare mongering Canadians into a perpetual state of fear does anyone much good, especially when the boogey-men are so often imaginary, and the facts to support their contentions just aren't there. In fact, the truth is the opposite, in the case of the alleged crime wave they are using to justify their increased criminal sanctions against Canadians.

If only we could find politicians, and a political party with a positive vision for Canada, instead of the Orwellian double talk and blatant disregard for the truth that is this government's specialty. I'm sick of being manipulated, and sick of living with a government that thinks it's appropriate to frighten its citizens.