2021-30

Friday September 3, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday September 3, 2021

Pharmacare AWOL in 2021

June 13, 2019

Nearly a quarter century ago, the federal government hosted a conference on national pharmacare in Saskatoon – the birthplace of Canadian medicare. The meeting was extraordinarily frustrating to delegates who anticipated action, not talk, at the time.

We know because we were there.

You see, that Saskatoon meeting was held on the heels of Prime Minister Chrétien’s 1997 National Forum on Health. Echoing previous national commissions, the forum recommended the implementation of a universal, comprehensive, public pharmacare program to work alongside Canadian medicare.

April 22, 2021

Yet, there we were, an audience of approximately 300 health professionals, experts, public representatives and stakeholders gathered to “engage in dialogue” on an issue that already had a very clear answer.

The national pharmacare system recommended would have reduced Canadian drug costs dramatically, meaning savings for governments, businesses and households. More Canadians would have access to medicines because they would be fully covered, but manufacturers would no longer be able to charge more in Canada than they did in comparable countries.

October 21, 2016

Drug companies preferred that Canada adopt a system of mandatory private insurance based on the model they had just convinced the Quebec government to implement in 1997 — at great cost to Quebec households and businesses. Insurers favoured the Quebec model too – what industry wouldn’t want people to be legally required to purchase their products without regulations on profit margins?

In 2019, the Liberals campaigned on a promise to act on pharmacare plan. Such a national pharmacare system was mentioned in the 2020 Throne Speech, Budget 2021 and 2021 mandate letters. But there has been little concrete action toward implementation.

Instead, the federal government has reverted yet again to “stakeholder engagement,” rather than policy action. (Red Deer Advocate) 

 

Thursday September 2, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday September 2, 2021

Liberal Party releases multibillion-dollar election platform for post-pandemic recovery

The Liberal Party released its election platform today — an ambitious document that offers billions in new spending to address both long-standing policy problems and new ones that have emerged during the past 19 months of the pandemic crisis.

February 12, 2016

The sprawling, 53-page platform proposes $78 billion in new spending. It differs substantially from the Conservative plan released earlier in this campaign in that it proposes to invest more in Liberal priorities — such as efforts to fight climate change, Indigenous reconciliation and the arts and cultural sector — while promising tighter restrictions on firearms and new money for provinces that ban handguns.

The party is also promising to restore employment to pre-pandemic levels and go “beyond” its previous pledge to create one million jobs by extending the Canada Recovery Hiring Program — which subsidizes businesses that hire new workers — until March 2022. It also accuses the Conservatives of being “opposed to support for workers and businesses.”

The Liberal platform says a re-elected Liberal government would pump billions of dollars into the health system to help clear pandemic-related surgical backlogs and hire 7,500 new doctors, nurses and nurse practitioners.

September 19, 2020

The Liberals would also earmark $1 billion in new funding for provinces that implement a ban on handguns — something gun control advocates have long demanded.

The centrepiece of the Liberals’ housing program is a “first home savings account” — a program that would “combine the features of both an RRSP and a TFSA” in that money added to the account would go in tax-free and could be withdrawn without any taxes owing on investment gains.

The program, which would cost the federal treasury some $3.6 billion over the next four years, is meant to make it easier for some first-time homebuyers under 40 years of age to scrape together enough money for a down payment.

The Liberals would also introduce a new dedicated funding stream for mental health services that would send the provinces and territories at least $2 billion more per year for mental health care by 2025-26.

October 1, 2019

O’Toole said the Liberal platform amounts to “recycled promises with some tweaks” and lacks “a complete plan for an economic recovery as a country.”

“I think Canadians deserve better than that. Mr. Trudeau called the election and just recycled some promises he’s already failed to deliver on from the previous election,” O’Toole said. “Canadians are tired of that. We deserve better, we deserve change, we deserve a government with a plan and one that will deliver.”

He said Trudeau was “running massive deficits before COVID-19” and is now piling on more costly promises. O’Toole has promised to balance the budget in ten years’ time by reining in the growth of public spending “without cuts.” (CBC) 

 

Wednesday September 1, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday September 1, 2021

Liberals fall, Conservatives steady as election race remains neck-and-neck: polls show

The Liberals’ support is continuing to crumble as the election campaign reaches the halfway point, a new poll suggests, with the party now falling behind the Conservatives for the first time while staying in a statistical tie.

July 9, 2021

The Ipsos poll conducted exclusively for Global News found 32 per cent of voters would cast a ballot for the Conservatives, a number unchanged from last week. But the Liberals saw their potential vote share go down two points, to 31 per cent.

The NDP, meanwhile, is continuing to gain ground, with 23 per cent of voters surveyed supporting them — up two points from last week — suggesting the party is peeling away progressive support from Justin Trudeau.

“The Liberals should be very worried about where they are in the campaign,” said Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs, “because all they’ve done since the start is lose momentum and lose support.

“What we’re seeing based on these numbers is a majority is very, very far away. And the Liberal Party will be fighting to even win the plurality of seats in this election campaign and may even come second to the Conservative Party.”

December 2, 2020

The poll, which surveyed over 1,500 Canadians online last week, suggests the Green Party is continuing to struggle and would earn only four per cent of voter support. The Bloc Quebecois would receive 30 per cent of the vote in Quebec, or equal to seven per cent nationally.

Eleven per cent remain undecided, while three per cent said they would not vote at all.

The results show the Liberals have lost their advantage over the Conservatives within the valuable 55-and-over voting bloc, which tends to be the most reliable on election day. Forty per cent of older voters surveyed said they will vote Conservative, while 33 per cent chose the Liberals — a flip from just two weeks ago.

Federal Election 2021

The Liberals are also facing dead heats in the battleground provinces of Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia, the last of which now sees the governing party in third place behind the NDP and the Conservatives. (Global) 

 

Tuesday August 31, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday August 31, 2021

It’s better late than never for vaccine passports

To the long and still growing list of pandemic reversals by the Ontario government, add vaccine passports. Late last week government sources confirmed that after months of what Premier Doug Ford called “a hard no” to passports, public and expert pressure forced the government to change course.

April 29, 2021

As far as we know now, this is all good. Like it was good when Ford reversed himself on paid sick days. Like it was when he gave police unnecessary new powers to enforce pandemic regulations, and then reversed himself shortly after.

So, better late than never … all’s well that ends well, right? Or maybe this is more like the devil is in the details. At the time of this writing, the premier still had not met with his cabinet to go over the plan for passports, even though it is supposed to be finalized in the next couple of weeks.

August 11, 2021

And so the pressure continues. On Monday, the mayor of Ottawa wrote a letter calling for passports. Business groups like the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, various municipalities and nearly all public health officials are on board. But the government, and especially Ford himself, remained ideologically opposed, not unlike the conservative government of Jason Kenney in Alberta, which is still steadfast in its opposition in spite of pandemic numbers worse than all other provinces.

British Columbia has them, as does Quebec. Prairie provinces either have or are getting passports or something similar. The United Kingdom. All European nations. The question is not whether Ontario should have a proof of vaccination system, it is what took so long?

For weeks, businesses and organizations have been struggling to come up with their own pandemic regulations. How much money, stress and energy went into that work which could have been saved had the government just done the right thing in the first place?

August 25, 2021

Vaccine passports are not a panacea. There are challenges. They are not perfect. Some businesses are warning that if passports come into force without a relaxation of other measures, like capacity limits, for example, the real potential won’t be realized. Advocates for poor and vulnerable people worry about those who don’t have permanent addresses or even cellphones to display their certificate of vaccination.

And, maybe the biggest problem: Given that the government is being dragged into this kicking and screaming, will it deliver a partial solution or one with enough loopholes to limit its effectiveness? That would serve no one’s interests, least of all Ford’s.

Unquestionably, any proof of vaccination system is a double-edged sword. Just as passports protect those of us wise enough to get vaccinated, they will take away a lot of choices from people who choose not to get vaccinated. (Those with legitimate reasons for remaining unvaccinated should not be harmed.)

May 29, 2020

Armed with our passports, we can attend sporting and concert events. We can feel more comfortable going out for dinner in a restaurant filled with other vaccinated people.

No doubt some businesses will try to capitalize on keeping their doors open to unvaccinated consumers. It will be interesting to see how the government deals with that. But provided businesses and organizations clearly indicate they are following — or not following — provincial vaccine passport regulations, consumers can make an informed choice. We can patronize businesses and events where we feel relatively safe and avoid those where we do not.

Passports are just another tool, not unlike vaccination, distancing and masking. We will need all our tools in this fourth wave. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

 

Saturday August 28, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday August 28, 2021

Time to say it: We’re done with the vaccine refusers

December 11, 2020

On Monday, the Food and Drug Administration granted full approval to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for the coronavirus, and approvals for the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines could follow soon. This could be a significant step in convincing the millions of unvaccinated Americans to finally get vaccinated, even if it doesn’t quickly transform the state of the pandemic.

It’s also an opportunity for us to say to the hard-core vaccine refusers: We’re done with you.

We’ll treat you when you come to the hospital, of course, because that’s how medicine works; while doctors and nurses dealing with the wave of covid-19 patients caused by the delta variant might like to turn away anyone who refused to take a vaccine, they won’t. But it’s time to refocus our outreach efforts and our public and private pandemic policies so that accommodating, understanding and pandering to the refusers is no longer one of our chief concerns.

It remains to be seen how much of an effect the move from emergency-use authorization to full FDA approval will have on vaccination rates. What we know is that a lot of hesitant people said it would make a difference to them; in a recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey, 31 percent of the unvaccinated said they’d be more likely to take the vaccine if it had full FDA approval. It’s not that those people had a detailed understanding of the FDA approval process; more likely they’re just looking for additional reassurance.

June 17, 2021

And every little bit — carrots, sticks and even a dose of fear — helps. We’ve seen an increase in vaccinations in recent weeks as the delta variant has plunged parts of the country back into the depths of the pandemic; for some people who may have previously thought we had this thing pretty much licked, the waves of infections and deaths pushed them to action.

FDA approval will also probably convince more companies to begin demanding that their employees be vaccinated. All of this, we can hope, will create an atmosphere in which being unvaccinated by choice will mean voluntarily marginalizing oneself from society. If you’re determined to make that statement about yourself, that you’re the kind of person to whom “freedom” means taking the chance of infecting other people with a virus that has killed millions, we’re going to do everything we can to isolate you.

May 8, 2021

To those who say “mocking those people will never convince them to take the vaccine!”, let me suggest that it’s too late to persuade them. I’m not talking about the hesitant and the uncertain — they can be persuaded, and we need to redouble efforts to reach them. But when you see that in Mississippi — which like many states with low vaccination rates is now being ravaged by the delta variant — the state’s chief public health official felt compelled to make a public plea for people to stop drinking livestock dewormer, since a good number got the idea that it’s a treatment for covid, you have to ask if there’s anything at all that would persuade committed refusers.

Actually, we know how they got the dewormer idea: the supercharged rumor-spreading machine known as social media. Over the weekend, Facebook reluctantly admitted that “an article raising concerns that the coronavirus vaccine could lead to death was the top performing link in the United States on its platform from January through March of this year.”

It’s gotten to the point where at a rally on Saturday in Alabama of his most loyal dead-enders, former president Donald Trump said that while he believes in everyone’s freedom, “I recommend: take the vaccines. I did it. It’s good. Take the vaccines,” and boos rang out.

January 12, 2021

I’m pretty sure that if between swigs of horse dewormer, your uncle is booing his god-king Donald Trump for saying a good word about vaccination, gentle persuasion isn’t going to have much effect on him.

Will one more anti-vax conservative talk radio host dying from covid do the trick for him and his Facebook friends? How about another Republican governor contracting it? Don’t hold your breath.

Experts now say we’ll never reach true herd immunity; rather than covid being eliminated, the pandemic will end with it becoming merely endemic, a part of our lives that never goes away but is suppressed to a level of infections and deaths we can tolerate, like other viruses.

In the shorter term, there is reason to believe that an accumulation of factors — FDA approval, the current wave of covid deaths, more businesses requiring vaccinations, perhaps even simple fatigue after living with this for a year and a half — could convince more and more of the vaccine hesitant to overcome their doubts.

July 3, 2021

But just as the virus itself will always be with us, so will the adamant refusers. They’ll be trying out insane new treatments, while the rest of us shake our heads at people who’d rather gargle with turpentine (or whatever the next Facebook remedy is) than get a free lifesaving vaccine. They’ll keep engaging in unhinged and violent public behavior (like assaulting teachers over mask policies), for which they should just be arrested. Our only concern should be keeping ourselves safe from them; they deserve no more consideration than that.

They won’t disappear, but we can treat them like social pariahs. And if they don’t like it? They can go ahead and wallow in their fantasies of oppression and courageous independence. Nobody said “freedom” was free. (Paul Waldman – The Washington Post)