The competition will pressure governments to improve the public system Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s proposal to use private health centres to alleviate long wait lists has faced opposition from many quarters. It may seem counterintuitive, but Ford’s plan will actually ease the shortages of doctors and nurses. It was B.C.’s NDP government of the early…
Foreign-trained health professionals could help alleviate the strain Canada’s medical system is fast becoming a disaster area and a tragedy. There are not nearly enough family doctors to provide primary health care. Walk-in clinics were supposed to backfill this need, but many now do not take walk-ins as their registered patient load is already beyond…
The invisible hand of Adam Smith punched the world in the nose It seems like just the other day that the wrath of the world was coming down on oil sands and coal. To protect the atmosphere, Canada has been reducing coal-fired power generation for years. It started in Ontario, then moved to Alberta. Saskatchewan…
12-pack of Coke or Pepsi will be slapped with nearly a dollar in new taxes
Everything Newfoundlanders put in their grocery cart is getting more expensive, and Newfoundland Premier Andrew Furey is about to hit one of their few affordable treats with a new hidden tax. He’ll tell you it’s because he wants Newfoundlanders and Labradorians to lose weight. But here’s the reality: it’s just another tax. As of Sept.…
Assisting landmark Indigenous cases, Anita Cardinal-Stewart graduates with even stronger passion
The caption on her junior-high yearbook photo reads, “Dreams of being a lawyer or an actress.” That was when Anita Cardinal-Stewart was full of hope, and anything seemed possible. But that hope evaporated through her teen years growing up in the Woodland Cree First Nation in northern Alberta. “I started to see how hard it…
Approving new fossil fuel projects is moral and economic madness
After approving the Bay du Nord offshore oil project off Newfoundland and Labrador in April, the Canadian government has decided to take our climate risk-taking to a whole new level by issuing a Call for Bids for oil exploration for an area one third larger than the size of New Brunswick. Bids to drill for…
The potential cost is hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties that must be paid
Two weeks after Bay du Nord received environmental approval, the Canadian and Newfoundland and Labrador governments were arguing about who would foot the bill. The project promoted as the answer to Newfoundland and Labrador’s economic woes could end up costing hundreds of millions in revenue. Some backstory: according to the United Nations Convention on the…
Economic benefits crucial to the Newfoundland and Labrador economy
With the market prices of hydrocarbons soaring, accelerated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the federal government is once again extending the deadline for making a decision about the future of the Bay du Nord project off the shore of Newfoundland. Division within the Prime Minister’s Office on this project is certainly one of the…
Both economically and environmentally
As wildfires destroy whole communities, coastal towns lose their shorelines and fisheries, and half the world’s population faces dangerous climate impacts, a contentious project sits before the Liberal cabinet. Bay du Nord is a proposed oil development 500km off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador. Industry lobbyists assure us of “green oil production,” low environmental…
Bad government decisions have one thing in common: lack of independent oversight
A litany of disastrous government decisions in Canada have sometimes cost lives and definitely many billions of dollars. The list is long: effectively cancelling the Global Public Health Intelligence Network; the failure to implement the pandemic preparedness protocols developed by the federal government’s public health officer; the Alberta government’s disastrous ‘investments’ in the Keystone XL…