There was a significant court case in Saskatchewan last week that was tossed out when it was determined an illegal search was conducted by police, who stopped a vehicle on the side of the highway. I pointed out on my blog that the accused did, in fact, have drugs in his possession; but wasn’t going to be convicted due to this technicality. I find this to be a miscarriage of justice. The real issue isn’t the search. It’s whether or not this person had drugs in his vehicle. If the answer is ‘yes’, he should still be found guilty of something. Just because the search isn’t legal doesn’t mean he didn’t have drugs. One individual commented on my blog that my reasoning is somewhat moronic because if we didn’t have rules in place to guard against illegal searches, we may have to subject ourselves to full cavity searches or residential searches without due cause. Fair comment. But, I re-iterate that if police want to waste their time looking at my dirty laundry or admiring the spare tire I carry around under my t-shirt, then more power to them. I’m of the believe that if you have nothing to hide, there isn’t a reason for you to fear an intrusion of privacy by authorities.
Kelly Chase is one of the good guys. The Porcupine Plain native returned to Saskatchewan over the weekend and Karen Ransome pointed out that she attended the WHL Blades game on Friday night and Chase, along with Battle Of The Blades figure skating partner Kyoko Ina teamed up with the Blades to donate $145-thousand dollars to the Children’s Hospital. Kelly’s nieces and nephews contributed $5500 and in front of the crowd on Friday night, one of Kelly’s nephews announced that he was excited about raising a large amount of money on his own because he knew it would make Kelly cry. According to reports, it worked!
Bob McCown is, probably, the most entertaining talk-radio host on the airwaves in Canada today. He can be heard on Fan 590 out of Toronto on weekday afternoons. Thursday, he opened his show with a clever bit about Christmas that was meant to be funny, but also echos as a true fact. The older you get, the greater the discrepancy between what you spend and what you receive for Christmas. As a young boy, you receive a ton of gifts while your expenses are pretty much nil. By the time you reach your 50’s, which is how old McCown is, you get virtually nothing and spend a fortune.
If you’ve read my column with any regularity, you know that political correctness is something that drives me crazy from time to time. A story out of Seattle shows, yet again, just how dumb we, as a human race, can be. It seems some high school basketball referees decided to use pink whistles and donate game cheques to a cancer organization. Their supervisor felt differently and said the refs were out of line and out of uniform. For the record, the supervisor refused to allow three other teams of refs to use pink whistles who did, in fact, ask permission. So, permission isn’t the issue here. The supervisor claims that it sets a bad example for kids. As punishment, the officials were banned from working the final two games of the season. You can’t make this stuff up.
Doctors in Moose Jaw, recently, took a professional development day and, therefore, there was no physician on duty in the entire health region for that particular day. It caused a debate as to whether or not doctors should be considered an essential service and, therefore, not be permitted to take this type of labour action as this, really, was simply a protest dressed up as something else. The reality is that if we have money to seriously contemplate building a new football stadium, then we have money to keep our doctors happy. I know they get paid more than most of us, but I still don’t think it’s enough. Furthermore, if doctors are leaving the province, it is because they can’t manage the massive case load, they can make more money somewhere else, the working conditions are less than ideal, or all of the above.
Ever wonder why it’s a struggle to get more dollars put into a health care budget, but there doesn’t seem to be a problem throwing several extra million into fighting terror in Afghanistan? And, how and when did the federal program of medicare get dumped into the laps of provincial governments?
Nice person mentions this week to Jim and Angie Mamais, Kristen Gabora, Dean Brockman, and Carl Crawford.
Medicare always was designed to be a provincial model, through federal cost sharing. Do some research before you write nonsense.
ReplyDeleteEach province has always been responsible for their own medical system. Medicare is just a federal name. Provinces are dispersed monies from the feds by money based on mainly population. Ontario , Quebec and BC receive the most federal dollars based on their high populations.
ReplyDeleteBut I agree Afghanistan is a waste of money. But then that's a conservative not caring about social programs and trying to make himself or Canada look good in the eyes of the UN. And for what? You can't change a stigmatized, cult-religious country like Afghanistan for the last 5,000 years.Remember in the 70's the Russians were the most powerful country in the world and they lost to Afghanistan.
My apologies to you.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hcs-sss/medi-assur/index-eng.php
Also, my point:
http://www.gov.sk.ca/news?newsId=d537d7a3-72ed-46da-b015-c56d61a09551
Meanwhile according to the Globe and Mail....
Even so, how much Ottawa spends on health is a lot less than it should be. (When medicare began, the federal government footed half the bill; now it’s less than 25 per cent.)
The biggest chunk of health spending in fiscal year 2010-11 is the $25.4-billion in cash and $13.1-billion in tax points Ottawa will provide to the provinces and territories. These amounts are set out in the Canada Health Transfer, a deal that expires in 2013-14.
The principal goal of the federal government is to display its bare pockets and plead poverty in a bid to keep provincial-territorial demands for more health dollars to a minimum.
This is from a physician. Don't believe anything you read.
ReplyDeleteEverything you read was my intended statement.
ReplyDeleteI'm shocked you care, given your political beliefs are Conservative , whose platform greatly promotes cutting health care, education and other essential
ReplyDeleteCanadian social programs.
Again I reiterate. Whose in power? The Conservatives. They have no vested interest in health care spending. They have vested interested in giving huge corporations tax breaks and not doing research and then those corps are bankrupted and you and I are on the hook for personal tax increases. It has been a history dilemma everytime a Conservative has been a PM in Canada.
ReplyDelete