Canadian print media coverage of the Marijuana issue

"A Liberal Senator from B.C. is proposing Canada legalize marijuana and “tax the hell out of it.” Senator Larry Campbell seems to be the only politician lately to say openly what many have been thinking for years; why are so many police hours tied up busting people for smoking dope? What are recreational pot smokers actually up to? Unless the feds consider a case of the munchies, incessant giggling followed by a movie and a long snooze as criminal behaviour, reality must finally win out. Look what decriminalization did for Holland. The idea to legalize pot was touted by the Chretien Liberals in the last millennium, but the laws have regressed since then. Even the head of police chiefs for the country said publicly that legalizing pot would save tens of thousands of convictions annually, millions in tax dollars while freeing up a lot of police time for serious crime like murder, rape and robbery. "http://www.novanewsnow.com/article-122122-Arctic-sovereignty-just-shallow-politics.html

"Liberal Senator Larry Campbell restated his preference this week to regulate and control pot, just as alcohol production and distribution is governed. Then "tax the hell out of it," Campbell urged, adding revenues could be rolled into underfunded priorities like health care. Too much is spent on enforcement and justice with too little gained, he rightly said. And it's hard to imagine any government move that would do more to kick the stuffing out of organized crime, which is thriving on this growth industry, just as it did on the prohibition of alcohol in an earlier era. "http://www.orilliapacket.com/webapp/sitepages/content.asp?contentid=613837&catname=Editorial&classif="

The Tories, when they came to power, scrapped the proposed legislation and following that arrests for possession again spiked. People might well ask whether said arrests are saving people from themselves or just sapping police energies that could be used better elsewhere.This is somewhat less an age issue than at one time, since about 50 per cent of people who toke are over the age of 30. But, no surprise, it’s often the younger people who get caught. Any changes might need to happen in baby steps, but it’s long overdue that possessing small amounts not be dealt with as a criminal act. "http://trurodaily.com/index.cfm?sid=44988&sc=75

"Since the decriminalization plan went up in smoke, arrests for possession of marijuana have risen by as much as 50 per cent in cities across Canada, according to a survey by the Canadian Press. Diligence has increased by police, as it should. After all, it is the police's job to enforce the law, however senseless that law may be. Does the country seem any safer or better off today than it was before the Conservatives dropped the bill? We suspect many haven't noticed a difference. Except, however, for those thousands of people whose lives have been made worse or even ruined by being stuck with criminal records for offences only a few social dinosaurs still consider worth prosecuting. According to those UN statistics, thousands more Canadians will endure the same fate until a federal government comes on the scene with the courage to bring some sense to Canada's drug laws. "http://www.wellandtribune.ca/webapp/sitepages/content.asp?contentid=613273&catname=Editorial&classif=

"Senator Campbell has once again put this issue on the public agenda.Most Canadians believe that possessing and using small amounts of marijuana is generally a victimless crime, and one that causes little damage to society.Indeed it is prohibition, which has created a massive black market and underground economy, with guns and violence to protect profits, which is causing more harm."http://www.kamloopsthisweek.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=15&cat=48&id=1026691&more=0

"the Conservatives have stubbornly stuck to a law-enforcement approach - blind to history and deaf to the pleas of medical and public policy experts for reform to our drug laws. …Nevertheless, the report suggests that Canadians don't care what the law says about marijuana. They're going to smoke pot anyway. The possibility of punishment, in other words, has no deterrent effect whatsoever.As far as marijuana is concerned, Canadians think the law is an ass. And that isn't going to change. "http://www.edmontonsun.com/Comment/2007/07/11/4330020-sun.html

There is near universal consensus that Canada’s marijuana laws are a joke. Some favor legalization. Some favor decriminalization. Many do not know the difference, but just want something radically different than what we have got now. Still others think decriminalization and legalization mean the same thing. The Vancouver Province, for example, seems not to know the difference. A Province headline read as follows: "Decriminalize pot: Campbell". Inside the article campbell was quoted thus. "Legalize it, tax the hell out of it and put the money into health care." CTV seems to have made the same mistake. "A B.C. Liberal senator says the federal government should decriminalize marijuana and ''tax the hell out of it,'' with the revenue going to public services such as health care."

It is time someone woke up the stodgy old guys heading the Liberal party. The Canadian public wants its politicians to take the lead on this and not wait for the courts to chip away at it piece peal. 10% of Quebecers favor Stephane Dion. Maybe if the Liberals were to actually embrace the kind socially liberal policies that Quebecers prefer (e.g., liberalization of Canada's marijuana laws) they might have more success.

UPDATE: Here is one more article.

"So, we are tops among Western countries in terms of pot use. It could be worse. We could be the biggest cocaine snorters on the planet. That dubious honour goes to Spain. Iran wins out for heroin, Australia for ecstasy and the Philippines for amphetamines. These are much more dangerous drugs than dope. Marijuana is still considered among the "least addictive of all psycho-active substances," Jurgen Rehm, a senior scientist with the Toronto-based Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, said in an article in the Montreal Gazette. We are a progressive nation in many ways, yet not quite so bold as yet to follow The Netherlands in legalizing pot. Pro-dope advocates continue to push for marijuana's legalization; the previous federal government was making strides towards decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of pot. Certainly pot can be harmful in large quantities and over long periods of use. So too can cigarettes and alcohol, legally distributed to anyone over the age of 19 in Canada. Some studies show both booze and tobacco are more harmful than dope. Yet marijuana is the illegal substance. Perhaps it is time to seriously consider decriminalizing a recreational drug that one-in-six Canadians from age 15 to 64 used in 2004. If dope truly was for dopes, then this country wouldn't be able to function with such high usage rates. But we're doing just fine. "

http://www.chathamdailynews.ca/webapp/sitepages/content.asp?contentid=617022&catname=Editorial&classif=

Toronto Star doing the Drug Czar's bidding

The associated press allowed the following highly dubious assertions made up U.S. Attorney Stephen Murphy and Sterling Heights Police Chief David Vinson to go unchallenged.

“This is not your dad's marijuana,” Vinson said. “It has 10 times the THC content of normal marijuana.”

“Murphy said the hydroponically-grown marijuana is chemically supercharged and comparable to cocaine in its effects and its ability to fetch up to $6,000 per pound.”

By reprinting the associated press article, the Toronto Star disseminated the lies developed by US officials about the dangers of “potent pot”. http://www.thestar.com/News/article/234446

What is the problem with the above? Well, the legend of potent pot is mere Drug Czar myth. Yes some of today’s marijuana is more potent than "dad’s" but to claim that it is 10 more potent that dad’s is patently absurd.

Furthermore, even if we assume that potent pot is a reality it is certainly nothing to be concerned about. http://www.slate.com/id/2074151 Indeed, saying that potent pot is reason for keeping marijuana illegal is akin to saying that alcohol should be banned because gin has higher alcohol content than beer. It makes no sense. The pharmacological affects of consuming 1 “chemically supercharged” joint versus x number of your “dad’s marijuana” joints would be no different if the amount of THC consumed is the same. As for consumption, just as people do not drink the same volume of gin as beer, the higher the THC level in pot the less people consume. Hence, ironically more potent pot may be a welcome development. After all, one of the most prominent health effect related to marijuana, if not the most, is that it is usually smoked. The more potent the pot, the less people have to smoke to achieve the same high.

All that being said, if potency is the concern, then it should be legalized. As would be Liberal MP Martha Hall Findlay has noted, the only way to regulate the potency of pot is to legalize it. Moreover, so long as the drug is illegal, producers will seek to increase potency. The higher the potency the smaller the package the smaller the package the less likely they will get caught.

“Murphy said the hydroponically-grown marijuana is chemically supercharged and comparable to cocaine in its effects”

I wish someone would ask Murphy if he believes there are marijuana whores the same way there are "crack whores"? If he says yes, oh how I will rejoice. It will keep me laughing for years. I might even think of turning what he said into a bumper sticker.

As Liberal senator and former Vancouver major Larry Campbell rightly noted., "This is not a drug that causes criminality,' http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070711/senator_pot_070711/20070711?hub=Politics

"We don't see marijuana users going around beating and robbing people. They don't fit the criminal profile but there's a criminal stigma attached that means people can't get into the States."

http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/story.html?id=2503db23-8fcf-4150-8ad0-325ec19b16e9&k=19171

Medical Marijuana as Trojan Hoarse

The government of Canada has not appealed the Ontario Appeals decision (Parker) to the Supreme Court of Canada. “The choice of medication to alleviate the effects of an illness with life-threatening consequences is a decision of fundamental personal importance. Forcing Parker to choose between his health and imprisonment violates his right to liberty and security of the person." http://www.ontariocourts.on.ca/decisions/2000/july/parker.htm The federal government has also not appealed October 2003 Ontario Appeals court decision that not only reaffirmed that Canadians have a right to use marijuana if they need it for medical reasons but in addition ruled that "Exposing these individuals to the risks [of the black market] does not advance the objective of public health and safety”. http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=5774 (The Professor Young/ Barbara Budd interview provides a good summary of the issues involved. http://archives.cbc.ca/IDCC-1-69-652-3603/life_society/marijuana/ ) In other words, the Canadians who need medical marijuana should not be forced to go to the black market to obtain it. It must be made available through legal channels. In both cases the courts gave the government time make the necessary legal changes. Both times they have failed. This most recent decision is strike three.

The federal government, rightly in my mind, sees the medical marijuana decisions as Trojan horse and so has continually dragged its feet. What they fail to recognize though is just how this Trojan horse works. They believe that the medical marijuana rulings will give traffickers a leg up and it does. The sick are not the only ones benefiting from the compassion clubs. However, in continuing to fight the rulings in a passive aggressive manner the Federal government undermines the legitimacy of Canada’s marijuana laws in the eyes of the public. The Canadian public sees the government get its fingers wrapped every three years by the courts and this enforces the Canada public’s belief that when it comes to marijuana the government is not being frank or fair. The court cases also bring the issue to the public’s attention and this reminds them of how little they think of the stated rationals for Canada’s marijuana laws in the first place.

So what are Stephen Harper’s options to nip the situation in the bud? He has but one. He can appeal the Parker decision to the Supreme Court. The problem for Harper is that he would likely loose and the political costs would be enormous. Canadians favor access to medical marijuana by a huge margin.

Canada’s Pot Possession laws Declared Unconstitutional

Canada’s Pot Possession laws are declared unconstitutional

This has happened before, but alas turned out to be a Prague Spring. So my expectations are tempered. Still I am convinced that sooner rather than later the damn will break and roughly for the reasons successfully argued in Toronto.

In court, the man argued that the federal government only made it policy to provide marijuana to those who need it, but never made it an actual law. Because of that, he argued, all possession laws, whether medicinal or not, should be quashed. The judge agreed and dismissed the charges.

"The government told the public not to worry about access to marijuana," said Judge Howard Borenstein. "They have a policy but not law.… In my view that is unconstitutional." Defence lawyer Brian McAllister, who represented the man, said the ramifications of the ruling have potential to be "pretty big."
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2007/07/13/pot-toronto.html?ref=rss

Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Michael Moore: Some more Thoughts

http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/news/article.php?id=10026

GUPTA: "Well, I mean, he pulls $251 from this BBC unsourced report ... Where you pulled the $251 number was a BBC report, which, by the way, stated that the per capita spending in the United States was $5,700. You chose not to use the $5,700 from one report and chose to go to a totally different report and you're sort of cherry picking data from different reports ... Well, why didn't you use the $5,700 number from the BBC report?"

Moore: Actually, the number 'Sicko' cited for per capita Cuban spending on health care - $251, a number widely cited by the BBC and other outlets - comes from the United Nations Human Development Report, helpfully linked on our website. Here it is again: http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/statistics/indicators/52.html.
That UN report does list American health care spending as only $5,700, but it's a few years old. Since then, the U.S. government has updated it's projections for health care spending, to $7,498 in 2007. So we used that number. It's the most recent, and comes right from the Department of Health and Human Services. If the Cuban government gave a figure on 2007 projected health spending, we'd have used it.


Again, when making a comparison such as this you use a source that has figures for both. Otherwise one is open to the charge that one is comparing apples to oranges. By arguing a point on which he is clearly wrong, Moore focused attention away from the fact that he was right about the larger point. Cuban spends a fraction of what the US does on healthcare, but its health indicators are in some ways better than the US. Why is this?

Gupta was also right about Moore’s use of 2007 numbers. The 2007 numbers are estimates and estimates are not the same as solid figures and one has to note the difference. But this is minor point.

All and all, what I said before stands. Moore should have conceded these points and moved on to another comparison. Namely, Moore should have looked at the rate at which health care numbers are raising in the States in absolute terms. $7400 is long way from $5700 in a few short years and would represent a staggering increase in any other country.

GUPTA: "The point is, though, and I think you would have to concede this point, Michael, that you are trying to lead people to believe, again, people who are really concerned about this issue, that it is free in these other countries. And that is what I think is - (MOORE): It is free. (GUPTA) It's not, Michael."

Moore: “Sicko' doesn't hide from the obvious fact that higher taxes are needed to pay for free, universal health care. Former UK MP Tony Benn reads from the National Health Service founding pamphlet, which explicitly states that "this is not a charity. You are paying for it mainly as taxpayers." And 'SiCKO' also acknowledges that the French are "drowning in taxes," a line that clearly stuck with Gupta since he used it himself during the broadcast.

The medical care in countries with socialized medicine is still free. Gupta doesn't seem to grasp that. Here in America, when you go to the library and check out a book, it's free. When the fire department puts out a fire at your house, it's free. In Canada, when you go into the hospital for chemotherapy, it's free. You don't walk out with a bill. Yes, citizens pay higher taxes in countries with socialized medicine, but they don't pay the premiums, co-pays, deductibles and other out-of-pocket medical costs that we face in America. Moreover, in other industrialized countries citizens are not bankrupted by huge bills during a medical crisis – as is the case in America, where the leading cause of bankruptcy is medical bills. (Medical Bills Make up Half of Bankruptcies. Feb. 2005, MSNBC. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6895896/)

Moore successfully undercuts Gupta’s point. That said, Moore does seem to run two senses of the “word” free together in Sicko. Not to be too cheeky about it but one does not need to “pay” higher taxes for something that is “free”.

Throughout Gupta get on saying that “I get it Michael”, but I kept on waiting in vain for Moore to retort that “no you do not get. You concede that Americans health care system is broken, but are unwilling to concede that the route every other developed nation has chosen, namely some form of universal health care, is superior to ours. What you have implied again and again is that while our system is surely broken, so is everybody’s. This is a false equivalency. Yes the French medical system, for example, has its problems, it is hard to imagine a health care system without some, but their health care system is better than ours and this also holds for every other Western country. We pay far more than anyone else and get less out.” Maybe next time.

Potent Pot

Former Vancouver Mayor and Liberal Senator Larry Campbell:

"Marijuana should be legalized and controlled. We should tax the hell out of it with the revenue earmarked for health care"

On my way to watch Brazil and Spain play, I listened to 1040, Vancouver’s sports radio show. It was slow day and instead of talking about sports and the game I was going to the topic de jour was whether marijuana should be legalized. Being Vancouver, naturally the consensus was that it should be. However, one Vancouver Province columnist was nevertheless concerned about “potent” pot.

This irked me. The legend of potent pot rests on some pretty shaky ground and is more Drug Czar myth than reality, but even if we assume that potent pot is a reality it is certainly nothing to be concerned about. http://www.slate.com/id/2074151

Indeed, saying that potent pot is reason for keeping marijuana illegal is akin to saying that alcohol should be banned because gin has higher alcohol content than beer. It makes no sense. Just as people do not drink the same volume of gin as beer, the higher the THC level the less people consume. Ironically more potent pot may be a welcome development. After all, one of the most prominent health effect related to marijuana, if not the most, is that it is usually smoked. The more potent the pot, the less people have to smoke to achieve the same high.

All that being said, Liberal Martha Hall Findlay turned the potent argument on its head. She argued that if potency is the concern, then it should be legalized. The only way to regulate the potency of pot is to legalize it. I would go even further and note that so long as the drug is illegal, producers will seek to increase potency. The higher the potency the smaller the package the smaller the package the less likely they will get caught.

Main Stream Media and Objectivity

Paul Krugman once quipped that if the Bush administration was to say the earth was flat, the following headline would appear in papers across America the next day. “Views Differ on the Shape of the Earth.” Krugman’s point was this. For the MSM, being objective means being equally skeptical and critical of two sides of any “debate” and giving each side equal time. Viewpoints should not be judged only reported. Debate is nothing more or less than the presence of differing opinions. The problem with this is that it is completely at odds with our workaday notion of what it means to be objective, viz., the ethic that when evaluating opposing viewpoints that we apply the same set of standards to each. Being objective implies being judicious/judgmental. When two or more opposing viewpoints are found to have merit there is considered to be debate. Debate is much more than a mere difference of opinion. The consequences of the MSM media holding to this notion of objectivity are many and varied, but the most noticeable and commented on is the one Krugman hits on above. Specifically, being unwilling to pass judgment on the validity of particular viewpoints, the news often violates our workaday notions what it means to be objective and what constitutes debate. As a result, are left with the impression that we are down the rabbit hole and reason does not apply. The MSM coverage of the so called debate on global warming is great case in point as is the “debate” between creation science and evolution.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta vs Michael Moore

Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Michael Moore got into it on Larry King Live last night. http://www.michaelmoore.com/ This follows just on the heels of Moore’s blowup the day before on CNN. Moore was rightly upset by a “fact checking” piece by Gupta. Gupta made two glaring errors of fact.

"(Moore says) the United States slipped to number 37 in the world's health care systems. It's true. ... Moore brings a group of patients, including 9/11 workers, to Cuba and marvels at their free treatment and quality of care. But hold on - that WHO list puts Cuba's health care system even lower than the United States, coming in at #39."

Moore never made attempt to hide the fact that Cuba was lower ranked than the US let alone imply that they are ranked higher. Gupta did not retract what he said. http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/news/article.php?id=10017 Moore showed the list of the rankings displayed in the movie it Cuba is clearly listed as being 39th on the list.

"Moore asserts that the American health care system spends $7,000 per person on health. Cuba spends $25 dollars per person. Not true. But not too far off. The United States spends $6,096 per person, versus $229 per person in Cuba."

The number Moore quoted in the movie was $251 and Gupta corrected the record last night. As for the US number numbers, in attacking Gupta, Moore, as he frequently does, missed the forest for the trees. Moore says that Gupta’s numbers, although from the same source, were from 2004 and his from 2006. This is fair criticism, but Gupta rightly pointed out that the same source that Moore took the Cuban number also listed US costs at $5,700 and Moore should use the same source when making a comparison. What Moore failed to note was the huge increase in US health care costs. In other words, he should have abandoned the Cuban comparison, and pursued another. From 2004 to 2006 US health care costs went up a $1000 per person. This is incredible, but what is even more incredible is that according the same that same source costs are supposed to increase in to $7400 per person by the end of 2007. To put this into perspective, if health care costs the same amount in absolute terms in Canada over the last 2 years, that would represent a 34% increase!

Rhetorically Moore fell down when he insisted on debating whether Americans are Cubans lived longer. Yes Moore did cite the most recent stats showing the Cubans live slightly longer than Americans and Gupta asserted just the opposite, but in the greater scheme of things no one is interested in a photo finish. Moore:

“The 2006 United Nations Human Development Report's human development index states the life expectancy in the United States is 77.5 years. It is 77.6 years in Cuba. (Human Development Report 2006, United Nations Development Programme, 2006 at 283.”

The point to be made here and one Moore makes in movie is why are the Cubans mortality figures even in the same ballpark as the US.

The rest of the debate focused on wait times and here Gupta proved to be the more adapt, graceful and knowledgeable than Moore. Worse for Moore, Moore failed to bring the very things we saw in the movie into this segment of the debate. Whenever, Gupta brought up wait times in Canada Moore would fire back that if you took 5.25 million Canadians out of the equation, i.e., one sixth population or the same percenatage as do not have health care in the states, wait times would be reduced here. That is good point, but an equally powerful one is the one he makes in his movie. Namely, with respect to the US, what matters is not only how long insured people have to wait for a particular procedure once it is approved by their HMO, but also whether the procedure will be approved in the first place. For example, the amount of time Tracy, who had insurance, waited in vain for a bone marrow transplant is not on the books.

Michael Moore's Sicko: a Review

In the opening segment of Sicko, we learn of a man who severed the top of his ring finger and top his middle finger. The man did not have insurance and was told that he would have to pay $12,000 to have the ring finger made whole again and $60,000 for the same for the middle finger. He chose only the former and presumably gave the middle finger to the hospital.

As Moore makes clear early on though, this is not a film focused on the uninsured. For the first half of the movie, Moore is primarily concerned with insured Americas who were “swept into the cracks by the insurance industry”. As with all of his films, Moore takes Stalin’s infamous, but true, maxim to heart. "One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic." The film is emotionally compelling. It is also funny, albeit in a Kafkaesque sort of way. For example, one woman tells how she was involved in serious head on collision, knocked on unconscious, taken to hospital while still unconscious and then told by her insurance company that she must pay for the ambulance ride because she did not get it pre-approved.

The film does have its faults. Nuance has never been Moore’s strong suit and he never fully grasps the issues at hand. Moreover, the bulky quintessential American does have a talent for telling lies of omission; the omitted Roger Smith interviews being the best case in point. In Moore’s telling of tragic story of year and half year old Mychelle Williams the aforementioned shortcomings come together. This is a court summary of what happened to her. http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:8X2NiWC0wlAJ:caselaw.findlaw.com/data2/californiastatecases/s067733.doc+Mychelle+Williams&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=ca

“On May 6, 1993, at approximately 5:30 p.m., Dawnelle Barris (hereafterBarris) brought her 18-month old daughter, Mychelle Williams, to the emergency room at Martin Luther King/Drew Medical Center (hereafter King/Drew) by ambulance. Mychelle was a member of the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan (hereafter Kaiser), but was taken to King/Drew because it was the nearest emergency medical facility. She had suffered episodes of vomiting and diarrhea, was lethargic, and was having difficulty breathing. Her temperature was 106.6 degrees, her pulse and respiratory rate were abnormally fast, she had abnormally low pulse oxygenation, and she had infections of the middle ear in both ears.

Mychelle was transferred to the pediatric emergency room, and examined by Dr. Trach Phoung Dang. He believed her fever might be caused by bacteria in the bloodstream. He noted signs and symptoms consistent with sepsis, a life-threatening bacterial infection that he knew requires prompt treatment with antibiotics. Nonetheless, he did not rule out sepsis or begin antibiotic treatment. Although he concluded that a complete blood culture, which could have detected sepsis, should be done, he did not order it because he believed that he had to obtain authorization from Kaiser. Kaiser had developed a program called the Emergency Prospective Review Program (EPRP) to deal with situations where a Kaiser member is brought to a non-Kaiser facility for emergency medical care. Its purpose was to facilitate the transfer of such patients to a Kaiser facility.

On the night of May 6, Brian Thompson, a Kaiser physician, was handling phone calls that came in under the EPRP. At approximately 7 p.m., Dr. Dang spoke by telephone to Dr. Thompson to arrange for possible transfer of Mychelle. Dr. Dang discussed her condition and indicated that he thought blood tests, which would rule out a bacterial infection in the blood, should be performed at King/Drew. Dr. Thompson instructed him not to perform the tests, saying that the blood work would be done at Kaiser. Apparently still concerned about the delay in treatment, Dr. Dang telephoned Dr. Thompson again, and repeatedly suggested starting the blood work at King/Drew. Again, Dr. Thompson instructed Dr. Dang not to do so. Dr. Dang noted in his chart that “Dr. Thompson at Kaiser did not want me to do any blood test.”

At approximately 8 p.m., Mychelle suffered a seizure. She became increasingly lethargic and nonresponsive. Dr. Dang treated her symptoms of fever, dehydration, breathing difficult, and seizure, but did not administer antibiotics.

Shortly after 9 p.m., Mychelle was transferred by ambulance to Kaiser. At 9:50 p.m., within 15 minutes of her arrival, Mychelle suffered a cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead shortly thereafter. A blood culture performed as part of an autopsy was positive for streptococcus bacteria, which is readily treatable by antibiotics. The death certificate listed cardiac respiratory arrest caused by septicemia, or sepsis, that had been present for 10 hours.

Moore puts the blame squarely on Kaiser’s shoulders. He implies in the movie that it was Kaiser’s refusal to allow the blood test to go ahead that led to the toddler’s death. No one outside perhaps Dr Dang shares this opinion and the important question as to why Dr Dang was unwilling to go head with the blood test irrespective of what the Kaiser official said goes wanting for an answer in the movie. Truth be told, both sides where equally guilty. They literally passed the buck back and forth while the little girl died, but there was no official denial of coverage. No side had blinked by the time the little girl had died.

At trail, Dang testified that although he was cognizant of the fact that sepsis was a possible cause of the girl’s condition, he thought the cause was an acute asthma attack. An expert for Barris, Mychelle’s mom, blew Dang’s story apart. The expert noted that the medical record and Dang and Thompson’s conversion showed that Dang believed that it was sepsis. The expert also noted that irrespective of what he thought, it was standard practice to administer antibiotics just in case it was sepsis. The jury found for the plaintiff. The majority of the blame was assumed by Dang and the county.

Kaiser is now using Dang’s discredited testimony to undermine Moore’s account.

"Fourteen years ago, the treating physician at the King/Drew Medical Center incorrectly believed that he was treating a patient having an acute asthma attack. He had several phone conversations with one of our physicians. Neither physician discussed the possibility that the child was suffering from a grave blood infection. During the course of those conversations, given the asthma misdiagnosis, the Kaiser physician believed that necessary tests could be conducted at Kaiser once the child was stabilized for asthma and transported to Kaiser. As a result of the misdiagnosis, the child ultimately succumbed to her blood infection. We offer our deepest sympathy to her family. ….

We regret that none of the physicians involved recognized that the child had a life-threatening infection and not asthma. The movie claims we denied coverage of treatment by the doctor at the county hospital. That was not true. The issue was a misdiagnosis followed by the wrong treatment. The movie is inaccurate in its portrayal of that sad case.

This was essentially a tragic case of medical malpractice.”

http://xnet.kp.org/newscenter/leadership/hcreform.html

Kaiser is trying to paint a case of medical malpractice arising out of corporate greed as a case of medical malpractice arising out of a misdiagnosis. What they are saying is, of course, complete and utter bullshit. Indeed, if you are to believe Kaiser “neither physician discussed the possibility that the child was suffering from a grave blood infection [i.e., Sepsis]” even though there were repeated requests made to Kaiser to have her tested for exactly that.

One can only hope that Kaiser’s efforts backfire. The insurance industry and their allies in the Bush administration have long maintained that medical malpractice suits are driving up costs and this has detrimental costs for all concerned. The cost of such lawsuits, many they argue illegitimate, needs to be capped. After all, medical error can never be fully eliminated and there is no fool proof method for preventing illegitimate lawsuits for succeeding from time to time. The Mychelle Williams case turns this talking point on its head. Mychelle Williams did not die due to medical error. The cause of her death was that no one was willing to say the buck stops here and get on with treating her in a timely manner. A reasonable conclusion to draw from this and other cases like it is this. If liability was ridgely capped, the insurance industry would be able to calculate the potential costs of not providing standard medical care and this would lead them to build into their business a rubric for determining when it is in their best interests to provide standard medical care when it was advisable to encourage malpractice or even engage in it . In other words, it would mean more Mychelle Williams.

The other half of the film is less memorable. The much criticized survey of health care systems outside the US has gotten far more negative publicity then it deserves and has only served to distract from the moral backbone of the film. The survey should be taken for what it is, namely Moore’s flippant response to the scaremongering tactics used by those opposed to “socialist medicine”. Besides, all is fair in love and Moore. What struck me about survey as noteworthy was not its superficiality, but rather the fact that not all of those that are interviewed are terribly sympathetic. As a Canadian, I was not happy to lean about the American health care refugee, or her older Canadian friend with benefits. I imagine the defenders of the French system where similarly not thrilled to learn that one of there own took a three month fully paid doctor prescribed vacation partying in the French Rivera. These are trivial complaints though.

The criticisms of Moore’s Cuba adventure carry more weight. However well intentioned the cause, when one gets right down it Moore provided a dictatorship with great PR. That said, the fact that the Castro regime was able to score so many points when given the chance reveals just how broken the US system is. No other western country would be as vulnerable.

National Embarrassment

It is time to call a spade a spade. Canada’s men soccer program is a national embarrassment. In soccer, you get want you pay for. Canada puts very little money into developing its soccer programs, and at least as far as the men are concerned, it gets even less out. We are consistently the worst ranked team in the developed world. This is unacceptable.

To add insult to injury, the men’s under 20 team continued a woeful Canadian tradition of failing miserably in a competition hosted on Canadian soil. Not only is Canada the only host country to fail to win a gold medal at the Olympics, it is also the only host country of the men’s under 20 world cup to fail to score. We also lost every game.
http://sports.sympatico.msn.cbc.ca/TopStories/ContentPosting.aspx?feedname=CBC-SPORTS-V2&showbyline=True&newsitemid=canada-congo-fifa

No to Uniting the Left Yes to Liberal Rebranding

I am not convinced it is in the best interests of the Canadian public or even the Liberal party to seek to unite the left.

For at its best, the NDP has provided an invaluable service to all Canadians; it widened the Canadian political debate and did so by historically being the most ideological of the major political parities. Parties concerned with the “art of the possible” are not infusing the political debate with new ideas with little chance of furthering their party at the polls. They are reactive. However, the catch 22 of such pragmatism is that such parties concede some of the field to those who are not so cautious. To use an evolutionary metaphor, the politically brave and ideologically pure help determine the policy areas to be discussed; the powerful and pragmatic determine what policies get accepted. Historically, the NDP were able to get “results” for Canadians in two ways. One, they played king maker in several Liberal minority governments. Two, they were able to achieve successes at a distance by continually infusing the political arena with new policy ideas. Either way the Liberal party benefited. By infusing the political arena with ideas from a leftist perspective, the NDP shifted the political debate in Canada leftward, leaving Liberals and not the Progressive Conservatives as the “natural governing party of Canada”.

That said, the problem is that the NDP at its worst is what it is under Jack Layton, viz., a sometimes Liberal echo chamber (on Kyoto, and Kelowna) but all in all a soulless new left party fixated on identity politics to determent of furthering social democratic ideals premised on the notion of universality. Under Layton, the NDP no longer champion European social democracy, a la Tommy Douglas. One consequence of this is that the gulf between Europe and Canada in many areas is simply enormous. The Europeans are light years ahead on a whole variety of issues.

With the NDP serving no useful purpose at this moment, it is falls to the Liberals to pick up the slack. For the sake of the party’s own electoral health, the Liberals must develop the type of social democratic ideas it has in the past poached from the NDP and in the process insure that the political discourse shifts leftward. At the same time the party must be aware of the constraints and pragmatic considerations placed on any party hopping to form the next government. This is no easy feat.

The party must also do something else. It desperately needs to rebrand itself. The sponsorship scandal and years of political compromise have stained the once bright gloss. “What is does mean to be a Liberal?” has become as intractable as “what does it mean to be a Canadian?”. It need not be this way. Indeed, it must not be this way. Having urged the party to make a break with the past in my previous post, I urge the party to return to more distant past and in the process prove two things. 1) The party must show the Canadian public, as outlined above, that it is the only major party willing to commit Canada to the best of European social democracy. 2) It must also prove itself to be the champion of social liberalism the way Trudeau did, particularly in 1968-1969.

Alas in the past couple of years the party has done neither. Sure the Liberals passed SSM legislation and promised to decriminalize marijuana and these were two reasons why Canada was “cool” back in 2003/2004, but it was the courts forced the Liberals to at last acknowledge that the issues were pregnant. Moreover, Martin did not laud bill 38 as an historic and just expansion of the societal franchise as true liberals everywhere were doing. On the contrary, Martin argued the Charter sometimes compels the government to act in way it may not like. In Martin’s words, the government can not “cherry pick rights”. The implication being that SSM was not a cherry. For Martin’s Liberals, SSM was not a righteous cause, but was rather the straight man’s burden. Martin gave SSM the defense befitting a pornographer.

Just as bad, the Liberals have followed the NDP down the rabbit hole and have begun mimicking the NDP’s love of identity politics. For example, the Liberals have embraced, as never before, the intellectual abortion that is native self government and the associated ethnic essentialism on steroids.

New Liberal: the Liberals Need to Break With The Past

The Liberal brass seeks continuity with the past. Only in Canada would a supposedly liberal party stress tradition as much as this one. What the Liberals should be looking to do is to break with their past (their most recent past anyway) and not embrace it. The Liberal Party is not going to get back into power promising to be same old good economic managers minus the corruption associated with the sponsorship program. Indeed, the economy is not tanking. So the solid Economic stewardship card does not even have superficial appeal.

If the Liberals are going to avoid being forgotten altogether, they are going to have to do two things. First, they are going to have to undermine the impression that Harper is becoming more and more moderate. This does not mean alleging that he has some kind of hidden agenda or even destructing rhetoric designed to deceive the Canadian public. It means proposing policies, a la SSM, that will radicalize the Tories’ social conservative base and so force Harper into the open. Provided that they have chosen their issues carefully, the Liberals should be able to define Harper as being the antithesis of what modern urban Canada considers itself to be, viz., pluralistic, modern, open minded, tolerant, and pragmatic. The public will only take notice if there are two clearly defined camps.

Second, and really the flip side of the first, the Liberals need to introduce policies that will get people talking. This means fist of all proposing policies that the public has the facility to talk about, again a la SSM, and can understand if only at an elementary level. What might qualify?
Well, the Liberals so called three pillars certainly do not. They are nothing but fluffy mush brain nonsense. After all, who is not for a “richer, greener and a fairer Canada”? The devil is in the details. Here are some candidates.

1)Propose scrapping the monarchy

2)Propose mandating 4 weeks vacation a year

3)Propose free dental care

4)Propose Legalizing euthanasia

5)Propose Legalizing marijuana

6)Propose abolishing the senate

7) Again propose banning hand guns

8) Mandatory voting.

Canadians Favor Marijuana Legalization By a Wide Margin

55% Of Canadians want marijuana legalized. 41% do not. http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/16300 Once again, the Canadian public is way ahead of a risk adverse, dull, stodgy, set in its ways Liberal Party.

The Liberal Party Has Run Out of Ideas

The Liberals have run out of ideas. They are literally letting themselves be defined by the Conservatives, albeit negatively. What does mean be Liberal these days? According to the Liberal brass it means supporting Martin’s monstrously ill-conceived Atlantic Accord, opposing a tax on income trusts that they wanted to impose themselves but lacked the guts and it means demanding that the government meet the Kyoto targets that they privately admit the government has no hope of meeting. The party is even borrowing slogans from the NDP. To wit: “We Bringing results to the People.”

Pathetic

Andrew Coyne: The Afghan Mission's Black Knight

Andrew Coyne is right; there is no way Stephen Harper is going to sacrifice the chance of extending to Afghan mission always popular “political consensus”. He is also right to belittle the Liberals for holding to a policy that is nothing but a political façade. http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/editorialsletters/story.html?id=d4a14cf2-5148-4d51-8359-fff8274ab8e3&p=1
These are the only things he gets right though. He calls Tom Walkom, no supporter of the Kandahar adventure, a “triumphant defeatist” for believing, wrongly as I just said, that Harper will not extend the mission beyond 2009. http://www.thestar.com/article/228833 This is the rhetorical equivalent of the Black Knight, of Monty Python fame, calling a served limb a flesh wound. According to the State Department the number of attacks in Afghanistan last year was 53% higher than in 2005 and worse the number of people killed and wounded 91% higher. http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0501/p99s01-duts.html The number of NATO dead in 2005 where 113% higher than in 2004. http://www.icasualties.org/oef/ Coyne might still have faith in mission but that is all he has got. The numbers do not back him up and he has certainly has no right to chide those how do not share his blind faith. All Coyne can do is threaten to bite opponent's knee caps and that is what he has done here.

Coyne continues his jingoistic rant by rhetorically asking what could possibly be gained by abandoning the Kandahar adventure and amazingly concludes that Canada has nothing to gain by leaving.

“And for what purpose? To whose benefit? The Afghans? No, it is quite clear they
want us there. The troops? No, they are equally adamant, in every interview I
have ever seen: they want to be there. Our NATO partners? Obviously not. The
only agenda served by the opposition's demands is the opposition's.”

Leaving aside the cost of mission that is doomed to fail, how about the threat to national unity the Afghan mission holds? A terrorist attack, inspired by Canada 's presence in Afghanistan, revitalize the Quebec’s separatist movement, especially if Quebec is the victim. Currently the Afghan mission is opposed by 70% of Quebecers. If Quebecers die as a result of us being there, the separatists will use it as a reason why Quebecers need their own country with its own foreign policy. Given what has transpired in Ontario, what happened in Spain and Britain, the chances of such an attack or not insignificant.

This is just the latest idiocy from Coyne. When the would be Ontario bombers were arrested Coyne noted on the National that Al Qaeda had long listed Canada as a potential target, that no Western country is immune from attack, and that the arrests were yet further reason for pursuing a more muscular approach in Afghanistan. What Coyne failed to note however was that the would be bombers did not have any connection to Al Qaeda, according to the Crown the accused were motivated by the Afghan mission and the reason Al Qaeda has targeted Canada is because of our presence in Afghanistan. This is the Al Qaeda threat Coyne was referring to.

“What do your governments want from their alliance with America in attacking us
in Afghanistan? I mention in particular Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Germany
and Australia.”

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/osamabinladen/tape.html (Subsequently, Al Qaeda twice threatened Canada with terror acts because of Afghanistan. In one of those times, Al Qaeda’s second in command referred to Canada has “second rate crusaders”. http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=e9f20f44-ec19-470c-9ac3-6c79218d4d91 ) Only an ideologue of Coyne’s stature would have the chutzpah to use Al Qaeda’s threat related to our presence in Afghanistan as proof that Al Qaeda will attack any western target, as if Switzerland and the US are equally likely targets, and that we should therefore step up operations in Afghanistan.

A "Bridge" too far; Harper's rebranding of Bush to "Bridge" to him

Stephen Harper “The approach we have chosen, basing emissions reduction targets on units of production in the short run, allows growing and developing economies to engage in significant greenhouse gas reductions without putting themselves at immediate risk.’http://www.conservative.ca/EN/1004/80760

Yesterday I said this.“Harper's claim that his intensity based plan could serve as a model for others is simply laughable. Intensity of emissions has been going down on their own and during this time GHG emissions have gone up 25%. Indeed, since 1996 intensity has gone down an average of 2% every year. If you simply extend that line out over the next thirteen years, Canada will have reduced intensity by 26%. Of course there are plenty of reasons to believe that intensity will fall at an even quicker rate meaning that the Conservatives will likely not have to lift a finger to achieve a 33% drop in intensity by 2020. There is also no reason at all think that a decrease in 33% emissions intensity will lead to an absolute reduction in GHG.”http://www.ec.gc.ca/pdb/ghg/inventory_report/2005/images/fig2_e.gif

I would like to add one more thing.

For the Conservatives to claim that their intensity based model could help “bridge” the gap between America and Europe is breath taking example of chutzpah for another reason. It is George Bush that first championed intensity based targets and for the reason outlined above, viz., it meant that he not have to do anything. Emission intensity was bound to go down on its own. For Harper to claim that his rebranding of a Bush doctrine that the Europeans have long since rejected as a “bridge” between Europe and the US now is simply amazing and an excellent example of how condescending he can be.

Harper’s Intensity based Emissions world model.

Stephen Harper: “Improvements in emissions intensity of this magnitude mean that there will be real, absolute reductions in emissions levels by at least 2012 and as early as 2010. It will put us on track to absolute greenhouse gas reductions of 20% by 2020.”

Stephen Harper: “The approach we have chosen, basing emissions reduction targets on units of production in the short run, allows growing and developing economies to engage in significant greenhouse gas reductions without putting themselves at immediate risk.”

Stephen Harper “There are elements of our plan that we believe could work not just for Canada, but for many countries in the world – including some of the large emitters that did not accept targets under the Kyoto protocol,”
http://www.conservative.ca/EN/1004/80760

Harper's claim that his intensity based plan could serve as a model for others is simply laughable. Intensity of emissions has been going down on their own and have been doing for a while and during this time GHG emissions have gone up 25%. Indeed, since 1996 intensity has gone down an average of 2% every year. If you simply extend that line out over the next thirteen years, Canada will have reduced intensity by 26%. Of course there is plenty of reasons to believe that intensity will fall at an even quicker rate meaning that the Conservatives will likely not have to lift a finger to achieve a 33% drop in intensity by 2020 and there is no reason at all think that an decrease in emissions intensity will lead to an absolute reductions in GHG.

http://www.ec.gc.ca/pdb/ghg/inventory_report/2005/images/fig2_e.gif

Conservative Lies of Omission Part 5: Intensity Based Emission Model

Harper claims that should the world follow Canada’s lead and adopt intensity based emission targets that the world community would be half way towards tackling global warming. Listening to Harper you would think that no progress has been made in this regard, but you would be wrong. Harper is lying by omission yet again. Since 1990 intensity of Canada’s emissions has fallen by 18% and they plummented since 1996. This puts Harper in something of a bind. He can abandon his tract of blaming the Liberals for everything and in the process give some much needed meat to his laughable claim that the Conservatives are for individual responsibility. In other words, he can give them credit for doing what his government now aims to do. Alternatively, he can claim that these reductions occurred despite the Liberals and not because of them and in the process reveal that by setting intensity targets and not absolute targets he is offering Canadians more of the same on the global warming front, viz., nothing. In either case, Harper is open to the charge that reductions in intensity do not amount up absolute reductions. After all, under the Liberals intensity went down by 18% and overall emissions went up by 25%.

It goes without saying that the chutzpah this government is capable of knows no bounds; rather than showing leadership on global warming, the Harper government intends to capitalize on technological innovations born of the Kyoto Accord’s regulatory framework to meet its intensity based emission targets. The worst of it all is that Harper will no doubt claim victory not for aiming high and succeeding, but by knocking the bar down and stepping over it.

22 More Seats is not enough!

Adding a mere 22 seats is hardly going change things all that much. People in the populous regions of Canada, particularly in our biggest urban centers, will still be getting shafted. Indeed, if the government where to commit itself to giving an MP for every 70,000 people the new numbers would break down as follows. Ontario would gain 67 seats, Quebec 27, BC 23, Alberta 19, and Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia 2 each. All total, a 142 seats should be added, most of those in Urban areas. There would still be outliers. PEI, and the territories would still be over represented, but I do not think this would bother anyone.

Some say that people in the less populous areas of the country need 1.5 to 6 times the representation because more populous provinces are more powerful then less populous ones, but that is weak argument. People living in the less populous regions of the country already have far more clout on a per person basis by virtue of the fact that the provincial and territorial jurisdictions in which they are a member or far less populous. Comparing province to province is a misnomer. It is comparing apples to oranges. What one should be comparing is the political resources of people in any two ridings. When one does this it is abundantly clear that people in Canada’s urban centers in particular are getting the short end of the stick. Indeed, PEI and its population of 135,851 and 4 MPs, as a province, has revenue streams available to it that are simply not available to Oak Ridges Markham and its population of 169, 642 and 1 MP. Oak Ridges Markham does not get Federal transfer payments.

Is Dion another Paul Martin?

Under Trudeau, the Liberals had personality, a sense of purpose, swagger and youthful vigor. Under Chrétien, the Liberals also had personality but under his leadership the Liberals lacked the other three. Under Martin, the Liberals lacked all 4. Under Dion, the Liberals have to establish that their leader is not the second coming of Paul Martin. So far they are not doing a very good job. Outside of what has come dangerously close to sermonizing on the environment, the Liberals have continued to come up with middle of the road, offend no one, please no one, interest no one, policies that are utterly incoherent at their core because they are designed to appeal to both sides of any political divide. And then there is Denis Coderre and other living embodiments of everything the population hates about politicians.