If it isn’t one thing it’s a dozen something elses.
The mainstream media has been abuzz with the downed Malaysian jet, the unexpected resignations of federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and Alberta Premier Alison Redford. Going relatively unnoticed is the expiry of the current Health Care Accord on March 31.
The Accord is the deal between the federal government and the provinces that sets funding and health care service delivery agreements. Ottawa is unilaterally replacing it with the Canadian Health and Transfer ( CHT).
According to the Council of Canadians and other watchdog groups, this could mean the end of the medicare we know and love because, under CHT, the feds will be contributing less to the system every year. Former Finance Minister Jim Flaherty was talking $36 billion less by 2024.
Without adequate financial and supervisory input from the federal government, provincial plans could fall apart, leaving us paying more for fewer services. That could mean everything from fewer doctors, less services for the elderly, less coverage in mental health and prescription drugs, you name it.
The provinces’ options would be to raise taxes, and/or premiums, and/or cut services, or privatize the system. Most of us take our health care for granted. Maybe we won’t know what we’ve got ‘til it’s gone. Starting on Monday, a number of concerned groups in a number of provinces are holding protests to call public attention to the issue.
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A recent “study” in Cities Journal (a publication unknown to me) that ranked Williams Lake as a poor place to live is so badly researched it is silly. It jumped from the 1800s to the present, ignoring the 1900s in between.
You’d think that after living in the Cariboo for over 60 years I’d know March weather is capricious. So why am I so grumpy that it snows in the mornings when it’s supposed to be spring?
Diana French is a freelance columnist for the Tribune. She is a former Tribune editor, retired teacher, historian, and book author.
