I'd rather be Right than Sustainable

The B.C. Liberals plan to graft the 'principle' of 'sustainability' on to the Canada Health Act through their proposed Medicare 'Protection' Act.

For those of you scoring at home, the gratutious use of quotation marks in the previous sentence was intended to illustrate the Lieberals unsustainable application of other principles, like the truth. This legislation is not about making the health care system any more cost-effective or efficient, it's about the Liberals legally empowering themselves to continue the destruction of public health care in British Columbia. Campbell and Company tried the sustainability argument when they passed Bill 29, claiming that labour costs for front-line health care were out of control. They ended up getting slapped down hard by the Supreme Court of Canada, with taxpayers footing the bill for legal fees and compensation for the members of the Hospital Employees Union whose lives were destroyed by Campbell's assault on the principles of Collective Bargaining.

This page can't help but see the Medicare Protection Act meeting the same legal fate. Sustainability cuts a lot of ways, and the Supreme Court Justices just might ask themselves exactly how a privatized health care system is supposed to more 'sustainable' for BC taxpayers when the government can borrow money at far lower interest rates than private health care providers, and all Victoria has to do is break even, as opposed to any corporate imperative to return profits to shareholders. Also, a judge is not going to be hoodwinked by a Carole Taylor shrieking about health care taking up a growing chunk of the provincial budget, while at the same time other government mandates are rolled back and tax cuts are thrown off the back of a truck to make the Medicare piece of the pie look that much bigger.

Here's hoping that Canada maintains a judiciary that continues to operate on the basis of right and wrong, rather than profit and loss. Health care is a right for Canadians, not a commodity to be screwed around with by small-minded buzzword-toting provinicial governments.