Rebuilding Canada

[ollie]

All right, we're cool!

Another argument in favour of a politics forum is that it would be a lot easier for me to ignore these discussions when surfing the Skank proper.

Edited to add: Nevermind that I started this one in the first place!

Edited January 26, 2006 by Guest

[d_rawk]

Birdy, I do totally feel for you with the doctor situation. The Chatham area has it bad, and it really isn't an acceptable situation. I don't know that it points to any particular solution though, or even that it suggests a fundamental problem with the model of healthcare in Canada rather than how it has been executed.

I think the Liberal government does need to shoulder a lot of the burden on this. Simultaneously downloading responsibilities while starving the provinces of money while posting record surpluses federally and wasting fortunes on matters that should have been lower priority. Commissioning Romanow and not implementing or following through on any of the recommendations. Etc..

Creeping privatization and the underfunding and neglect that set the stage for it happened under Martin's Liberal's watch, unmolested, while they played "Great Defenders of Healthcare" to the public.

The situation is unacceptable. Philosophical differences and differences of experience within the system probably means none of us are likely to see eye to eye about how it got to be so, or what is to be done about it. So I'm mostly going to sit that out.

I couldn't help but tag on this bit, though ...

if you believe the harper vote was punishment i can't change your mind, but i do disagree with it. i'd tend to say canadians are ready for some fresh air.

- 0 seats in Toronto, 0 seats in Vancouver, 0 seats in Montreal. They were shutout by the three largest cities, even despite the well documented desire to see the Liberals punished in those areas

- Gains almost entirely relegated to small rural areas in Ontario and Quebec (you can identify, I'm sure ). This needs to be taken seriously, and suggests a problematic relationship with rural areas, but is hardly a ringing endorsement by the country at large for a swing to the right or for their policies

- A share of the popular vote of 36.2%. The second slimmest popular vote in Canadian history. Only Joe Clark's PCs did worse with (35.9%) in 1979

- Smallest share of seats won by any government ever. Even Clark got 136 seats, and that was in a smaller house!

- Despite a stated desire for "change" or to "punish the Liberals", the overall vote shifted by only 7%.

[Birdy]

thanks for your sympathy d_rawk. it really is a "situation" down here that not too many people are aware of and are surprised to hear how bad it is.

as for how much the overall vote shifted, it still shifted , which shows that Canadians, while maybe not an overly large majority of them, did indeed want change. However small a conservative minority it is, it's still a conservative government. And that hasn't happened in 12 years. you gotta be able to say something about that.

the division between urban and rural Canada's votes is pretty severe.. that and the support Quebec gave to the conservatives. i'm going to put some effort into studying these trends cuz i think they're interesting. i don't have much to say on them now, but perhaps one day in the future...

maybe ollie will start the thread