Now that Ralph Klein has officially handed things over to Ed Stelmach, there will be a spate of "Ralph's Legacy" stories. Some will praise him for eliminating the provincial debt. Others will condemn him for his shoddy treatment of those who couldn't take advantage of the Alberta Advantage; the homeless, the poor, the disabled, the seniors on fixed incomes.


Ralph Klein brings to mind another popular, long serving Premier, Joey Smallwood of Newfoundland. Joey was Premier there for 23 years after bringing Newfoundland into confederation in 1949. Both Joey and Ralph had a money machine given to them that kept them in power for years. In Ralph's case he had God given oil in the ground and the OPEC cartel to keep the prices jacked up. Joey tapped into Canadian wealth and brought old-age pensions, family allowance, unemployment insurance, and other federal support programs to his province when they joined confederation.

What they had in common was a financial windfall that they both took credit for. Joey had money from the rest of Canada to dole out; Ralph had oil from God and a high market price courtesy of OPEC. This kept both of them in power for many years and to say a bad word against either of them in their own province was considered heresy.

Neither had any business experience and only minimal education. This was perhaps their downfall. In the presence of high powered, well-educated and persuasive business men that surrounded them over the years they easily bought into schemes that sounded good at the time but that proved to be financially disastrous. Unfortunately their legacies will suffer for this.

Joey's downfall was his giveaway of the profits from Labrador's hydroelectric power to Quebec. The upper Churchill contract, signed in 1969 and not due to expire until 2041, awarded Hydro-Quebec Churchill Falls power at a low, fixed rate, without the benefit of an escalator clause. For details click here. Joey didn't understand that the price people were willing to pay for electricity might soar so he didn't provide for it in the contract and Quebec has been reaping a windfall profit since electricity prices took off in the mid 70s.

Ralph's worst venture into the world of high finance came in 1996 when he presided over the oil sands royalty regime agreement. This was implemented when the price of oil was low and did not include provision for the price of oil rising. So today when the price of oil goes up a dollar, the oil companies get 99 cents additional profit and the Alberta Government; that's you and me; get a penny. For details click here. What a shame! Billions of dollars a year that could have been used for government programs and/or tax relief. Instead Ralph gave it all away to the oil companies.

Ralph Klein will have to be content with the "cocoon of love" that his Conservative MLA's profess to have for him and awards from groups that benefited from infusions of tax payer money such as Horse Racing Alberta and others.

He could have done so much more.

"I go to the club and I work out, and you get some of the fat cats – you know, the rich guys – saying, 'You know you should spend it on education. You should do this and you should do that,' "But the guy who handles the towels says 'Right on, right on.'"

With these words, Premier Ralph Klein, the guy who claims to stand up for the little guy against those “fat cat” oilmen, justifies his preference for handing out more prosperity cheques to Albertans. Read all about it by clicking here.

Here's some questions all you little guys out there who vote for Mr. Klein and his PC party should ask yourself. See if you can figure out if he is on your side of the side of those he calls the “fat cats”.

Question 1. Is Mr. Klein a member of the posh Glencoe where he works out or does he work there along with the towel guys?

Question 2. When Mr. Klein sits down for lunch after his workout who joins him at his table to have a bite and talk about things; - to have a few laughs? The towel guy or the fat cats?

Question 3. Do you believe that Mr. Klein spends more of his time with fat cats or with towel guys? How many towel guys do you think Mr. Klein invites along to his home or to his fishing lodge? How many towel guys have a heart-to-heart with the Premier in his office discussing things like what's best for Albertans?

Get my point?

The reason the fat cats want to spend the surplus on things like education is because Mr. Klein has given them so much over the years that their personal wealth is secure. That's how come they're members at the Glencoe and how come their $400 prosperity cheques would likely get lost in the stack of dividend cheques from Imperial Oil, Encana and the like. That's also why these guys give wads of cash to the PC party. They want to make sure the wealth keeps flowing their way.

Question 4. Mr. Little Guy, how much do you receive in dividends from Imperial Oil, Encana and the like?

Question 5. Do you grasp the significance of the following equation?
Tiny royalties==>Big Oil Company Profits===>Big Dividends===>Glencoe Club Membership===>Lunch with Premier Klein===>Tiny royalties . . . . . . . etc.

Question 6. Do you think Mr. Klein's policies of having one of the lowest minimum wage rates in Canada as well as toxic anti-union legislation has helped your wages or do you think it has helped feed company profits?

Mr. Klein once was one of the little guys and he still knows how to put on the act. But all the little guy gets these days is a free pancake if you show up at a PC fundraiser and maybe; just maybe, another $400 prosperity cheque.

I don't know which Tory I admire more when it comes to extracting taxpayer money for their own personal use. There are so many worthy candidates to choose from.

Admittedly the Klein government has set things up so it is pretty easy for Tories to get at our money. Performing government contracts where the deliverables are strictly oral in nature ala Rod Love and Kelly Charlebois is but one example of this. (Hmmm. What exactly is an oral deliverable; - but I digress).

Tory leadership contender Mark "It's deductible!" Norris has also dreamed up a fine scheme. His boys set up a company called GLG Consulting Ltd., that pays Mark $10,000 a month for, - you guessed it, consulting. The company's major customers are well-heeled Tories who ponied up $10,000 to GLC. (These big shooters like to work in nice round $10,000 chunks.) They then claim these contributions as a business expense which means they get a tax deduction. Neat eh! The taxpayer doesn't pay for this directly, just indirectly. This makes it nicer.

Good as these schemes are, they don't top my favorite which was implemented by the old master himself, our beloved Ralph Klein. In the recent cabinet shuffle, Ralph appointed a few of his long time loyal Tory MLAs to cabinet positions. Two guys named Denis, a George and a Barry somebody. As cabinet ministers they get $58,000 above and beyond the $71,000 they earn as an MLAs. But the real genius in this scheme is that this gift from their leader is one that keeps on giving. These guys are all long time MLAs and the pension plan is based on years of service plus the best two years of salary. If they can hang around for a couple of years that extra $58,000 a year is going to pay off in spades in their pension plans.

If you ever wonder why the Tories call the health care system unsustainable it just might be because they have to spend too much sustaining themselves.

For those Ralph's World readers interested in "Third Way" discussions have a look at this article by Terilyn Paulgaard.

Unlucky #13 refers to Iris & Ralph's private health insurance initiatives. This is what the Tories, including the new leadership contenders, think will make health care sustainable in this province of ours.

Read the article and you be the judge.

The Seniors Action Liaison Team had the opportunity to present to Alberta Health Minister Iris Evans for half an hour on March 13, 2006.

This is a copy of the presentation they delivered. To provide feedback to SALT please click here and we will forward your comments to them.

Madam Minister,

My name is Noel Somerville. I am a Vice Chair of the Seniors Action and Liaison Team (SALT) and a member of the board of Public Interest Alberta. This presentation is made on behalf of both organizations. There are several points we want to make about the Health Policy Framework.

First, we reject the premise that public health care costs are unsustainable. The dramatic growth rates that have occurred following the radical cutbacks of the mid nineties create a misleading picture. Yes, these costs are growing and will continue to grow, but when growth patterns are viewed over the longer term, we believe they remain a relatively stable percentage of the provincial GDP and in that respect are quite sustainable. In the interest of a meaningful consultation on the proposed health care reforms, we request that your department publish information on Alberta’s annual public health care expenditures as a percentage of Alberta’s GDP for each of the past twenty-five years.

What we do believe to be unsustainable is the ideology that government should get smaller and smaller, tax cuts should get larger and larger, and that privatization is the means to accomplish these ends. In our view, privatization is a major part of the problem, not the solution, to controlling costs in the health care system. The areas in which costs have grown most steeply are those that are almost exclusively in the hands of private and corporate interests – pharmaceuticals and technology. With respect, Madam Minister, we do not believe that your government has a mandate to preside over the dissolution by privatization of our most cherished social services.

Secondly, we reject any reform of our health care system that allows access to necessary medical services on the basis of ability to pay rather than on the basis of need. Our health care system represents a huge investment of public money in the institutions to train doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals, in the cost of building and maintaining our hospitals and equipping them with the latest technology, and in the cost of government-funded medical research. Having collectively paid for this system, we are all entitled to access on the basis of need. It violates any standard of fairness that preferential access should be granted to the wealthy or those fortunate enough to qualify for individual or group health insurance plans.

Third, we reject the proposal that allows doctors to practice in both the public and private systems. To do so creates a conflict-of-interest in the doctor/patient relationship, makes queue-jumping inevitable and may encourage doctors to perform lucrative but unnecessary procedures. If doctors have two sets of patients, one paying and one not paying, preference will obviously go to the paying patients and the non-paying will face longer wait times and second-class status in the system that we have all funded. People weakened by severe pain or ill health are extremely vulnerable to manipulation; what such people are interested in is not ’choice’ but treatment and a cure.

The Health Policy Framework places great emphasis on choice. Choice is a great thing when shopping for a car or a pair of shoes. But the fact is that a great deal of choice already exists in the health care system. Doctors are free to opt-out of the system and set up whatever type of practice they want. People with money are free to seek treatment wherever and whenever they want. One has to wonder, however, about those who are old, frail, ill, have pre-existing conditions or even genetic pre-disposition to illness. These people don’t have choice, and private insurance will not give them choice because they can’t qualify for coverage nor afford the premiums.

Fourth, we reject reforms that undercut the huge economies of the single-payer national health insurance system by introducing private insurance for medically necessary services. Such a move is counter-productive to the primary objective of improving the efficiency and sustainability of our health care system. It will lead to massive, non-productive expenditures by private insurers in advertising and claims adjudication and will impose huge additional costs on hospitals and clinics that have to employ bean-counters to track every service to know which insurer to bill. A recent statistic from the Harper Index quotes a study by a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, who estimated that, if the USA adopted a single-payer health care system, the annual saving on paperwork alone would amount to $161 billion.

Again, it would really promote a meaningful consultation if your government were to estimate the costs resulting from the proposed health care reforms on the following:

• the cost to government and corporations of additional health insurance for employees, costs that will be subsidized by consumers, many of whom cannot themselves access such insurance;
• the loss of competitive advantage to manufacturing industries that will have to finance a larger range of health benefits at a time when their competitiveness is already threatened by the rising value of the Canadian dollar;
• the additional costs for self-employed people like farmers and small businesses that can’t qualify for large group insurance rates.

Finally, we oppose any framework for change that sidesteps the democratic process and provides for the health care system to be governed and reformed by regulation rather than by legislation. Substantive changes to regulations can and have been implemented by Orders-in Council, completely circumventing the accepted principles of parliamentary democracy.

We do not, however, oppose genuine reforms in health care delivery:

• initiatives that promote safety and wellness;
• reducing the cost of prescription drugs by bulk-purchasing either on the provincial or national levels;
• primary care centres that give patients access to a team of health care professionals such as nurse practitioners and pharmacists to reduce the pressure on doctors;
• the management initiatives within the public system such as those that have been so successful in reducing waiting lists for hip and knee replacement at the Bone and Joint Institute of Edmonton.

What we want is a continuation of initiatives such as these that will make the public health care system more efficient and cost-effective.

What we want was neatly summarized in the undertakings that Premier Klein made in his television address to the province on November 16, 1999 when he said:

• “For as long as I am Premier, there will not be any so-called two-tiered American–style health care in our province.”
• “There will be no facility fees or queue-jumping or direct billing in the Alberta health care system of the 21st century.”
• “No Albertan will pay for insured medical services and nobody will be able to pay to get faster service.”

With so much written about Ralph Klein's Third Way for providing health care in Alberta, the staff at Ralph's World has combed the media reports to bring you the two articles that we feel best represent the opposing sides of this issue.

In order to appeal to all Albertans, and not just those interested in health care, we have chosen to display the picture at left. It is our hope that those of you attracted by the picture may also read the articles. For those that take offence, we apologize for our crude methods.

Supporting Premier Klein and the Progressive Conservative party is:
Paul Jackson - Calgary Sun Columnist with his well-reasoned article entitled Freedom healthy.

Supporting Kevin Taft and Brian Mason and the Opposition parties are:
Colleen M. Flood, Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy, University of Toronto
Terrence Sullivan, President Cancer Care Ontario
Steven Lewis, President, Access Consulting Limited, Saskatoon
Noralou Roos, Canada Research Chair in Population Health Research, University of Manitoba
Dr. Tom Noseworthy, Director, Centre for Health and Policy Studies, Calgary
Their opinion piece is Top ten reasons against two-tier medicine in Canada.

Have a look at both and see what makes the most sense to you. Let us know what you think by dropping us a line.

This classic Catch-22 was sent in by a Ralph's World reader from St. Albert. The following is from a letter that she sent to her MLA looking for advice.

Now that my gas bills are running around $300 per month, this warmest winter ever in the Province of Alberta, I am motivated to quit dithering and try to wrestle a furnace replacement subsidy out of the (unwilling?) hands of the Government of Alberta.

To that end I just called gov-ab seniors' information- to ask if there were any new twists-and-turns in the application procedure. Well, there's a dandy. And I need your advice.

I spoke with an advisor (no sense in asking for a name for they're "not required to provide that information"). My question was: "What is the procedure for applying?". The answer: get a form; fill it in; get quotations, provide copies; and "provide a copy of a letter from the gas company saying that your furnace is unfit"; mail it all in to us. *EEEK!*

As I am sure you know, gas-appliance inspection requires a gas-fitters' ticket. And for some years now, there has been a regulation in Alberta that a gas-fitter who finds that a gas furnace is in any way a possible danger is required to turn the furnace off, and also to lock it down in such a way that the owner cannot restart it.

So, do you see the picture? The poor senior, eaten alive by gas bills who only wanted a letter, is standing in a cooling house. By tomorrow, her house may be frozen solid. Nothing to do but call for (frightfully expensive) emergency action.

So I explained that to the advisor. Then the schpiel changed substantially. Quoting from her "answer-book", she said that..well, we'll need a letter saying your furnace is unfit either from the gas company or from a contractor. I told her thanks and rang off.

So you see, they're fooling with us again (still?). And I have no idea how to proceed.

Will you please suggest how a senior is supposed to navigate this minefield?

Deane Doucette,
St-Albert

Dateline March 3, 2006 - RW NewsWire - Edmonton

Stung by opposition criticism that one month was not enough time for Albertans to provide input to the new Third Way" health initiatives, Premier Klein has ordered Health Minister Iris Evans to implement major enhancements to Alberta Health's Online Public Consultation System.

"The system has to provide instant feedback to those Albertan that take the time to help me build a better and brighter health care system" the Premier said. "We only have a month to get this done so we need to get on with it."

We are pleased to announce that Ralph's World Political Polling Systems, a division of Ralph's World International, has been awarded this important contract.

The picture at left shows Health Minister Evans walking the Premeir through a prototype of the new system.

We are asking all Albertans to try out the new prototype using the following link.

"Third Way" On-line Consultation System

Please provide any feedback you may have to Ralph's World Political Polling Systems, Health Minister Iris Evans, or Premier Ralph Klein.

Premier Klein and his faithful sidekick Iris Evans have together conceived a new 18-page white paper entitled Health Policy Framework along with a spanking new webpage to explain it all to us rubes.

This is the legendary "Third Way" for Alberta health care that the Premier has been teasing us with for the last few years.

For an overview of what it's all about you might want to read "Klein moves to gut medicare" - an article by Thomas Walkom in the Toronto Star.

The Premier's happy face took a distinct downturn in the legislature yesterday as he hurled a copy of the Liberal Health policy booklet back in the face of the 17 year old female page who had just delivered it from the Liberal benches. The Premier had asked for their input. When it was provided it he had his tantrum and called it crap. Don't believe that the Premier of our Province could be that childish; that out of control? Read all about it here.

You have to hope that the Tory faithful will do the right thing at their upcoming leadership review.

John Clark, the most prolific contributor to Ralph's World of late, has decided to create his own weblog. He has asked that we remove his postings which we are in the process of doing. He plans to re-post a number of these on his new site.

John's new weblog is called "Alberta -- The Details" and is located at http://www.albertathedetails.blogspot.com/.

The management and staff at Ralph’s World wish John the best of luck with his new site and thank him for his many contributions.

Keep on blogging John!

Premier Klein is shown here explaining to a group of journalists how a simple misplaced decimal point along with a misunderstanding about how zeros work caused him to think that healthcare spending was out of control.

The following quote from a story in today's Edmonton Journal explains the problem.

"During Thursday's question period, Klein made gaffes while trying to defend his plans for health care. In an effort to justify the need for shaking up the system, Klein insisted at least six times that requests from health authorities totalled $100.6 billion for the coming year.
He then downgraded that figure
to $10.6 billion, only to later revise it to $1.6 billion. "I was wrong in my math, it was actually $1.6 billion," he said."

"As Shirley (Finance Minister Shirley McClellan) pointed out to me, those decimal points and zeros really make a difference" he explained.

"So I'm pleased to announce that we don't need any more of that "Third Way" stuff because it turns out I've got $99 billion a year more than I thought. We'll put $9 billion a year into healthcare and we'll still have $90 billion a year to spread amoung the folk which works out to $30,000/year/Albertan.

Have I got those decimal points right Shirl?"

Responding to criticism that last night's infomercial on the future of Alberta in the 21st century was fluff-filled, an animated Alberta Premier Ralph Klein today announced the first substantive step of his highly-publicized "Third Way" health care initiative – the replacement of beleaguered Health Minister Iris Evans with health guru Kevin Trudeau.

The Premier elaborated.

"Colleen gave me this book at Christmas called Natural Cures “They” Don’t Want you to Know About. It’s by this guy Kevin Trudeau and get this - it’s 571 pages long and it’s got a cure for just about everything in it, including cancer. Anyway, it got me thinking that if everyone in the Province read this book and followed Kevin’s tips we would pretty much cure everyone that was sick and prevent everyone else from getting sick. Hey, we could pretty well eliminate our health care budget.

So I got Kevin on the horn and stuck a deal with him. He’s going to provide every Albertan one of his books for the low low price of only $18.95 US (shipping and handling extra) and in exchange for the cheap price I’m going to make him Health Minister. That what you call a “win-win”, “thinking-outside-the-box”, “Made in Alberta” solution.” "

The initiative will cost Albertans taxpayers $65.5 CDN million (shipping and handling extra).

See related story here.





Premier Klein addresses Albertans through the magic of infomercial.

Ralph's World relies on an extensive network of correspondents throughout the province to bring forth timely, tasteful, and most importantly, relevant news to our readership. This just in.

“We are going to clean up our communities and keep them that way,” said a spokesperson from Alberta’s Department of Protected Environments.

The Premier’s Taskforce on Waste Elimination will deliver 400 free PoopSacks to every dog-owning family in the province. “We will ensure Albertans enjoy the cleanest roads, sidewalks, and lawns in the country.”

This new and innovative program, known as ‘The Turd Way’, proves once again that our beloved Premier is a visionary leader.

“There may be violations (of the Canada Health Act) but we don’t know yet because there are all kinds of steps to go through. But hemorrhoids are uncomfortable.”

With these carefully weighed words at a press conference yesterday Premier Klein provided a glimpse into the future of two-tier health care in Alberta. He went on to say that in Alberta people have to wait up to a year to receive treatment for hemorrhoids and those with money should be able to receive quicker treatment to relieve their suffering.

Alberta Health spokesperson Grace Perogee fielded reporter’s questions and provided additional details on the government’s new hemorrhoidal initiative.

“The Conservative caucus has enthusiastically endorsed the nine point plan for virtually eliminating pain and suffering from hemorrhoids for those Albertans that can afford it” she said. “Many caucus members related heartbreaking stories of their own personal battles with the diabolically debilitating disease. There wasn't a dry eye in the room”

"What we envision is a number of private clinics situated throughout the Province," Ms. Perogee went on to say. "We’ll leave it up to private industry how they staff their facilities and what type of hemorrhoidal extraction methodologies they use. We want to encourage innovation and we want sufferers to have choice of how they get those nasty suckers out of, you know, down there. We will insist that all new facilities rigorously police themselves and operate to the highest standards of cleanliness they feel they can afford. "

When asked if the government would dictate how much could be charged for the hemorrhoidectomies she responded that price would be left strictly to the market. "They can charge by the hemorrhoid or by the pound, we don’t care. They only involvement we will have as a government is ensuring that the wait times for the procedure in the public system remains no less than one year. This should provide a steady stream of clients for the new facilities."

In addition to her duties as spokesperson for Alberta Health Ms. Perogee is also co-owner and operator with her husband Pete of the Ponoka Six Minute Minilube and Hemorrhoid Removal Palace.

The Alberta Right Wing Dream Team


We got a Texan and two Albertans running things now.

Canada - we're coming to get you.

The media has been giving Mr. Harper a "free ride" on the issue of health care. They have generally ignored the position Mr. Harper has taken during the past eight years, and he has given no clear explanation as to what his position is now.

In 1997, Mr. Harper quit being a Member of Parliament for Calgary Southwest to lead the right-wing lobby group, The National Citizens Coalition. It is important to note that the National Citizens Coalition was originally formed to campaign against public health care in Canada.

Mr. Harper's avowed reason for the switch was that he wanted "to speak his mind more freely than being an MP allowed." And Mr. Harper certainly spoke his mind:

• In 1997, he said, "It's past time the feds scrapped the Canada Health Act."

• In 2001, Harper said, "What we clearly need is experimentation (in health care) with market reforms and private delivery options."

• In January 2001, in an open letter to Alberta Premier Ralph Klein on the "Alberta Agenda," Harper urged Mr. Klein to "resume provincial responsibility for health-care policy. If Ottawa objects to provincial policy, fight in the courts. If we lose, we can afford the financial penalties that Ottawa may try to impose under the Canada Health Act."

• In April, 2005, Harper's ideological colleagues Preston Manning and Mike Harris issued a joint report calling on Ottawa to get out of medicare and let the provinces experiment with private health services. They called for "critical surgery" on medicare. Ottawa, they said, should cease funding the system and transfer more tax powers to the provinces. They also recommended that the Canada Health Act should be scrapped or drastically reformed to eliminate all barriers to private services. Mr. Harper has never disavowed, condemned nor rejected this report of his Fraser Institute colleagues.

So just what is Stephen Harper's position on our system of public health care?

Has Mr. Harper changed his mind?

If so, how do the people of Canada know that, if the Conservatives take power in Ottawa, he won't change his mind back to the position he held before?

This article was sent in by a concerned Albertan from Edmonton.

From the management and staff at Ralph's World we wish all our readers a happy Hanukkah, a happy Ramadan, and a very merry Christmas.

To those politicians we poke away at please remember that it is only your policies we don't agree with.

Peace on earth!

The Edmonton Journal recently published a story headlined "Norris backers ante up $1M". You can read the story by clicking here.

It is a story of 106 Albertans who have ponyed up $10,000 each to help Mark run for Ralph Klein's job. The names of these generous fellows are listed in the story. The Journal had asked for the names of the donors and they were provided.

Full marks to Mr. Norris for providing the names and for the Edmonton Journal for asking for them and making them public. In a province where financial contributions are so skewed toward the Tory party in power, it is critical that Albertan's know who is contributing the money. Mr. Norris challanged the other contenders - Lyle Oberg, Ed Stelmach, Ted Morton, Jim Dinning to name a few, to disclose the names of the big shooters supporting their campaigns. Don't hold your breath for this to happen.

One thing that struck me as odd though was Mr. Norris's comment that his was a grassroots movement. My picture of grassroots doesn't have millionaire businessmen with $10,000 cheques in it. It's populated with more "ordinary" citizens. People who work hard for their $50,000 a year instead of people who work hard for their $500,000 a year.

The reality here in Alberta is that the Tory Party is the party of the wealthy businessman. The businessmen do their part by giving millions to the Tories and the Tory party does their part by bringing in legislation that keeps business taxes low, weakens the unions, allows the environment to be polluted, charges minimum energy royalties and provides captive consumers to the gas, electricity, insurance, and healthcare corporations.

The grassroots businessmen who gave so generously to Mark will likely give generously to Lyle, Ed, Ted and Jim. We will likely never know if they do or not. But they are businessmen and that's just a cost of doing business in our fair Province of Alberta.

I feel blessed. I do believe I am on the same e-mail distribution list as one of our most esteemed citizens in Alberta.

Let me explain.

Rick Bell of the Calgary Herald wrote an article covering a speech by EnCana CEO and prominent federal Conservative fund raiser Gwyn Morgan; - the esteemed citizen I'm referring to. You can read Rick's article by clicking here and smile back at Gwyn by casting your eyes to the left.

In his speech Mr. Morgan used a Canadianized version of the old Ant and the Grasshopper story. Here's how he put it as described in Bell's article.

He (Mr. Morgan) illustrates his world view telling the fable of the ant who works hard and achieves while the grasshopper plays. The ant stays warm in winter while the cold hopper calls a press conference covered by the CBC which broadcasts to clueless Canadians stunned at the plight of the lazy insect.

The NDP and others demonstrate, the Liberals tax and fine the affluent ant who moves to the States and is a success.

A couple months later, the fat grasshopper gobbles the last of the ant's food while the ant's house, which the hopper now inhabits, crumbles and the government calls a commission after lack of funding is seen as the problem.

To conclude this parable, the grasshopper dies of a drug overdose and the NDP blames it on the government. "How Canadian is that!" states a pleased Morgan.

This sounded strikingly similar to an e-mail I had received a few days ago from a friend on mine who swings with those on the extreme right of the political spectrum. After a little searching I found that e-mail. Here it is.

To:johnnyslow@gmail.com

Hey Johnny. Stick this in your commie pipe and smoke it!

THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER

CLASSIC VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his
house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a
fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant
is warm and well fed. The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so
he dies out in the cold.

THE END


THE CANADIAN VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. So far, so good, eh?

The shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less fortunate, like him, are cold and starving.

The CBC shows up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper, with cuts to a video of the ant in his comfortable warm home with a table laden with food.

Canadians are stunned that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so while others have plenty.

The NDP, the CAW and the Coalition Against Poverty demonstrate in front of the ant's house. The CBC, interrupting an Inuit cultural festival special from Nunavut with breaking news, broadcasts them singing "We Shall Overcome."

Sven Robinson rants in an interview with Pamela Wallin that the ant has gotten rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share".

In response to polls, the Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti-Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The ant's taxes are reassessed, and he is also fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as helpers.

Without enough money to pay both the fine and his newly imposed retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.

The ant moves to the US, and starts a successful agribiz company.

The CBC later shows the now fat grasshopper finishing up the last of the ant's food, though Spring is still months away, while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he hasn't bothered to maintain it.

Inadequate government funding is blamed, Roy Romanow is appointed to head a commission of enquiry that will cost $10,000,000.

The grasshopper is soon dead of a drug overdose, the Toronto Star blames it on the obvious failure of government to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity.

The abandoned house is taken over by a gang of immigrant spiders, praised by the government for enriching Canada's multicultural diversity, who promptly set up a marijuana grow op and terrorize the community.

THE END

That's the e-mail. Look's kinda familiar don't you think.

Here's a summary of the ant and the grasshopper story for those that like to keep their perspective of life in simple tablular form. Colour has been used as a visual aid to help readers remember what is right and what is wrong.

Conservative Ant	good
Liberal Grasshopper	bad
Canadians other than conservatives	bad
CBC	bad
NDP	bad
CAW in particular and unions in general	bad
Poverty elimination groups	bad
Inuit in particular and aboriginals in general	bad
Sven in particular and gays in general	bad
Taxes	bad
Roy Romanow	bad
Toronto Star	bad
Immigrants	bad
Multicultural diversity	bad

I'll keep you posted on any other e-mails that Gwyn and I get.

Update December 10th - 9:30 AM: An alert reader just e-mailed me that the Ant and Grasshopper story has just been posted on the Charles Adler website as one of "Chuck's Favorites". You can check it out here. Nice to see the Conservative boys talking with one voice these days.

Bill Rice, chairman of the Alberta Securities Commission was recently fined $1,000 for being a couple of months late in disclosing the insider trades he made in the shares of Tesco Corp., a well-drilling company he was also chair of until the beginning of November. You can read all about it by clicking here.

ASC spokeswoman Siobhan Vinish announced it this way. "He was assessed a late-filing fee, to be paid to the Ontario Securities Commission, which collects such payments,"

Bill makes about $700,000 a year at the ASC. When you make that much I guess in this province you don't pay fines; you pay fees. Makes it sound more like buying an annual pass to the national parks.

Good job Ms. Vinish. Good job Mr. Rice.

I feel better now about the ASC.

This letter appeared in the Edmonton Journal November 28th. The author is Noel Somerville who is Co-Vice-Chair of the Seniors Action Liason Team.

Thank you for printing Paul Krugman’s article, “U.S. health insurance system fails nation,” (Journal, November 17).

It beautifully illustrates the fallacy of Premier Klein’s assertion that there is a viable “third way”, a two-tier system that combines public and private insurance for health care.

As Krugman points out, private insurers are not interested in providing universal comprehensive health care coverage. Their business is making money, which they do by providing limited and often partial coverage to selected individuals for specified risks.

In order to make profit, they have to avoid risk. Accordingly they decline those with pre-existing conditions or indicators of high future expense. The aged, the infirm, and those with any life-style or genetic pre-disposition to injury or disease need not apply.

Even the private, employer-sponsored group health care plans survive only by virtue of the massive tax subsidy provided by the tax-free status of premiums. Under this system, the 50% of Albertans who don’t have access to employer-sponsored group plans (farmers, small independent businesses, seniors and the poor) will be taxed to support those who do.

Despite the Premier’s claims, the “third way” will not reduce health care costs; it will increase them because of the loss of economies of scale in our single-payer system. It won’t reduce wait lists except for the wealthy healthy. It won’t increase choice because it will be the insurance provider that decides what procedure they are prepared to cover, and where.

Finally, the “third way” will be a major blow to Canada’s resource and manufacturing sectors. They will lose the competitive edge over their American counterparts resulting from the much lower costs of our publicly insured medical system.

Noel Somerville

Stupid? You ask. Aren’t Alberta’s MLAs intelligent and educated?

Well, yes, but since humans arrived on earth, doing stupid things has never been confined to those of low IQ and poor education. Stupid is when intelligent men turn a blind eye to warning signs and dive into waters that suck them under and countless others with them.

Want to see stupid? Think what’s happening to the supposedly smartest nation in the world after plunging into Iraq without a plan for getting out.

When the head of Klein’s health care monster was exposed to the public recently (press release by Liberal party’s health critic) it revealed a sales campaign designed to plunge Alberta headlong into the murky waters of market place medicine. His cohorts deny it, of course, but you’d have to have been lost in the jungles of Guatemala for the last ten years not to know a blueprint for another of Klein’s propagandizing programs.

This latest sales pitch emerges against the backdrop of another of Klein’s media-invented dangerous dragons. He has been repeating the word “unsustainable” like a mantra just as he did the word “deficit” until he seems actually to believe his own distortions of reality. To defeat this “unsustainable” dragon he is trying to create the optical illusion of himself riding out on his “privatizing” monster to rescue us from the very waiting lists and crammed emergency rooms and horribly understaffed hospitals that his government itself has created. No warning signs, no evidence that privatization has sucked other countries into troubled waters far worse than the ones he’s helped create, seems to keep him from planning to plunge this whole province into waters where we will have lost any ability to keep from drowning in a whirlpool of insurance confusion and control by corporate medicine.

And, if that’s not stupid what is?

Submitted by Sandy

Previous comments from Sandy on this issue can be seen here and here.

Have a look at this. If you have trouble reading what the billboard says click on the picture to enlarge it.

Pretty much says it all about long term care in Alberta.

Make sure you visit the Alberta Government Response page.

This article by the Toronto Star's National Affairs writer Thomas Walkom provides an insight into the strategies used by those that want to trash our public health system.

Walkom describes the goings-on at the two day Saving Medicare Healthcare Summit recently held in Vancouver. The cost to attend the conference was $1100 + which pretty much guarantees that ordinary citizens will be excluded.

The entire article is disturbing. Particularly disturbing were strategies put forth by Preston Manning, someone whose views I usually didn't agree with but who I thought presented them fairly. I won't ever be labouring under that illusion again. The following are Walkom's words describing Manning's recommendations. An example of Preston "Thinking Big" we assume.

Reform party founder Preston Manning advises the crowd to present their ideas as a compromise. Canadians, he says, love compromises. But up to now, proponents of two-tier health care have been painted as extremists. The solution is to rearrange the terms of reference so that what appears moderate today is redefined as extreme and what appears extreme is recast as moderate.

Manning's strategy, borrowing from the terminology coined by Alberta Premier Ralph Klein, is to define two-tier medicine as the "third option." In this lexicon, the current Canadian system is redefined as one extreme and the U.S. system as another. A two-tier system similar to that of, say, Britain is then presented as the middle way.

Once the battle over language has been won, Manning says, it will be politically easier to follow his substantive prescription: Completely dismantle national medicare, have the federal government hand over more taxing power to the provinces and let them handle health as they please.

However, he continues, politicians — even conservatives — will not deliver this vision on their own. Politicians fear voters and the voters like medicare. So, the politicians must be pushed.

The way to do this is by creating a powerful, single-issue movement, independent of political parties, to lobby the public during an election campaign. This will involve money and organizers. Interest groups who want more private medicine will have to unite and hire an experienced campaign team, replete with fundraisers and pollsters. They will have to choose the most vulnerable targets (he suggests Quebec as a start). They will have to find the best spokespeople.

Here Manning suggests that anti-medicare forces find appropriate victims whose stories will appeal to the media.

Preston doesn't seem quite the elder statesman I thought him to be. His disrespect for the intelligence of the Canadian public is particularly disturbing.

His Daddy Ernest Manning fought tooth and nail against public health care back in the 1960s when he was Premier of Alberta but he ultimately failed. Perhaps Preston feels compelled to do what his Daddy couldn't.

Premier Klein theory of governing is to provide people choices. The word "choice" is sprinkled liberally throughout his speeches and “giving Albertans choice” is the justification for the many privatization initiatives his government has undertaken over the years. Better to choose your electricity from either Enmax at 8.10¢/kilowatthour or Direct Energy at 8.05¢/kilowatthour rather than have electricity foisted on you by a government regulated utility at 5.90¢/kilowatthour. We seem to buy that logic here in Alberta. I guess it’s the maverick in us.

Announcing his 12 step plan for health care reform last July the Premier said "It's time to move from ideas to action. It's time to offer people choice. It's time to take the shackles off the health authorities, open up the system, and see what works and what doesn't." Inspiring words. But the concern that most Albertans have is that the healthcare choices may end up like the electricity deregulation choices; costing each of us a bundle out of our own pockets.

So what's with the picture of the people in the Santa Claus outfits?

Well that's our supreme court. Their decision in the Chaoulli case is what the Premier holds up as the main driver for implementing private health insurance in this province. But the decision really gave all the provinces two choices. (There’s that word again). To quote a bullet from Alberta Health’s leaked PowerPoint presentation:

"Supreme Court said prohibition on private health insurance was unjustified when public system fails to deliver reasonable service." So what Klein is saying is that because Alberta Health fails to deliver reasonable service we have to allow private health insurance in the Province.

Well Mr. Premier. Looks to me like the Supreme Court has offered you two choices:

1. Open up the Province to private health insurance companies – the preferred option of your government
   
   or


2. Deliver reasonable health service to your citizens – the preferred option of the opposition party in this Province and every other government in the country.

Admittedly many other governments in the country, while they would like to provide reasonable health services to their citizens, are struggling to come up with the money to do it. What’s your excuse when you are struggling with an $8.7 billion surplus this year alone?

If the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party truly feels that government cannot provide reasonable health services to its citizens, then perhaps the citizens of Alberta should elect a party that does.

Now that's a choice that makes sense.