Friday Evening Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Linda McQuaig discusses the need to fight fake news about Canada's health care system (and the corporate raiders trying to amplify it):

(I)t was with some pleasure last week that I watched as a Republican congressman tried to insist that Canadians routinely flock to the U.S. for health care, only to have MSNBC host Ali Velshi stop him dead in his tracks.

“Sir, I grew up in Canada,” Velshi declared. “I live in Canada. My entire family is in Canada. Nobody I know ever came to the United States for health care. I am sure you have a handful of stories about things like that. It is not actually statistically true.”

Whenever Americans start tinkering with their deeply dysfunctional health care system, we feel the reverberations up here, as right-wing commentators seek to denigrate our system of universal health care coverage, which they know sets a dangerous example.

With the ruling Republicans now poised to take health care coverage from 14 million Americans (eventually 24 million) and keep a straight face while insisting this is about increasing their “choice,” it’s worth reminding ourselves just how merciless, cruel (and stupid) so many of the Trump/Republican solutions truly are.

Health care is a particularly stark example, but it is symptomatic of the Republican keenness to fully embrace the private marketplace, even though that means abandoning vast numbers of their fellow citizens by the side of the road.
...
American commentators talk about how “complicated” reforming health care is. True, if you utterly reject the simple solution that works — a Canadian-style public system — it does become awfully complicated devising a solution that pleases the broader American public while also satisfying two radical extremists who together have the world’s largest fortune and a deep aversion to sharing.

- But Joyce Nelson examines Toronto's apparent interest in following Chicago's disastrous path toward privatizing parking as an example of foolish U.S. ideas can infiltrate Canadian politics.

- Crawford Kilian's review of Walter Schiedel's The Great Leveler points out that past reductions in inequality have largely arisen only in times of crisis, while wondering whether we can move past that trend. And on the bright side, Laurie Monsebraaten finds that Ontario's basic income pilot project is receiving massive public support - as well as questions as to why it isn't going further sooner.

- Jason Warick reports on the millions of dollars the Saskatchewan Party is burning on barely-used rural highways while slashing services for Saskatchewan's citizens. And Adam Hunter offers a look at the laid-off workers who seem to be the only people being forced to sacrifice for Brad Wall's poor governance.

- Finally, Brendan Kennedy writes about the reality of Canada's incarceration of immigrants - making for a particularly embarrassing contrast to Justin Trudeau's attempts to claim to offer opportunities for all.