Well said

Ralph Surette points out that the fact that we're paying billions more than we need to for prescription drugs is far from an accident:

Canadians pay 16 to 40 per cent more for drugs than the average of industrialized countries. A national Pharmacare program, as a half-dozen countries already have, would save Canada over $10 billion a year on its $25-billion drug bill. Even other reforms short of a full national program would save billions in administration costs, drug costs (through bulk buying) and eliminated tax subsidies.

This claim is the argument of a report released by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Since rising drug prices are one of the main drivers of a health care system said to be headed for unsustainability, shouldn’t we be curious about checking this out?
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(I)f we can’t even talk about it, we might at least admit the ultimate reason why reasonable drug prices, however delivered, seem so impossible: the control exercised by the pharmaceutical companies that have parlayed a handful of "miracle" drugs into a suffocating — and spectacularly profitable — influence on the economics of medicine.
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It costs less than $100 million (to develop a drug, compared to the $1 billion figure used by big pharma) — the rest is for promotion. Plus, of that $100 million, up to 80 per cent is in fact publicly funded "pure" research. The drug companies take that research and develop the pill. The public pays twice.

Further, up to 80 per cent of new drugs are a long way from miracles. They’re in fact knockoffs of existing drugs — a molecule changed, a new name, and a marketing campaign in the hundreds of millions. Since these knockoffs are tested against placebos, and not against each other, their relative value is really unknown and some may even be harmful. One of the money-saving recommendations of the CCPA report is a national assessment procedure for drugs, so we don’t pay a fortune for glorified Aspirin.

Juxtaposition

Sun Media, apparently recognizing that some of Ezra Levant's baseless attacks carry serious long-term costs:

On September 5, 2010, a column by Ezra Levant contained false statements about George Soros and his conduct as a young teenager in Nazi-occupied Hungary.
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The management of Sun Media wishes to state that there is no basis for the statements in the column and they should not have been made.

Chris Selley, who apparently wants to see a far lower standard of shenanigan than even Sun Media is prepared to defend:

Sun Media made the smart move of bringing in former Calgary Sun columnist Ezra Levant, who’s become the company’s most prominent opinionated face.
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Leave the shenanigans to Mr. Levant. He’s good at it.

On coverage gaps

There's been plenty of talk about how a single blogpost has changed the course of Sweden's ongoing election. But it's worth pointing out exactly what the problem is that's earned so much public sympathy, and how it fits into what the right wants to do to healthcare in Canada:

A young Swedish woman named Emilie wrote a blog post about her mother losing her health insurance. In Sweden, there's a national health plan that covers your living expenses if you lose your job due to failing health. While Emilie's mom has been certified unable to work by her doctors, the government functionaries running the national plan didn't believe her, and just cut off her benefits. Emilie wrote that she and her mother are now considering selling their home, as it's the only way they can be eligible for any more government benefits.

Now, it's not hard to see that Emilie's mother's situation is a natural consequence of a conditional public plan available only as part of a patchwork of insurance. Not only do significant resources have to be used determining what is and isn't covered, but some decisions will inevitably result in a massive burden on those who slip through the cracks.

So while the latest set of talking points in favour of a similar patchwork in Canada rather than equal and universal coverage has relied heavily on the exclamation that "even social-democratic countries like Sweden have private insurance!!!", the Swedes themselves seem set to decide an election based in large part on dissatisfaction with the harms caused by that system. And while it remains to be seen whether they'll end up taking steps in Canada's direction as a result, surely the outpouring of concern over stories like Emilie's should give us pause in listening to those who want to set up similar limitations on the availability of public health care in Canada.

Musical interlude

Holly McNarland - Beautiful Blue

On respectful disagreement

For the most part, I'll have to agree with Ed Broadbent's take on both the need for greater respect on the political scene, and the prospect that proportional representation would make for a step in the right direction:

The boorish behaviour now so typical in Parliament has contributed greatly to Canadians’ disenchantment with federal politics. It’s not surprising that we’re regularly asked what can be done to make the House of Commons more serious and relevant to our lives.

But it ought to be possible, even if it’s not happening now, for Parliament to do what it’s meant to do: to act as the country’s main public forum of debate, reflecting the diversity of Canadians as indicated by the way they vote, and to do this with both passion and civility.
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Real debates about substantive matters – war and peace, poverty and inequality, the continuing degradation of the environment – should rattle the chandeliers. But it is entirely possible to argue genuine differences of policy and values with conviction and passion while avoiding personal insult. As leaders, Pierre Trudeau, Bob Stanfield and I all had our faults. We often strongly disagreed, but we did it without personal invective or accusations of lying. Reason, passion and civility prevailed, grounded on the respect each had for the dignity of the other.

Now, I'm sure there are examples to be found as to how Broadbent's recollection doesn't tell the entire story of the relationship between the leaders of the '70s and '80s. But the more important caveat worth placing on his comment is that there's an obvious prisoner's dilemma underlying political debate - and little prospect of matters improving so long as one of the parties can be expected to defect from any attempt to improve the state of political discourse.

After all, it should be fairly obvious that a generally trusting and respectful political environment can only make it easier for a manipulative politician or party to avoid the consequences of actually being dishonest. So while it's probably worth giving the benefit of some doubt before a particular party has demonstrated bad faith, I'd argue that it's nonetheless important to point out a lack of credibility where it exists in order to create disincentives to breaches of the trust which the public should be able to place in its leaders.

Moreover, I'm not sure it can even safely be said that our current problem is more a lack of respect and deference than a misallocation or even excess of it. Even in what's seen as an unusually combative environment, for every example of MPs going overboard in pointing fingers and launching insults, there's a counterexample involving a failure to sufficiently question or challenge voices of authority - resulting in major legislation passing virtually unchallenged, and thoroughly implausible assertions being treated as news and then as fact simply because they originate with the government.

Of course, it's fair enough to point out that an undue focus on personality politics may only distract from the more important policy discussions which Broadbent rightly wants to encourage. But it's still necessary to point out gaps between promise and practice, or between invented "facts" and those which actually exist, in order to provide an incentive for politicians to avoid creating them in the first place - as without some assurance that rhetoric will be reflected in reality, all the respectful arguments in the world won't necessarily lead us to better political outcomes.

Well said

Dan Gardner nails how the political games around the gun registry have served only to distract Canadians from far more important issues, and figure to do so all the more in the next election campaign:

(T)he registry delivers little benefit for little cost. Should we scrap it? Maybe, maybe not. It won't make much difference either way.

Of course, I know that my conclusion will drive people on both sides of the debate bonkers. Few issues are more passionately argued than this one. It matters. Oh yes, it matters. But if the benefits and costs are small, why does it matter so much to so many people?
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The registry is symbolic. It resonates with many people's cultural perspective, making it far more compelling to them than other issues.

It's not that it matters in a practical sense. It's that they feel it.

The problem with these culturally loaded debates is that they can rob attention that should go to far more important matters. Remember all the talk about gun crime during the 2006 election, particularly after a sensational murder happened in Toronto? Perceptions were way out of alignment with reality. Indeed, even as the politicians were hammering away, gun murders in Toronto were plummeting.

Something else was going on, too: The military was moving to Kandahar in preparation for its toughest mission since the Korean War. But that was almost completely ignored during the campaign.

So what will we miss this time if we waste an election talking about an inconsequential registry?

On golden opportunities

BCL takes Brad Trost's bizarre answer to one reporter's questions about stadium funding as a sign of indecision. But I'd look on the bright side and consider how many juicy stories we can count on from Trost's response:

Other MPs, however, refused to comment. Brad Trost said his answer to any question from the reporter is: "Yes, no, maybe."

Just think of the possibilities that philosophy raises: anytime the Star-Phoenix needs an explosive political story, it can now ask Trost the kind of question where that such an equivocal answer will make for news in and of itself.

Need a Con source to support a theory of internal dissent? Just ask Trost whether he supports his leader. (Or better yet, whether he's planning an internal coup.) One "yes, no, maybe" later, you'll have your story.

Want to question the Cons' motives? Ask Trost whether, say, their gun registry machinations are simply an attempt to dupe rural supporters into giving money. And let the party spend the next several months trying to explain away "yes, no, maybe" as an answer.

And of course, questions about the Cons' actual policies themselves will also give rise to interesting answers. Is "lock and load" under consideration as the Cons' immigration plan? Do they plan to turn their neglect of the health care system into active demolition? "Yes, no, maybe", instant firestorm.

Granted, one would prefer to actually receive some meaningful content after asking a reasonable question of a Member of Parliament. But surely Trost's invitation to create stories at will is the next best thing - and I'll hope to see the Star-Phoenix take full advantage.

None so blind as those who refuse to see

Shorter Terence Corcoran:

If we assume that the bottom 50% are too insignificant to count, the top 1% too exclusive to be lumped in with their lessers, and the time period before the begin of the '80s greedfest too distant to be worth considering, then wealth disparity has hardly increased at all.

Deep thought

I for one think this would be an excellent time to focus on the economy. Over to you, Mark Carney.

Thursday Afternoon Links

Some light reading material to pass the day...

- Gilles Duceppe's sniping at the NDP can only be explained by the expectation that the NDP's continued growth in Quebec stands to cut into his party's seat count. But I find the particular lines of attack even more interesting than the fact that they're being raised: if Duceppe really sees nothing to differentiate his party from the NDP on policy than shades of opinion on a single language bill in the Assemblee Nationale and strategic direction on the gun registry, then doesn't that only serve to support the view that Quebec progressives are better of linking up with their brethren across the country?

- There's rightly been much ado about Lib MP Keith Martin's unequivocal statement in favour of privately funded and delivered health care.

But Martin's opinion piece (and its apparent endorsement by John McCallum) aren't the only signals from the Libs that they're less than interested in preserving and improving public health care in Canada. After all, Michael Ignatieff's new choice as health critic is...the same Ujjah Dosanjh who preferred to let the Libs' government fall than to work with the NDP when it sought to improve the Canada Health Act.

- Meanwhile, Michael Rachlis points out that there's no evidence that privatization schemes like the one being implemented by the Wall government will do anything to reduce costs.

- It shouldn't come as much surprise, but it's worth a reminder that farmers aren't seeing much benefit from increased food prices.

- Finally, Erin points out exactly why Canada's interests are at risk if Canpotex is undermined by any possible PCS purchaser:

Typically, China has been Canpotex’s biggest customer. The exception was 2009, when China bought less than Malaysia! This dramatic cut was engineered by Sinochem, the state-owned chemicals corporation that controls almost all of China’s potash imports.

If China can leverage its position as a major potash consumer to bargain lower prices, surely Canada should be able to leverage its position as a major producer to negotiate higher prices. Even if one believes that the world would be better served by more competitive potash markets, a viable “second best” may be for Canada’s coordinated selling power to offset China’s coordinated buying power.

The reviews are in

Matthew Bondy points out how Jack Layton's astute moves on the gun registry resulted in Michael Ignatieff's political games backfiring once again:

Ignatieff’s heavy handedness has peeved his caucus, alienated rural voters and handed authorship of the political narrative over to Jack Layton and the NDP, who now get to exercise the balance of power in the Commons.

Having been thrust into the spotlight, NDP leader Jack Layton has quite frankly graced the stage.

His position on this private member’s bill has always been clear: he wants the Commons to reform the registry to make it less invasive and offensive to rural and aboriginal Canadians while preserving its benefits for law enforcement. But he has also consistently endorsed his caucus colleagues’ right to vote their consciences.

Following Ignatieff’s decision to strip his colleagues of their democratic rights, Layton immediately went to work proffering his compromise position to Canadians and engaging his dissenting MPs in private, persuasive dialogue.

After weeks of sustained effort, on Tuesday afternoon Layton proudly announced he’d convinced enough of his formerly dissenting rural MPs to support the registry, meaning the firearms database will likely survive next week’s crucial vote.

Layton has achieved a parliamentary and political masterstroke that should leave his peer leaders chastened and impressed.

The NDP leader has preserved democratic norms in his caucus; protected caucus unity by bringing his team around organically to a decisive consensus; and successfully withstood media and advocacy-group pressure to whip his parliamentary team. He opted instead for cool, patient persuasion and consistent, common-sense messaging.

Layton has achieved his objective of saving the gun registry while sending the right conciliatory messages to his party’s crucial rural supporters in northern Ontario and the Prairies.

And perhaps most importantly from a political perspective, he’s kept the NDP in the news and looking like a reasonable, responsible opposition party.

See also Andrew Coyne in Tweet form.

On spillover effects

There's been some discussion about how the HST will influence votes over the next few years - with Dalton McGuinty looking to have it considered solely as part of his party's body of work in the 2011 Ontario election, while the B.C. Libs hope to spread their province's even greater anger over a period starting with the recall window this fall and not ending until the 2013 trip to the polls. But it's worth keeping in mind that it's not only on the provincial level that voters will have a chance to express their anger.

That's particularly so in B.C., where the argument about the supposed "benefits" of the HST is largely coming down to Gordon Campbell's plea that province can't afford to give back the federal Cons' bribe money (and will take back the money that handed to voters to try to buy their silence).

Of course, it seems clear that the province's citizens were less than happy with the deal to begin with, and thus won't have much compunction about voting to undo it. But the more Campbell talks about the federal role as an excuse to keep the HST, the more the Cons figure to be dragged down as well as the debate plays out. And to the extent Campbell claims the province can't afford to lose the money involved, it wouldn't be at all surprising to see the anti-HST forces challenge whether the Harper Cons want to punish the province for the Libs' mistakes.

As a result, a federal election in the midst of an HST referendum could serve as one more outlet for voters to replace a government looking out primarily for corporate interests with one that actually takes their concerns into account.

The situation may be different in Ontario, as the McGuinty government has chosen a strategy of taking somewhat more responsibility and engaging in correspondingly less finger-pointing. But it's anybody's guess as to whether that will hold up, particularly as the federal role gets discussed in the context of the B.C. campaigns. And while the Libs and Cons may be able to do little more than bash each other to a draw when it comes time to assign blame for the HST, there's one party that can stand above the fray.

All of which means that the HST is far from done with as an issue at either the provincial or the federal level. And there's a strong chance that the Campbell Libs' attempt to delay facing the music will only ensure that all of the governments responsible will end up paying a well-deserved price.

Measured contributions

While the Cons are making every effort to change the subject from their census vandalism, they haven't been able to stop people far more competent than themselves from keeping the issue alive. So let's quickly survey what's happened over the last little while.

The most noteworthy development was of course the proposal - made by Alex Himelfarb and Mel Cappe among others - to remove any political authority to interfere with Canada's chief statistician's judgment as to what should be included in the census. While the suggestion would have its own limitations (since the chief statistician will inevitably fall under some level of political influence), it does seem to avoid the problems with trying to dictate the contents of the census more directly - making it highly promising as a potential consensus solution.

Meanwhile, Stephen Gordon links to a series of short papers in Canadian Public Policy which collectively show exactly how the Cons are damaging both Canada's ability to govern itself, and its standing in the world.

Finally, while it's worth a reminder that businesses will suffer just as much as governments in the absence of accurate information about Canadians, Wayne Roberts is right to note that the Cons' destruction of the census fits a long-running pattern of trying to tilt the balance of knowledge toward the corporate sector rather than government:

In an era when it’s axiomatic that you can’t manage what you can’t measure, taking accessible measurement information out of the public realm is a way of transferring management from the public to the corporate sphere. Many companies have as much information on customers’ habits as their therapists, and now, in Canada, they’ll have a monopoly on the kind of data needed to plan.

During the 90s, in the first phase of neo-liberalism in Canada, when it was said that the task of government was “to steer, not to row,” Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney closed down the Economic Council of Canada, while Ontario premier Mike Harris shut the doors on the Premier’s Council on Health and the one on science and technology – ensuring that corporations, not governments, owned the tools for effective steering.

After a decade’s lull, the Conservatives are at it again. The hidden assumption is that the days of government planning are numbered and only one force needs fine-grained information on social and health trends: the market.

On delayed construction

Michael Warren's column on the effects of the Cons' plans to cut off stimulus spending in March 2011 even if projects haven't been completed for entirely valid reasons. But it's worth noting that municipalities and provinces have an option besides biting the bullet and finishing the work on their own dime while the Cons abandon ship: wouldn't a set of 1,000 half-finished Harper Holes across the country - complete with the "Economic Action Plan" signs that have been the Cons' top priority all along - form the perfect backdrop for the election campaign that Warren figures will happen next year?

On temporary victories

I'll second pogge's reminder that Kory Teneycke's abrupt departure is far from the last word on Fox News North. But it's worth taking a closer look at what it does figure to mean for both the network and Teneycke personally - and the end result is that this is only the beginning of the battle for media space.

Let's start with Sun Media, where the conclusion looks to be fairly obvious: there's no apparent reason to think that Teneycke's departure will radically affect its overall plans. It's still cleared out its reporting ranks in favour of a group seen as friendly to the Cons; it's still going to be fronted by a Con insider such as to raise obvious concerns about the connection between the Harper government and the network; it's still pushing forward with the same apparent scheme to strongarm the CRTC into getting its way no matter how much political interference that requires.

The only missing piece will be the deliberately inflammatory face of the network thus far. And while it's a plus that Teneycke's ignorant and offensive persona has come to be seen as a negative even by the network which was set up to promote it, it's not hard to see Sun Media simply following the same progression as the political movement that offered Teneycke his past experience, shedding some of its more radical beginnings in favour of a longer-term plan to incrementally move the media toward its preferred format. (Indeed, one could see Teneycke as having shifted the Overton window as to what type of behaviour is acceptable in a big-name media operator - making it more likely that an only slightly less over-the-top replacement will have a better chance of winning approval than would have been the case if he'd never put on his show of buffoonery.)

As for Teneycke himself, there are a couple of readily-apparent possibilities (assuming Harper won't want to put him back on the federal payroll immediately). If he's determined to stay involved with Sun Media, then a Ryan Sparrow-style timeout would seem to be the likeliest course of action: a couple of months out of the limelight, followed by a rehiring into a role slightly less public than the one that's made him a laughingstock.

But at least since his hiring by the CBC (which he's apparently written out of his own resume), Teneycke has been less than shy about building his own profile even if that can only be done by making a show of cutting any ties with reality. And his resignation would figure to offer him the opportunity to go much further along that same path without the burden of being attached to a network that has to deal with public-interest standards and other similarly inconvenient limitations.

Wherever Teneycke ends up, though, it's worth keeping in mind that on the right, catastrophic failure and utter embarrassment are far from being career-limiting moves. Indeed, they can even serve as major boosts to anybody who's more interested in trading on the devoted beliefs of cultists than being seen as sane by upwards of half of the population.

As a result, this figures to be far from the last we'll hear from both Fox News North and its first pitchman. And while Avaaz and other can take credit for a noteworthy achievement, there's far more to be done to try to shift Canada's media scene from its various shades of corporatism toward something that actually speaks to and for the public.

On raw deals

It may have seemed like the Cons' decision to burn $16 billion on a sole-sourced contract to buy F-35s couldn't get any worse. But one should never underestimate the Cons' ability to negotiate a more damaging deal than any remotely reasonable person could possibly imagine signing, particularly where the U.S. is involved. (Anybody remember their handing $1 billion to U.S. interests who had lobbied for illegal tariffs in exchange for softwood lumber "peace" which lasted approximately .7 nanoseconds?)

And apparently they've fallen into that pattern again with the fighter jet fiasco. Now, Le Devoir reports that they've voluntarily abandoned Canada's normal policy of requiring domestic investment in the amount of a defence contract in order to secure the privilege of overpaying Lockheed Martin for the planes. Which looks to do nothing but ensure that our public money does as little as possible for Canadian citizens - and offers another signal that given the choice between Canada's population and American corporate interests, the Harper Cons will take the latter's side at every opportunity.

New Brunswick election reading

As the New Brunswick provincial election campaign enters its home stretch, here's a quick survey of a few sources worth reading to get a handle on the campaign.

Let's start with Alice's customary detailed look at the state of party nominations at the the Pundits' Guide's New Brunswick page - with links to all candidates' websites serving as a particularly useful resource for those looking to track down information in a hurry.

For those looking for a quantitative analysis of the state of the campaign, the place to go is once again Three Hundred Eight, whose multi-poll projections figure to be particularly useful in a tight campaign where single polls can be found to support almost any possible outcome. (ThreeHundredEight's NDP projection has slipped from two seats to one based on a campaign-period drop from the teens to lower double digits.)

Meanwhile, if you're looking more for a subjective riding-level analysis and projection, NBPolitico makes up for relatively infrequent posts by serving up plenty of material at every turn. NBPolitico now projects two seats as "lean NDP" (leader Roger Duguay's riding of Tracadie-Sheila as well as another northern riding in Nepisiguit) - but based on my own limited contribution to the race, I'm particularly interested to note that Saint John East has been downgraded from "safe Liberal" to "lean Liberal", signalling that it's looking to be more in play as the campaign progresses.

As for media outlets, newspapers to check out include the Telegraph-Journal, Daily Gleaner and Times & Transcript, while CBC New Brunswick also has regular updates and analysis.

If I've missed any sources worth including, please feel free to point them out in comments - as the campaign looks to be well worth following closely from here on in.

That didn't take long

Now that the ball is in the Libs' court on the gun registry, is anybody particularly surprised to see an immediate swing and a miss?

Speaking earlier Tuesday, Liberal House leader David McGuinty would not say whether all members of the Liberal caucus would show up for the Sept. 22 vote.

Which would seem to be a rather damning bit of obfuscation considering how much time the Libs have spent claiming that they consider anything short of a full whip to be a failure.

From no-win to win-win

The line that the long gun registry is a no-win issue for Jack Layton and the NDP has already been proven wrong to at least some extent. But a few Libs seem to be realizing the dangers of their choice to escalate the stakes - and the end result could be a decisive moment in discrediting the Libs as an opposition party for once and for all.

Keep in mind how the gun registry issue has played out. At the beginning, both the NDP and the Libs allowed free votes on C-391, which is why it's within one reading of passing the House of Commons.

But it was Michael Ignatieff who decided to suddenly reverse course by insisting that "leadership" means cracking a whip, while chiding Layton for allowing his MPs to think independently. The result has been constant pressure on the NDP - with no end in sight as long as the Libs could claim that with three parties having locked in their votes, it would be NDP MPs alone that would make the difference in whether C-391 would pass.

Now, though, it looks like Layton's leadership by persuasion rather than force has managed to flip enough votes that the registry would stay in existence if the Libs' whip holds.

And it's far from clear whether that will happen. After all, Michael Ignatieff's record on enforcing them is less than stellar - and there's some reason for doubt that at least a few of the Libs' MPs have actually bought into his position on the long gun registry.

Which means that we may not be far from what looks to be the NDP's best possible end result from a strategic standpoint.

If the registry gets voted down due to a failed attempt at a Liberal whip, then suddenly both sides of the vise will crumble: the Cons will no longer have the registry to fire up their base in Saskatchewan and Alberta, while the Libs will wear the registry's elimination in the urban centres where they've been playing up the issue. And what's more, the contrast between Layton's successful leadership by reason and Ignatieff's failed attempt at central control will offer an ideal contrast as Canadians decide whether they want to replace Harper's own brand of autocracy with merely a less-effective version of the same, or with a leader who doesn't insult the intelligence of MPs and voters alike.

On non-issues

Of course, while we may all have ideas about how a rational government should approach health care, we're currently stuck with something else entirely. Which leads to this odd news about what's expected to happen at the meeting of Canadian health ministers this week:

Federal, provincial and territorial health ministers, who are meeting in Newfoundland this week, will agree that the recommended daily intake of sodium should be cut to 2,300 milligrams from 3,400 mg, sources said Tuesday.

That amounts to about a teaspoon of salt per day and was the recommendation emanating in July from a federal task force.
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Federal Heath Minister Leona Aglukkaq joins the table Tuesday and the emphasis is expected to shift to matters like sodium. Ms. Aglukkaq, is however, expected to offer her opinion on Newfoundland's plan to conduct observational studies of liberation therapy.

But the issue of salt is expected to dominate a significant chunk of the discussion at the closed-door meeting.

Now, I'm not entirely sure which provinces have a salt lobby which would oppose reducing even the recommended amount of sodium (knowing that it has absolutely no binding effect on actual food production). But how else can one explain the report that the meeting of health ministers will be "dominated" by what would seem to be an entirely non-controversial issue?