Thursday, March 02, 2006

A tale of two responses

Penny Priddy's response to Ralph Klein's health privatization plan is clear and to the point:
New Democrat MP Penny Priddy, a former B.C. health minister, said any proposal that places the main cost of medical treatment on a patient violates the federal health act.

"I would think most people would not need to do an assessment of whether it violates the act or not because they would know that it does."

Ken Dryden's statement from the same article is...well, rather less so:
"We can all deal in words but what we're always looking for with people in terms of their intentions, their real intentions, it's the whites of their eyes, and the way in which you get to the whites of their eyes is in their tone, and that's what I found difficult."
In other words, Canadian voters have a choice as to who can best fight for health care on the federal scene. The NDP offers a former provincial cabinet minister in the area making an apt policy critique (and that's leaving aside the even more polished official statement). In turn, the Libs counter with a leadership contender whose statement going to his core area of responsibility wouldn't look out of place in a book of Bushisms.

Of course, it seems all too likely that the comparison will be largely ignored, especially in the context of an article that merely lumps them together. But for those watching what the parties actually have to say, there should be little doubt who has a message worth listening to.

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