Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Ellie Mae O'Hagan writes about Jeremy Corbyn's much-needed work in addressing the loss of hope by young people in the UK:

For the first time in a good few years, I’ve stopped worrying about money. I can imagine living somewhere nice without having to move to another country. I feel less worried about my parents, who could now be cared for by a properly funded NHS as they get older. I have hope that we may start taking climate change seriously, and people my age and younger won’t be left scooping out buckets of murky water from our living rooms every year. I may finally stop being a member of a sprawling precariat without sick pay, holiday entitlement or job security. It’s amazing to think my parents took those things for granted, and only now do I realise how low my expectations have been.

I know these things won’t happen overnight – maybe they won’t happen at all – but finally there is the possibility of them. Hoping for a better world doesn’t feel like a cruel and futile process any more. It feels rational; it feels like something we deserve.

Last night, when I was out celebrating, I met a 25-year-old woman who was in a two-year unpaid internship and still living with her parents. I spoke to a man in his 30s who said he felt like he was still living like a student. Is it any wonder that the surge for Labour was driven by people under 45? This demographic doesn’t care that Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t look like a conventional politician (they like it), or about things he did before they were even born. They just want the constant tension that pervades their lives – the tension that comes with having virtually no financial security – to be lifted.

- Meanwhile, Amy Traub highlights the widespread U.S. wage theft which transfers massive amounts of money from the workers who make the least to the corporations who already have the most. And Erik Loomis points out how the Trump administration is going out of its way to make work as hazardous as possible.

- The B.C. Health Coalition points out a new survey on the spread of private clinics and extra billing in Canada's health care system. And Andre Picard weighs in on the longstanding failure to deal with double-dipping and other practices which lead to both unfairness and poor results for patients.

- Marc-Andre Cossette reports on the Libs' painfully small first step toward child care funding.

- Finally, the Star's editorial board calls out the Trudeau Libs for their miserly attitude toward foreign aid.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- The Star offers some lessons from the UK's election, including the powerful appeal of unabashed social democratic policy. Aditya Chakrabortty discusses how Jeremy Corbyn has changed his country's politics for a long time to come. And Gary Younge observes that the gains achieved by Corbyn and Labour represent a victory for hope where voters had previously been told for far too long not to expect anything to get better.

- Meanwhile, Murray Dobbin slams the Trudeau Libs for turning a mandate from voters seeking a more progressive government into a plan to ramp up spending on war.

- Doug Cuthand argues that it's long past time for Canada's federal government to start living up to Jordan's Principle and ensuring fair supports are available for Indigenous children. And the Current discusses how childhood trauma creates health repercussions which last a lifetime.

- Kathy Tomlinson and Justine Hunter follow up on the flagrant flouting of the Canada Health Act with an expression of outrage from Jane Philpott, coupled with a claim that the federal government is powerless. But lest anybody think this is somehow a new issue which the Libs can be excused for not having recognized, it was a refusal to deal with exactly the same problem *12 years ago* which contributed to the fall of their previous government.

- Finally, Suzanne Goldenberg writes about the massive amount of food which goes wasted even as far too many people face food insecurity.

More medical negligence

The story surprisingly seems to have been overlooked following Tuesday's Question Period. But Tony Clement has apparently backed off even the Cons' meek initial response to Quebec's plan to facilitate health care double-dipping, leaving any enforcement of the Canada Health Act to the same provincial government which has already indicated its intention to allow patients to pay their way to the front of the line:

Ms. Penny Priddy (Surrey North, NDP):
Mr. Speaker, public health advocates are worried about a wait times plan in Quebec that will have far reaching effects. The new legislation would create a new industry in Quebec: for profit hospitals being paid for by public money. The health minister must immediately take steps to protect our public medicare system. What action has he taken so far?

Hon. Tony Clement (Minister of Health and Minister for the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario, CPC):
Mr. Speaker, as the Prime Minister indicated during the election campaign and as we have indicated as a government, we support the Canada Health Act and the principles of the Canada Health Act which include universal accessibility and universal coverage.

I had a conversation with my Quebec counterpart this morning. He is investigating the situation involving a Montreal clinic. I have every confidence that the Government of Quebec will support the Canada Health Act and universal accessibility.

In case there's any doubt, that's the same Quebec counterpart who's himself responsible for the legislation which formed the subject matter of Priddy's question. Which means that in addition to failing to respond to the question (though in fairness, the diversion was atypically from one relevant issue to another), Clement's answer signals that the Cons are perfectly content to let the provinces have the sole say as to whether or not their health-care schemes meet federal standards.

And that would be bad enough if the problem was merely the Cons' dereliction of duty. But then there's also the question of whether there's any reason for "confidence that the Government of Quebec will support the Canada Health Act". So let's take a look at what Couillard's office has had to say as to what standards it's concerned about:

When asked whether such fees were legal, an aide to Health Minister Philippe Couillard responded that the new law will resolve the question.

"Under Bill 33, accessory fees will be outlined in detail - what can be an accessory fee and what cannot," said Isabelle Merizzi.

In other words, Clement is entirely willing to leave the enforcement of federal standards to the judgment of a provincial government which (a) doesn't even consider those standards to be relevant to the question of what is and isn't legal, and (b) is itself responsible for one of the two likely breaches of federal law in question (and indeed the one which Clement was asked about initially).

Needless to say, any continued neglect by the federal government can only damage single-payer health care in Canada - both by allowing private funding to take a larger role, and by signalling to provinces that they can ignore the Canada Health Act with impunity. Which means that Priddy, the NDP and anybody else who values universal accessibility should be doing everything possible to highlight the danger both in Couillard's legislation, and in Clement's complete refusal to do anything other than pass the issue off to the source of the problem.