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hi all i wonder if the "parochial leaders" objecting to the proposed national health council have fully understood its appeal to their fellow (and sistow) canadian citizens? the canada health act is a national act not a provincial or territorial one the romanow commission asked canadians what we wanted to do about our health care system and the responses were crystal clear: - stop the intergovernmental squabbling - restore funding to required levels - make the system transparent and accountable to all of us all of which rests on a foundation of an empowered health council representing all of us including and especially citizens i.e. us patients and our loved ones; medical professionals; medical facilities; and all levels of government and even more important, removed from the political infighting and electionering roller coaster of "buying" and "selling" votes year by partisan year (the entire romanow report is available in plain html text format on my website) to regard the national health council as being simply another federal-provincial power-grab is to miss the point entirely just whose voices ARE they listening to? hello ... ? ... or should i say en garde! janet ----------------------------------------------- The battle to suppress a strong health council Friday, Jul. 11, 2003 - When Roy Romanow issued the report of his royal commission on health care last November, the recommendation that shone brightest was for a national health council. It was designed to reassure patients and taxpayers alike -- convenient, since they are the same people -- that the publicly funded health-care system was spending its money wisely. It was to be an instrument in the public interest, sharing the latest health intelligence with people across the country and hearing from the public about the way medicare was working, or not working. That public interest is being lost in the tiresome cold war between the provincial and federal governments. Alberta Premier Ralph Klein announced at the first ministers conference this week in Charlottetown that his government wanted no part of the national council. Quebec Premier Jean Charest, unable to shake his province's long-standing horror of joining in national projects, said his government would co-operate but would not join. Ontario Premier Ernie Eves, smarting because his province hasn't got the compensation it thinks it deserves from Ottawa for its SARS-related economic battering, is exercising his ill humour by saying his government doesn't want the council either. (Translation: He has an election to fight, and he figures his chances are better against Prime Minister Jean Chrétien than against provincial Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty.) Mr. Eves is also threatening to saddle Ontario taxpayers with a separate tax form each April, which should do wonders for his already low re-election prospects. Herding provincial and federal leaders into the same room and finding a template they could all live with was never going to be easy. Health care is a provincial jurisdiction, jealously guarded. The federal government weakened its national leverage in the 1990s by slashing health-care funding as part of its successful deficit-fighting program. It has since restored part of that funding, and prospectsseemed encouraging that the sniping parties might put their grievances aside in pursuit of an effective, national council everyone could support. Crucially, it was not to be federal or provincial. Mr. Romanow envisioned two federal and five provincial representatives on the 14-member council, the others being health-care professionals and lay-people. It would act, Mr. Romanow wrote, "as an effective and impartial mechanism for the collection and analysis of data on the performance of the health-care system," independent of governments. Its power would be in information, not coercion. It would shape the public debate. The first cracks appeared in February when Ottawa and the provinces agreed in principle to the council as part of a $27-billion, five-year deal to increase federal funding for health care. Their council was a pale echo of Mr. Romanow's, reporting through the premiers rather than being independent. Clearly the provinces weren't willing to stomach an independent council, and the federal government wasn't able to talk them into it. Then, in May, Alberta Health Minister Gary Mar circulated a draft document to the other provinces urging that the council's mandate be weakened even further: that it be stripped of almost all funding, that it be a pilot project for five years and that it have a majority of provincial representatives (a position echoed by Ontario's Mr. Eves). As ever, the myth is that the council is a stalking horse for federal intrusion into provincial jurisdiction, and has to be guarded against. That's easier to defend to the public than the reality: that the council would be truly national, a servant of the people rather than of either level of government. This week's truculent trio at the premiers conference has further dampened hopes for a strong, worthwhile body. There was talk earlier that Ottawa might create the council on its own, but that would risk compromising the body's perception as apolitical and above competing jurisdictions. Best to hope that the dissenting provinces will think again, and recognize the vision of an independent national council for what it is -- an instrument of accountability, a window into medicare for ordinary Canadians, and an opportunity to serve the public interest that parochial leaders oppose at their political peril. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/ ----------------------------------------------- janet paterson: an akinetic rigid subtype, albeit primarily perky, parky pd: 56-41-37 cd: 56-44-43 tel: 613-256-8340 email: [log in to unmask] my newsletter: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/newvoicenews/ my website: http://www.geocities.com/janet313/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn