The CBC’s search last fall for “the greatest Canadian” didn’t grab my attention. I thought it was inane to try to compare gradations of “greatness” among so many diverse nominees. If the CBC had scheduled several such contests, to identify separately the greatest politician, the greatest athlete, the greatest scientist, the greatest writer, and so on, it would have made more sense. Still, I have to admit that I was gratified that the CBC’s production wound up acclaiming Tommy Douglas as the greatest Canadian.
Health, health care system, pharmacare
OTTAWA—If Health Canada’s proposed “modernization” of the Food & Drugs Act is adopted, the Department’s already inadequate protection of Canadians’ health and safety will be even more severely weakened.
That’s the warning Michael McBane is giving in his new study, Ill-Health Canada: Putting Food and Drug Company Profits Ahead of Safety, released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
Canada’s political and industry élites have made their choice: corporate profits are to trump the protection of citizens’ health. The evidence indicates that the federal health and safety regulatory agencies have been captured by industry. These agencies are now rigged to deceive the public.
The health care accord reached last September by the federal, provincial, and territorial first ministers is a better deal than those signed in 2000 and 2003, but suffers from the same flaws: poor accountability, reporting, and enforcement. Despite this agreement, Medicare is still on life-support—not because of a lack of money, but because of weak or nonexistent controls on where and how the extra money will be spent.
Canadians can be excused if they thought the healthcare “crisis” was over, what with the Romanow Report telling us it’s as sustainable as we want it to be, and the federal government pouring billions of dollars into public health care.
They can be excused if they are getting a little testy and confused with political leaders and pundits, high on ideology and short on facts, who still insist the sky is falling and health care is unsustainable—in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.
This collection brings together research reports prepared for the Romanow Commission by a Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-led team of researchers to address different aspects of globalization and its consequences for the Canadian health care system.
OTTAWA--Public, not-for-profit delivery of new and expanded health services, together with clear national goals, will minimize the risk of trade challenges undermining Canada's health care system, concludes a new book released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
OTTAWA--If health-care activists don't scrutinize where the recently announced over $41 billion in health-care spending is going, it could make the money squandered in the federal sponsorship scandal look like loot bags at a one-year-old's birthday party, says the author of a new report released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
OTTAWA--Drug regulation in Canada is carried out in a very secretive manner because of the cozy relationship between the brand-name pharmaceutical industry and the Therapeutic Products Directorate (TPD), the arm of Health Canada in charge of testing and approving new drugs.