Blue Like You

Archive for November 11th, 2007

Great Remembrance Day post by Garth Turner.

Lest we forget.

There is a commendably civil debate still going on several posts back - School controversy not over yet.

This was the post that featured an elaborate comment from an even earlier post by Education Equality president Leonard Baak. Since then, Mr. Baak and others have been carrying on a spirited debate regarding public education, and specifically Education Equality’s push for a single school system.

Advocates of other points of view have been joining in.

More issues have come up tangentially, including the current TDSB’s contemplation of a school for blacks only.

Lorrie Goldstein’s column in today’s Sun, Black School a phony fix, suggests that a one-off pilot project like this is not going to address the underlying problems facing public education today.

I personally don’t think that getting rid of public funding for Catholic schools will “fix” it either, although it would be one way of addressing the religious discrimination issue that concerns Mr. Baak and others. Another way of course would be to follow John Tory’s prescription, but Ontario has already rendered its verdict on that subject.

Goldstein’s common sense suggestions of merit pay, proper discipline, vouchers and charter schools (among others) are worth considering.

Just like health care, there are some serious issues in Ontario. Will the McGuinty government one day have the intestinal fortitude to look for real answers rather than pandering to the unions?

I’m not holding my breath.

Good taste.

Bad taste. (i.e. the cartoon; not the Torch)

Apparently the Star didn’t learn a thing.

Sun columnist James Wallace warns us of more doctor shortages ahead for Ontario.

Here are the grim numbers:

The Ontario government over the past five years has increased health care spending by a staggering $10 billion.

Doctors got a $1-billion pay hike during their last round of negotiations with the province in part to make physician compensation competitive with other jurisdictions, help attract new doctors and retain existing ones.

Hospitals have been offered barrels of cash to reduce waits by pushing more patients through surgeries and procedures.

The government has hired thousands of new nurses, increased medical school spaces, doubled training to allow more foreign doctors to practice here and created new family health teams in an attempt to expand patient access to doctors.

But five years of spending has removed just 200,000 “orphan” patients from the list of Ontarians without a doctor.

More than a million Ontarians, including 130,000 children, still can’t find a family doctor.

On top of that, as Wallace points out, many doctors will be retiring soon:

…doctors are getting older and some 2,500 family practitioners and specialists — about 10% of the total — are 55 or older…

Things are clearly going to get worse before they get better.