http://www.canada.com/…

A new report by the Fraser Institute shows Canada-wide wait times for medical treatments have dropped markedly for the first time since the conservative think-tank started tracking health-care delays 15 years ago.

For the country as a whole, the median wait between being referred to a specialist and receiving treatment fell to 17.3 weeks in 2008 from 18.3 weeks last year - the longest delay recorded since the think-tank began studying the issue.

Ontario had the shortest total wait at 13.3 weeks, followed by B.C. (17) and Manitoba (17.2). The longest delays were found in Saskatchewan (28.8 weeks), Nova Scotia (27.6) and Newfoundland and Labrador (24.4).

Among the various medical specialties, the shortest total waits were for medical oncology (4.6 weeks), radiation oncology (5.8) and elective heart surgery (7.3), while the longest were for orthopedic surgery (36.7 weeks), plastic surgery (35.5) and neurosurgery (31.7). The median wait for a CT scan rose slightly from 4.8 to 4.9 weeks, while the same wait for an MRI fell to 9.7 weeks from 10.1. The median wait for an ultrasound rose from 3.9 to 4.4 weeks.

I’d provide comparison numbers with the USA but I couldn’t find any in a quick Google search. Looking up “usa mri wait times” results in just articles from the UK and Canada about long waits in their system.

http://www.thestar.com/…

The first American war resister deported from Canada – where he had fled after refusing to be deployed to Iraq – was sentenced to 15 months in jail yesterday at a court martial hearing in Colorado.

Pte. Robin Long, 25, of Boise, Idaho, was also given a dishonourable discharge after pleading guilty to charges of desertion.

The sentence was the longest any convicted army deserter had received since the beginning of the 2003 Iraq war, said retired U.S. Army Col. Ann Wright, a former diplomat who resigned from her post out of protest at the war’s outset.

Wright testified against the legality of the Iraq war on Long’s behalf.

Of the thousands of soldiers sentenced for desertion or going AWOL – and the estimated two dozen tried for protesting the war – only former army sergeant Kevin Benderman received an equal sentence in 2005.

About two-dozen anti-war supporters gathered around the courthouse at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs, Colo., yesterday afternoon as a military judge handed down Long’s sentence.

Though initially sentenced to 30 months in prison, that time was reduced to the 15-month maximum military prosecutors had agreed on when arranging a plea deal last week.

Long, 25, came to Canada in 2005 to flee a scheduled deployment to Iraq. While here, he was briefly engaged to an Ontario woman – with whom he had a child last year – before he moved to British Columbia, supporters have said.

He was deported and taken into the custody of the U.S. Army last month following a series of failed attempts to gain refugee status or permanent residency in Canada.

Late last week, Long’s lawyers reached an agreement with prosecutors that would see him plead guilty on charges of desertion with the intent to stay away permanently.

In return, prosecutors agreed not to move forward on the most serious charges of desertion with the intent to shirk hazardous duty.

Standing calmly and waiting for his sentence after three hours of testimony at yesterday’s hearing, Long appeared stoic and ready to serve his time in a military jail, supporters said.

“He was very calm and very measured,” said Wright. “He fully anticipated that he would be serving the entire 15 months.”

The dishonourable discharge he received could also go down as a felony offence and could restrict his future right to vote or carry a firearm, his lawyer said.

“(He) would pretty much become a second-class citizen,” his Oklahoma-based civilian lawyer, James M. Branum, told the Star earlier this week.

Like many of the other roughly 200 other American war resisters currently living in Canada, Long has said he opposed the conflict in Iraq on legal and moral grounds.

13th Amendment of the United States Constitution:

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Unlike property, a man’s will is inalienable and therefore intransferable. Should a contract provide for payments upfront then breaking the contract would constitute theft which the person breaking the contract and therefore commiting the theft would be expected to pay back. However, that person would still be free to exit without the threat of violence against them.

Murray Rothbard covers this in better detail in The Ethics of Liberty.

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/…

Back in the 1960s, Castonguay chaired a Canadian government committee studying health reform and recommended that his home province of Quebec — then the largest and most affluent in the country — adopt government-administered health care, covering all citizens through tax levies.

The government followed his advice, leading to his modern-day moniker: “the father of Quebec medicare.” Even this title seems modest; Castonguay’s work triggered a domino effect across the country, until eventually his ideas were implemented from coast to coast.

Four decades later, as the chairman of a government committee reviewing Quebec health care this year, Castonguay concluded that the system is in “crisis.”

“We thought we could resolve the system’s problems by rationing services or injecting massive amounts of new money into it,” says Castonguay. But now he prescribes a radical overhaul: “We are proposing to give a greater role to the private sector so that people can exercise freedom of choice.”

Castonguay advocates contracting out services to the private sector, going so far as suggesting that public hospitals rent space during off-hours to entrepreneurial doctors. He supports co-pays for patients who want to see physicians. Castonguay, the man who championed public health insurance in Canada, now urges for the legalization of private health insurance.

In America, these ideas may not sound shocking. But in Canada, where the private sector has been shunned for decades, these are extraordinary views, especially coming from Castonguay. It’s as if John Maynard Keynes, resting on his British death bed in 1946, had declared that his faith in government interventionism was misplaced.

What would drive a man like Castonguay to reconsider his long-held beliefs? Try a health care system so overburdened that hundreds of thousands in need of medical attention wait for care, any care; a system where people in towns like Norwalk, Ontario, participate in lotteries to win appointments with the local family doctor.

Interesting. I like MikeS’s of MooreWatch.com line: “Somehow, I rather doubt this will be a part of Sicko II: The Search For More Money.” I agree.

Check out the original article for a few Canadian healthcare horror stories.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/…

In just one month, more than 1,000 motorists have been charged under a tough new crackdown on speeding in Ontario - a figure that has “floored” insurance officials and left the Police Commissioner who recommended the idea wishing it were even tougher.

Effective from the start of October, anyone charged in Ontario with exceeding the speed limit by 50 kilometres an hour or more faces a barrage of harsh penalties, including a fine of between $2,000 and $10,000 and having their licence suspended and vehicle impounded for one week.

Even Police Commissioner Julian Fantino acknowledged he was shocked when he learned that 1,057 drivers had been charged as of Sunday, with an average rate of about 38 a day.

“The only regret I have now, in hindsight, is that I didn’t go after 30 over [the limit] as opposed to 50 over.”

A law similar to this was struck down in a state recently for breaking the 8th Amendment (though incorporation). Does anyone know if Canada or Ontario has something similar? It’s offensive to me that people can get fined at all for breaking random statute law. No harm has been brought to an individual or their property. There is no victim.