http://www.theglobeandmail.com/…

Canada’s premiers will play a pivotal role in the country’s efforts to integrate its economy with the 27 nations of the European Union, Quebec Premier Jean Charest says.

Preliminary talks between Canadian and European officials will begin on Oct. 17 at a summit in Montreal. The provinces’ role in the negotiations will be instrumental to the fate of the proposed massive agreement because it involves issues that primarily fall under their jurisdiction, Mr. Charest told The Globe and Mail yesterday.

No deal could happen without the premiers at the table, he said.

“Unless we are fully involved in the negotiations, we are not going to get the deal we want,” Mr. Charest said.

What about what the people want?

He described the proposed pact as a groundbreaking initiative on a scale that has never been attempted. The accord would go well beyond the scope of the NAFTA agreement between Canada and the United States by encompassing not only trade in goods and services but also the free movement of skilled workers and an open market in government services and procurement.

The pitch he is making to Europeans is to do a deal with Canada that can serve as a model for something far more ambitious with the United States.

Or maybe this is just the precursor to the NAU?

Whatever it is it sounds like another level of government, more control over our lives and another step toward tyranny.

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.dailymail.co.uk/…

How cute. Socialized National Health Service telling people who pay taxes to provide the service they can’t get service.

Further down in the article it talks about the European Commission considering a proposal to extend the upcoming ban on smoking in enclosed public places to cover doorways.

Officials have been studying the Canadian province of Quebec, where smoking is banned within nine metres of the doorway into any healthcare-related building, school or social services building.

The experiment is thought to have shown positive health benefits.

What the hell does that mean?!