Mass Resignations From MUHC a Good Start

When I read the story of the mass resignation of the independent members of the MUHC hospital board of directors my reaction wasn't one that most people would have.

“The 10 independent members of the board of directors of the McGill University Health Centre resigned en masse Monday, saying they have been hamstrung by Quebec Health Minister Gaétan Barrette.
The departures of more than half of the 19 board members followed a wave of public criticisms Barrette levelled at the MUHC for its chronic failure to rein in its deficits.
The board said it cannot function effectively with a health minister who threatens trusteeship and refuses to speak to them directly.
“He considers us an impediment. Our only interest is what is best for the MUHC and the community. It’s better that we resign,” board member Glenn Rourke told the Montreal Gazette of the official decision made earlier in the day “with much regret.”
The board represented the community and its expertise, “it was a good board,” Rourke said. “But the real power lies with the minister. The board couldn’t even name its chair or CEO.” Link

What shocked me was the bloated makeup of the board, with nineteen members, an unworkable number, a utter recipe for disaster especially since the members were voluntary, which actually makes things worse.
Now the average corporate board of directors is made up of between seven and eleven members with experts mostly agreeing that around eight members is the perfect number. Anything more and things inevitably bog down with each member trying to be heard.
Make no mistake, the more people involved in a decision, the worse the result.

The MUHC's nineteen board members is representative of the bloated bureaucratic mess that is the Quebec health system.
I have had some experience as a volunteer board member and can tell you that the experience was more than disappointing with so many unqualified voices around the table, all putting in their two cents, making every decision a long-drawn out affair that by nature precluded any bold or innovative initiative.
Volunteer board members are by nature ineffective, self-important blowhards where cronyism and mutual masturbation sessions the norm rather than the exception. Bah!!

The mass resignations have spawned a new crop of wannabees who are making their way to the forefront, all wanting a piece of the action.
The hospital union is demanding three seats on the board and I can only imagine the agenda they would bring to the table where the union member's interests would be placed before the good of the hospital akin to the lunatics running the asylum.
The solution?
Get rid of the board of directors completely. They are useless and redundant. The government pays for the operation of the hospitals and should run them themselves without the interference of an
amateur board of directors.
The same goes for school commissions that burn through money spent on a useless administrative layer that contributes nothing to the well-being of students. The baloney argument that our English school boards somehow protect our Anglo rights is a joke, where actually these commissions are awash with corruption, incompetence and intrigue. Good riddance!

The resigned board members of the MUHC objected to the minister's demand that they live within their budget, demanding meetings to plead their case, the entreaties which fortunately fell on deaf ears.

Make no mistake, bloated hospital administration is strangling the delivery of health care in Quebec and the revelation that Quebec has the worst emergency room response in the entire western world is a disgrace that is entirely the responsibility of idiot administrators, the MUHC board included.

It isn't as if Quebec spends less than other provinces on health care or that we have fewer doctors and nurses, we actually have more doctors per capita than Ontario. So it is the administration that is the disaster that our health care system faces.

Health minister Barette has demanded that the MUHC live within its budget, something easily enough accomplished if the interminable layers of bloated administration fat are pared back.

On my last trip to the hospital I was advised that I needed to secure a hospital ID card in order to receive treatment and so I trundled off to the office that issued these cards.
My question to the issuing clerk was what exactly is the raison d'etre of the card, since I had a perfectly good Quebec medicare card with an individualized ID number that could easily be used for my file.
Now the hospital card did not have a chip that had some sort of important patient information stored, it was a plain dumb card that just had an individual number that linked me to my hospital file.  But I already had a medicare ID number issued by the government that could easily be used. It's just really a number.
One medicare number and another hospital number. Does that make sense to you?

It is the same idiocy that requires students in our universities to secure an extra library card in order to borrow books, in addition to their university student ID, which could for all intents and purposes be used for lending purposes just fine.

This is bureaucracy, Quebec style. It is the real cancer destroying our healthcare.

Omar Khadr Should Pay Canada For Saving His Ass

Omar Khadr, You'd be smiling too.....

First, I'm not going to argue the merits of the case.

In fact, I believe that Omar Khadr wasn't a terrorist, but rather a combattant in a war that pitted the United States against Afghani forces of the Taliban or the irregular forces of al Qaeda .
Whether Khadr was 15 years old or 50 years old is hardly the point, he was fighting the Americans and as such was nothing more than an enemy combatant, an enemy combatant that was also a child soldier.
But he certainly wasn't a terrorist as we define one.

"Khadr was accused of murdering U.S. Army Sergeant 1st Class Christopher Speer with a hand grenade during the battle in Afghanistan and making roadside bombs for use against U.S. forces. He was charged with murder, attempted murder, conspiring with al Qaeda, providing material support for terrorism and spying on U.S. forces, and could face life in prison if convicted." Link

Those charges seem laughable, where those you fight can be charged for war crimes just because they are fighting against you. Let us remember that America came to Afghanistan to seek vengeance for the bombing of the World Trade Center and the war they propagated was basically on their hands.
Declaring Khadr a terrorist is a stretch that only America seems capable of making, it doesn't stand up to any reasonable interpretation.
But Kadir was declared a terrorist by the Americans and carted off to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba where Canadian law doesn't apply and where come to think of it, American law doesn't apply either.
Guantanamo Bay is by nature a place where enemies can be interned without the pesky rule of law or  even the rules of the Geneva Convention. Those interned face an uncertain future where they can be warehoused indefinitely without charges, where unlike prisoners of war, released on cessation of hostilities.

The Supreme Court of Canada found our government complicit in his detention because members of CSIS (our under-impressive Secret service), participated in his interviews whilst he was in custody, and for this the government is now paying the ridiculous sum of $10 million plus an apology.

But let us examine reality, the Americans weren't about to release Khadr from detention had Canada done the right thing and objected, acting in the manner that his defenders say they should have, by claiming him a child soldier, and certainly not a terrorist by any stretch if the imagination.
No amount of protest by Canadian foreign affairs would have mattered a whit, since the Americans were never inclined to entertain such an entreaty with the very proof being his detention in an extra-judicial facility.
That the Americans handled the case shoddily and mistreated Khadr by his long incarceration is in no way the responsibility of Canada or it's taxpayers.

The fact that Stephen Harper and the Conservative government applauded his mistreatment, doesn't change the fact that had Trudeau been Prime Minister at the time and objected to the Americans over Khadr's condition, his outcome would have been the same.
The truth was that Khadr's outcome was not in our hands.

I would agree that Canada should not have participated in his interrogation unless it was to determine if other family members in Canada or acquaintances had like-minded intentions, but his interrogation by CSIS changed his then current condition not a bit.

In fact Khadr should thank his lucky stars for being Canadian, having been transferred to Canada to finish his sentence where he was released after the shortest time that America would accept. Had Khadr remained in American custody, he may well have spent the rest of his life in custody, whether merited or not.
His freedom is thanks to his Canadian citizenship, something he should thank his lucky stars for, instead of suing us.

Montreal's Safe Injection Site Another Moronic Idea

Now that the city of Montreal has opened storefront drug injection sites for junkies to enjoy a safe space to ravage their bodies with drugs, perhaps the city should consider buying a vacant  building and furnishing the apartments with all sorts of consumer goods, jewellery and some cash for the benefit of habitual burglars who would be allowed to ply their trade, thus reducing the number of residential break-ins. For that matter, how about a place for pedophiles to satisfy their sick predilection, although the application would likely be a bit problematic.

Those proponents of safe injection sites manifest a holier than thou attitude of smug superiority, telling us that we should much prefer a controlled site where junkies can slowly kill themselves, rather than to allow them to shoot up in the streets and back alleys, strewing their needles for our children to find.
At any rate, if we are really bent on providing injection refuges to safeguard society and the junkies themselves, is it not logical that we provide the drugs as well, in order to undermine the dealers and to eliminate the crimes related to procuring the drugs?

Ridiculous? Absolutely....
The entire idea of safe injection sites is based on the moronic idea that to control evil is better than to combat it.

Families who live with the agony of a drug addicted member understand that allowing a loved one to continue their drug use in a safe environment, is not exactly the path to redemption.
Allowing addicts to remain at large means that not only will they continue to destroy themselves, but also their families and in the larger picture, society in general as they rob and steal to feed their habit, inflicting violence and emotional pain on those around them. For women addicts the descent into Hell includes prostitution and degradation.
Not something you'd want for your son or daughter.

The fault in the argument that safe injection sites are the preferable alternative fails to understand that there is another option, one that removes junkies from the streets and forces them into mandatory drug rehab, whether they like it or not.
Before one pooh-poohs the idea of mandatory rehab for addicts, consider that each safe injection site saves on average, just one life a year. In fact, despite the hoopla, safe injection sites attract precious few addicts and while they remain a liberal ideal, they are absolutely useless in solving the problem of extreme drug addiction.

Right now, using drugs like heroin is not a crime, unless it leads to disorderly conduct.But what if public drug use of heroin type drugs were to be made a criminal offence and addicts were rounded up by the police and duly convicted of being a habitual drug user, then sent to special rehab prison where they would be forcibly detained and subjected to therapies to break their habits, however long it takes, even years.
Opponents will argue that making drug addiction illegal will only drive addicts off the streets, which in my mind is already a good result, but the truth is that junkies are out of control and are easily found out, with families probably the very first to denounce loved ones who are addicted, in an effort to find an end game that doesn't include death by needle.

Safe injection sites are another alt-Liberal idea that sounds compassionate but actually hurts those it is supposed to help.
Drug addiction is a serious affliction requiring a serious and brave response.

Coddling addicts with safe injection sites is not the answer.

Quebec Can Be Successful After Independence

Over the years, many of my sovereigntist friends have asked my opinion on what a post-independent Quebec would need to do to become successful and mitigate the damage of losing so much federal financial assistance.
Let me play the Devil's Advocate and undertake an exercise that few if any sovereigntist leaders or economists would dare, that is examining what actions a government could and should undertake to assure the very best outcome.
Let's start by understanding that there are many, many loose dollars lying around and many economies to be made because quite frankly both Canada and Quebec are operated by big spenders who throw around money willy-nilly, without regard to value or necessity. Belt-tightening won't be the answer to Quebec's financial redemption after sovereignty, but with so much fat to cut, it certainly will help.
It was announced this week that Quebec is running a $4.5 billion surplus, a fantastic achievement by a federalist Quebec government determined to cut costs which paradoxically lends more credence to a viable independent Quebec.

That being said, there needs to be some considerable savings to make up the shortfall, when we consider the $15 billion that Ottawa contributes over and above what Quebec pays in federal taxes and levies, the number that seems to be bandied about by economists who presume to know.
Since Quebec is now running a $4.5 billion surplus, the shortfall becomes more manageable at $10 billion.
I write the following not as a dead accurate financial plan, but rather to expose ideas never discussed or proposed because quite frankly, sovereigntists have always been frightened to describe Quebec after independence.

Here are some thoughts which I hope readers will consider;

1. Negotiate down the portion of the national debt Quebec would inherit after independence.
In discussing the portion of federal debt that Quebec would accept, Jacques Parizeau, before the last referendum, opined that Quebec would accept up to 25% of the national debt.
That figure is nonsense, like asking a divorced couple to split up the debt evenly when, one of the couple is much poorer than the other. At any rate, Quebec would give up any claim to federal assets and be entitled to a set off in any debt assignment. Even if Canada saddles Quebec with just 15% of the national debt, both are getting a good deal, considering that Quebec is a drain on Canadian finances to the tune of $15 billion a year.
Today Quebec contributes about 18-20% of the federal budget (with a population of 23% of Canada) meaning that it pays about $5 billion of the $26 billion Ottawa spends on servicing the federal debt. Should Quebec be successful in accepting just 15% of the federal debt on separation, it would mean an annual saving of a little over $1 billion.

2.Create it's own currency
There's been a lot of discussion about keeping the Canadian dollar as legal tender in an independent Quebec, mostly to calm fears of the unknown, but the idea of having the Queen of Canada gracing the money in an independent Quebec is ludicrous. First of all, removing Canadian dollars from circulation would create a $10 billion one-time-windfall as new money printed is exchanged for Canadian dollars. Secondly, a floating Quebec dollar would reflect reality and should the currency exchange fall vis-a-vis the American and Canadian dollar, it would effectively devalue the cost of labour, something that could make Quebec more competitive, but citizens admittedly poorer. Remember those discussions of 'Dutch Disease,' and it's supposed impact on Canadian competitiveness?

3.Get rid of the armed forces
Part of reducing the Quebec portion of the federal debt is to relinquish Quebec's part of federal assets and nothing fits the bill better than the armed forces. Getting rid of the armed forces would save Quebec four to six billion dollars a year, putting a huge dent in the budgetary shortfall. Quebec could create a small coastal defence force consisting of small littoral patrol boats along with helicopters for search and rescue and coastal sovereignty enforcement, costing peanuts. Dreams of NATO membership and international interventions aren't something most Quebec need or in fact want. This new coastal defence force could be based in the Gaspé, with an important outpost in the Îles de la Madeleine , thus creating permanent employment for regions that will be highly impacted by the loss of federal unemployment insurance payments. As for defence of the realm, Quebec could enter into a defence pact with the United States whereby the United States Armed forces could be provided with a permanent base (like the Philippines) at the mouth of the northwest passage in exchange for providing air cover as a deterrence. The USA would jump at such a chance to extend their military reach.

4.Revamp the Educational system and get rid of CEGEPS 
Sovereignty should be an opportunity to revamp the educational system starting with the elimination of the CEGEP system which has proved to be an abject failure. High school would be extended by a year, thus returning Quebec to the tried and true North American model. It's been a policy of the Quebec government to try and improve graduation rates to mimic those in the rest of Canada, but lowering  standards to encourage enrolment hasn't worked, a costly disaster that has post high school non-achievers lounging in CEGEP for a couple of years before failing out. Universities could easily make up the extra year as enrolment in most French universities is way below capacity. By streamlining the system and raising standards, Quebec could graduate as many students as today with 20% less enrolment, a windfall that could actually pay for free post-secondary education. While tuition could be free for those who take school seriously, layabouts who flunk or drop classes would be required to pay a hefty price for failure, thus encouraging serious students only. One English university would have to close to reflect the outflow of Anglophones, but McGill should remain a pearl, even in an independent Quebec, providing higher education for both French and English students of exceptional ability.

5.Spread the wealth of government jobs
 While Quebec would save an enormous amount of cash after independence because it would no longer send Ottawa  taxes and remittances, the services provided by Ottawa like healthcare and defence would have to be provided by Quebec and those new services should be implemented so as to  better balance out government employment across the province, especially in depressed regions. I am reminded of a visit to Bathurst New Brunswick where I discovered a federal government office making social security cards for the entire country, providing employment in a depressed market.
Those new Quebec government agencies and offices created by Ottawa's withdrawal should be opened in areas that are depressed or otherwise losing federal agencies like Revenue Canada regional offices in Jonquiere and Shawinigan. It doesn't take a lot of government jobs to boost the Gaspé region and other depressed areas which already suffer from massive underemployment. Spreading out government jobs would provide meaningful non busy-work and eliminate stupid make-work programs like cement plants or wind technology manufacturing.

5. Eliminate wasteful busy-work projects
Quebec has mothballed several hydro-electric generating plants because of the lack of demand, while creating make-work jobs in wind generation and co-generation power that cost three to four times more than the closed plants. All wind farms and co-generation plants should be phased out and the technologies abandoned. The re-opening of mothballed hydro power plants would save Quebec over a billion dollars a year. The jobs lost would be compensated with good paying government jobs as described above.
Even with those measures, Quebec would remain with an over-abundance of electricity due to competition, conservation and cheap gas prices.  Measures should be made to increase electricity use in the public domain and perhaps all new residential homes constructed would be required to install electric heating only. While electric cars remain a pipe dream, other public uses of this Quebec resource could be raised as a priority. Even if electricity costs more to use than oil, it's use would be beneficial in the long run considering the spin-off effects.
Think of it like supporting your neighbourhood bakery which employs locals and purchases local raw materials. Even if the cost of the products is slightly more than buying from foreign sources the local economic benefits far exceeding the added price.

6. Temporarily suspend foreign aid
Canada is already a skinflint when it comes to foreign aid, but still spends about $5.7 billion dollars, of which Quebec taxpayers contribute over one billion dollars. A temporary moratorium would help Quebec achieve its goal of financial independence..

7. Review entitlements
Certainly nobody agrees that wealthy Quebecers should be entitled to government subsidized daycare and so an independent Quebec should take the opportunity to revamp all the entitlement programs that includes universality, the idea that subsidized programs are open to all Quebecers, even the rich.

8. Renounce pensions to those who abandon Quebec or Quebec citizenship.
Here's certainly a novel idea that would financially punish those who abandon the new state. Those who give up Quebec citizenship and move to Canada or parts unknown would no longer be entitled to a Quebec government old age pension. It's a bit harsh, but it will have many thinking twice about leaving and the savings on those who do would be considerable.

Now all the above measure would amount to more than the $10 billion required to balance the budget and so amazingly, you'll notice that I haven't even proposed any tax increases which could be left as an ace in the hole should circumstances deteriorate.

The biggest hindrance to sovereignty is not political, but rather economic. If sovereigntists can cobble together a reasonable plan of financial independence, the road towards independence finally becomes realizable.

10 Catastrophic Years after Sovereignty for Quebec

"10 Catastrophic Years after Sovereignty"

So says Premier Philippe Couillard in the National Assembly in a rather spicy dressing down at newly-elected co-leader of Quebec Solidaire and ex-student anarchist, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois.
According to the Premier, the day after sovereignty, Quebec would become impoverished and would have to sacrifice social programs, public services and this, according to him, for at least ten years. Link{fr}
Actually, I think the Premier is being a bit generous in surmising that the pain of sovereignty would be limited to a decade, but alas that is neither here nor there. 
Convincing hard-core sovereigntists that independence would be disastrous is like telling suicide bombers that there aren't 72 virgins awaiting them in Heaven, it is sadly the same mentality.

I am not writing this piece in order to offer up facts figures and otherwise concrete proof of the economic folly of sovereignty, because I've done it before as have countless others.
Read:
 UQAM's Nutty Professor
 PQ To Canada... How's About "Friends with Benefits?"
The Trouble with Sovereignty
The Trouble with Sovereignty, Part 2
Seven Dirty Lies of the Sovereignty Movement

For die hard sovereigntist fantasists, alternate facts, fake news and pipe dreams offered up by cynical and dishonest separatist leaders are just the medicine to countervail the gloom and doom predicted by nasty federalists like myself.
Listening to the likes of ignorant blowhards like Mario Beaulieu or the doufus Martine Ouellet talk economics makes it easy lampoon separatist leaders as dummies, but other, more credible separatist leaders like Jacques Parizeau, Lucien Bouchard and economist Jean-Martin Aussant, all militated for sovereignty under the guise that Quebec would be just fine. It is the dishonesty of the educated and well-informed that continues to irk me to no end.

There have been precious few scholarly attempts by the sovereignty movement to show how an independent Quebec would fare after sovereignty, with good reason as you can imagine, and so Quebeckers have been left to their own devices to figure out the truth.
Over the decades since the last referendum, the message of Quebec poverty after sovereignty has finally sunk in, regardless of the nonsense sovereigntist leaders spew with those on the fence in the debate have largely jumped over to the federalist side, the reason sovereigntist support has plummeted in recent years.

The sovereignty movement has descended into a sad spectacle of the blind leading the wilfully blind with leaders and followers determined to ignore reality with deception and alternate facts.
Arguing economics is almost impossible with die-hard separatists, as they are expert at offering an alternate reality in which the fiction that Quebec sends more to Ottawa than it receives and that Quebec is always short-changed on federal programs.
It plays well to the converted because of the simplicity of the message, the time-honoured 'done-me-wrong' refrain.

I'm reminded of a fishing trip I made with a sovereigntist friend right after the failed referendum of 1995. We ventured up past Dolbeau in the Saguenay region to an area known as ZEC, a government controlled wilderness.
Over the campfire, my friend J.P got around to talking politics and asked me about the economics of sovereignty and if Quebec could be actually be viable after independence. It was an honest question from a friend who viewed Quebec Independence not as a slight towards Canada, but more like a  grown up child leaving the family home to strike it out in his own, with continued love and loyalty to the family.

He started quoting economic numbers, the oft repeated scenario in which Quebec could make it economically with only a small drop in standard of living.
I realized then that it was well nigh impossible to argue the point with someone convinced and so took another tack, a fact something that sovereigntists willingly ignore.

How many Quebecers would leave after sovereignty and what would the economic impact be?
 This is the argument that no sovereigntist will dare broach because it is in essence the straw that will break the sovereigntist dream.

Every time a sovereigntist talks about the economic future of an independent Quebec, ask him or her how many people will leave and you'll get the blankest of stares.  It is the one factor sovereigntist cannot face.

Will it be 5%, 10%, 15% or even more? Nobody knows.
But one thing I know for sure,  anything over 5% will send Quebec over the economic waterfall into the abyss.

Now many sovereigntists have told me that if Canada won't play ball on economic conditions after sovereignty, like open borders and trade, the province can always renege on its portion of the national debt.
First let me say that Canada can very well survive that with the yearly savings on equalization payments to Quebec, easily carrying the additional debt.

But the opposite argument applies, what if it is Canada doesn't play nice?
What if Canada makes an offer to individual Quebecers to move to Canada, with perhaps a five or ten year tax holiday? How much would that accelerate desertions?
What if Canada does the same for business, offering sweetheart terms and conditions which are really no skin off its nose since these businesses are lost to Canada already.  Quebec would be blackmailed into granting the same concessions, further weakening its tax base.

Can it happen? Of course it can.
After the American War of Independence, the British offered loyalists land holdings in Canada as a reward for their service. About 10% of those living in the newly independent 13 colonies left and settled in Canada, some returning to England.

Every time a sovereigntist mouths off over the viability of an independent Quebec, ask him or her how many will leave.
It represents the coup de grace of the sovereignty dream.