Premature Election

'Oops'. Sorry about that....now everyone just take a Valium....

Election call almost believable

In wake of drubbing they're taking over royalties, a vote may look good to some Tories

Government MLAs were baffled, opposition MLAs were startled and members of the press gallery were, for a moment, speechless.

For a few brief, panic-filled minutes Wednesday afternoon, a provincial election had been called.

Or so it appeared to the media and MLAs who had innocently logged on to the web site of the Legislative Assembly.

"Writ has been dropped," declared the site.

There was a collective shriek from journalists in the press gallery who had been convinced the election wouldn't be held until March. You could almost hear NDP Leader Brian Mason saying, "I told you so."

Turned out it was a false alarm. Unconfirmed sources said someone on the assembly's web page had made a technical mistake. Speaker Ken Kowalski promised an investigation.

For reporters and opposition MLAs, though, the "error" reaffirmed speculation the government is still toying with the idea of a snap fall election. Government officials have been strongly hinting there won't be a fall election but reporters, being skeptical souls, keep smelling something fishy.

Alta. legislature website mistakenly shows election writ dropped

November 7, 2007 - 23:48

By: THE CANADIAN PRESS

EDMONTON - The Alberta government says a glitch caused the legislative website to indicate that the election writ had been dropped.

A news release issued Wednesday evening by Bev Alenius, executive assistant to Speaker Ken Kowalski, says the error occurred "due to unknown circumstances."

The release said the website, www.assembly.ab.ca, temporarily displayed a page which indicated that the election writ had been dropped.

The release said the error caused "some" confusion and has been fixed.

The Legislative Assembly Office staff are looking into the cause.

Ron Glen, senior advisor to Premier Ed Stelmach, says there's no plans for a fall election, "unless the premier changes his mind."

He says they are investigating whether it was due to an overzealous staffer preparing for an eventual election, or whether someone hacked into the system.

SEE:

December 3 Alberta Election

Your Tax Dollars At Work

Mason Hits The Bricks



Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Stelmach, Alberta, tarsands, oilsands, Canada, state capitalism, royalties, oil, profits, Province, Bill Hunter, Alberta Royalty Review,
Alberta Cabinet, CAPP, Ed Stelmach,
Big Oil,oil royalties, PC, Calgary, Party of Calgary, politics, NEP, Conservatives, Rod Love, Ralph Klein,Alberta Election,Fort McMurray,One Party State,
lberta, Premier,
Alberta NDP, Brian Mason, Ed Stelmach,
election,PC, Calgary, Edmonton, politics, leadership, Conservatives,One Party State,History, Politics, Economics,leadership, politics, PC,
Alberta, Liberals, MLA, Taft,

Sask Election

It's not so much about the Saskatchewan Party winning as it is about the NDP election strategy that lost them the Election. You don't run an election based on messaging that now is not the time for change. Even the Tired Old Tories in Alberta know that. You run as the party that is for change especially when all the polling tells you that's what voters want.


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Lorne Calvert, Brad Wall,Saskatchewan Party, election, NDP, Saskatchewan Election,

Still Waiting and waiting and.....

For all their talk about how the Harper government takes action it is just that talk.

Jim Flaherty's timelines on national securities regulator, international tax

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has repeatedly talked about plans to strike two panels: One to create draft legislation for a national securities regulator, and the other to identify ways to improve the fairness and competitiveness of Canada’s system of international taxation.

The latter panel was even suppose to produce an interim report by the end of 2007 and a final report in 2008. But the panels don’t exist yet. When will they be created?

“Soon,” Mr. Flaherty told reporters after speaking at a Rotary Club of Toronto event. Asked to clarify how soon, he said the international tax panel will show up within the next ten days. He did not elaborate on the national securities regulator panel.

Canada's health care rated poorly

Canada has the worst rating in a new study of health care in seven countries when it comes to wait times for seeing doctors and getting elective surgery.

And the Commonwealth Fund says Canadians are most likely to report going to an emergency room as an alternative to a visit to a doctor's office or clinic.

Only 22 per cent of Canadians surveyed say they could get a same-day appointment when they're sick. Thirty per cent -- by far the highest among the countries -- say they had to wait six days or more.

And 15 per cent reported waits of six months or more for non-emergency surgery.

Meantime, two-thirds reported having a lot of difficulty getting care at night, on weekends or holidays.

"The report indicates that Canadians are saying the same thing to politicians that they're saying to the Commonwealth Fund: access to physicians and access to medical services has to improve," said Health Minister Tony Clement.

"We share that concern."

SEE

Finally Some Common Sense

Still Waiting On Wait Time 2

Still Waiting On Wait Time 1

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
health care, medicare, Canada, Conservatives, Harper, Tony Clement, waittimes, politics, health, government, CMA, doctors, failing grade
Stock-Eschanges, Canda, economy, capitalism, Flaherty, Conservatives, Regulation, Stock-Regulation, SEC, TSX,

Proletarian Doctors

Medicare reform can only occur when we break the doctors business monopoly and 'their haughty power' over health care. One of the ways is to put doctors on salary.

Another is by creating integrated community medical centers and thus the proletarianization 0f Medicare through the use of salaried Nurse Practitioners and Physician's Assistants. It's an idea Norman Bethune would approve of.

Dr. Sigurdson, who worked with a physician assistant during a fellowship in Atlanta, just completed a master of business administration degree at Saint Mary's University during which he examined the business case for physician assistants.

"We could do things much better here," he said Wednesday.
Dr. Sigurdson said in an average 10-hour day set aside for operating, he only spends about six hours in the operating room and the rest of the time waiting for patients to be moved, the room to be cleaned and so on.

But much of what he does in the operating room could easily be done by a trained physician assistant.

He said it doesn't require a surgeon to prepare and drape a patient for surgery, sew up an incision or dress a wound.

"A (physician assistant) could sew up just as good as I can," Dr. Sigurdson said.

In fact, by his calculations, a surgeon is needed for only about 37 per cent of what happens during an operation. And a physician assistant could handle 51 per cent of the patients he now sees in a clinic.

About 100 patients were booked to see Dr. Sigurdson on Thursday morning. He needs to see patients having or recovering from major procedures like breast reconstruction. But when the appointment is simply to check whether someone who's had a minor procedure is faring well, a physician assistant would do just as well.

Comparing the cost of hiring a physician assistant at about $70,000 per year to a conservative estimate of Dr. Sigurdson's increased productivity, he estimated the province would see a modest cost saving over 10 years.

But when he compared the cost of a physician assistant plus the space and staff to run two operating rooms at once to simply hiring a second surgeon to work in a second room, he found the province could save $1 million in today's dollars.

A full-time surgeon at the QEII is paid an average $432,521 a year under a contract with the province, meaning the doctor would get no extra pay for doing twice as much surgery.

"I'm a young surgeon; I like operating," Dr. Sigurdson said. "And I'd like to operate more. You don't train 14 years to do something and then you only get to do it a day or a day and a half a week. It's frustrating."

He said it's much too late now to hope that increasing the number of doctors trained in Canada can meet the mushrooming demand for care. The country is just now experiencing the leading edge of a huge group of aging baby boomers who will not accept years-long waits for health care.

"To take business concepts and bring them into the public system is a strategy that we really should be thinking very strongly about before we throw the baby out with the bathwater and bring in a parallel private-care system," Dr. Sigurdson said.

Physician assistants work well in the private American system and could easily be incorporated into the public system, he said.

And there are trained physician assistants in Nova Scotia eager to work, he said. Those employed by the military frequently take early retirement and are left with few work options save providing care on oil rigs.

SEE

Ex Pat Attacks Medicare

Privatizing Health Care

Socialized Medicine Began In Alberta

Laundry Workers Fight Privatization

Two Tier Alberta

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
medicare, healthcare, Canada, Medicare reform
Dr.Day, B.C., privatization, Canada, CMA, Doctors, businessmen, privatizing healthcare, health care, public health care, medicare, private health care
medicare, health care, Canada, physician assistant , nurse practicioners, doctors on salry, privatized-health care, private-medical-services, medicine, privatization,community health clinics,