by arthur Weinreb, associate Editor,
august 4, 2004
In a recent Canada Free Press column entitled Canadians taught to fear americans, Sean Beesley wrote how Canadians are taught to hate and even fear the United States and how we define Canada, not by what this country is, but by what it is not. Canada is not the United States of america.
Unfortunately, our southern neighbour is not the only thing that we are programmed to fear. Canada is a geographically diverse country and there is little to hold us together. There is little similarity between farmers in Saskatchewan and fishermen (or as the CBC would say, fishers) in Newfoundland. Small town northern alberta has little in common with the immigrant communities in Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto. as Prime Minister Paul Martin noted on Canada Day, Canadians are quiet patriots. Whether in fact there can be such a thing as quiet patriotism will be left for another day, but we lack the open patriotic expression that unites other countries including the United States. The fact that we are geographically diverse means that something must be found to keep Canadians united at a people.
Some time ago, the federal government chose our system of health care as a means of making all Canadians feel Canadian. While americans are drawn together by their individualism and their love of freedom and liberty, Canadians define themselves according to who pays for their rectal examinations. State paid medical and health care is the common denominator that is found between grocers in Montreal, aboriginals in Northern Quebec and taxi drivers in Toronto. and fear is often used to keep this system from changing.
as Canadians we are taught, in much the same way as Beesley described anti-americanism, to fear any change no matter how minor to our health system. Canadians have it drilled into their heads at an early age that any privatization of health care services will lead to the destruction of the country as we know it. We are proud to be one of only three countries in the world (North Korea and Cuba are the other two) where it is illegal to pay a medical doctor for services that are performed.
There is no greater example of the use of fear to keep the country together than what happened during the last federal election campaign. While Conservative leader Stephen Harper made some major blunders such as accusing the prime minister, not of being soft on crime but of being in favour of child pornography, the chances of a Conservative minority were lost when the Liberals were able to scare soft Tory support away from that party by painting doom and gloom scenarios of how a Prime Minister Harper would destroy our health care system.
Politicians of every political party often mislead Canadians about the role that the private sector can play in the system. This became apparent when former Health Minister Pierre Pettigrew told the truth and indicated that the private delivery of public health care services is not against the law. It is hard to remember a time when a politician was so severely criticized for telling the truth. Then again it happens so rarely these days. Politicians are forever telling us that it is wrong for the private sector to have any involvement in health care. This of course is not true--as long as the health care services provided, with many exceptions, are publicly funded they can be delivered by the private sector. The private sector commonly provides such services as X-rays and blood tests. and many medical services such as abortions are completely private, although no politician dare mention that one. Politicians are always vague when talking about privatization. But the government attacks privatization to scare Canadians into thinking that any private input into their health care system will destroy the country as we know it.
and judging by the change in the polls after Martin started attacking the Conservatives over health care, using fear of creeping privatization is highly successful. Vote for us or you’ll die seems to be a message that works.
It’s a sad commentary when a country has to be held together by fear, whether it's fear of arrest, starvation or receiving an MRI examination on a machine that is owned by the private sector.