How to Improve Health Care

 

My remarks from a recent all-candidates meeting in Beaches-East York.

The question was what I and New Blue would do for health care in the province.

First and immediately, we need to rehire all the health care professionals laid off because of their vaccination status. It is not a good idea to fire doctors and nurses in the middle of a pandemic. 

And it is not following science to insist that health professionals are not qualified to make their own health decisions. We should be listening to them, not firing them.

We have known since at least September that vaccines do not prevent people from getting COVID. They only reduce symptoms. We cannot achieve herd immunity through vaccination. 

There are only two possibilities here. If vaccines work, there is no need to care whether someone else get vaccinated. You’re vaccinated, and you’re safe.

But if vaccines do not work, there is no case for forcing others to get one.

Vaccination is a personal choice.

New Blue wants an end to all vaccine mandates. It wants to prevent vaccine passports. Both are violations of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Brian Peckford, one of the authors of the charter, is suing the government now over this.

There are other steps we could take to ease the shortage of workers in health care and in long term care. 

There are many dedicated, well-trained nurses and medical technicians in the Philippines. They all speak good English. Back in Saudi Arabia, Filipino nurses and medical staff saved my life when I came down with encephalomyelitis. Something most people my age do not survive.

But they all wanted to come to Canada. 

We need to actively recruit them, and make that easier, by more readily accepting foreign credentials and qualifications.

This is a general problem for immigrants. We bring them in, then won’t let them make a living. 

Again, the problem is red tape. The arbitrary restrictions we now have on foreign professionals is a cartel in restraint of trade.

You asked specifically about mental health. Everyone is alarmed by the opioid crisis.

Mental health is a special concern of mine. 

I once served as the assistant director of The Gathering Spot at Walmer Road Baptist Church, a multifaith outreach to discharged psychiatric patients. 

I was on the Board of Directors of Poverello Charities, which ran a drop-in centre and safe group homes for the mentally ill. 

I was Toronto organizer for Grow International, a faith-based community mental health movement.

I have too much to say about the matter for this brief meeting.

We can’t just throw money at mental health. What we are doing currently is not working. Current psychiatry essentially declares all mental health problems incurable. We’ll just give them safe injection sites, and let them kill themselves. Or we’ll actively kill them, through assisted suicide.

Two centuries ago, we had cure rates of 80 or 90 percent. High cure rates are still found in parts of the Third World.

We are not curing these people, perhaps, because there is no money in it. 

We need to get sufferers out of the city, to a place where they are not anonymous. Mental illness comes from a lack of social supports.

We need, frankly, to evangelize. What do you think that was all about in the New Testament, that healing of demoniacs and driving out devils? Mental illness comes from a lack of meaning in life.

The government can fund faith-based initiatives, so long as it does not play favourites. The Canadian constitution does not recognize any wall of separation between church and state.

And we need to encourage mutual aid and community, such as we see in AA. I am encouraged to have encountered an AA meeting in progress in this church basement.

Safe injection sites are not an answer. Would you treat alcoholism by giving out free booze?

Here again, Critical Theory or postmodernism or cultural Marxism is against us. It alienates us from our neighbours and strips our lives of meaning.

The way to prevent mental illness is to strengthen the family, strengthen religion, and strengthen community. 

Solving the Housing Crisis

 

Further remarks from the Beaches-East York All-Candidates Meeting on May 12

When I first came to Toronto in the early 80’s, there was a housing crisis.

Forty years later, there is a housing crisis. But far worse.

It is time to try more than band-aid solutions.

I am a fan of co-operative housing. I used to live in the Oak Street Co-op, and in a student co-op when I went to Queen’s. I helped organize an abortive East End co-op. But public housing and social housing have never been enough to produce affordable housing, and are never going to be enough. The poor cannot forever hope and wait.

Tinkering with mortgage rates and down payments and savings plans does not work. Making it easier to buy a home only drives up prices. 

Imposing rent controls does not work. It reduces supply.

The problem is on the supply side.

The real problem is the Sargasso Sea of red tape which prevents either private or public builders from efficiently putting up the units that people need, want, and can afford. Such urban planning brought us the sprawling soulless suburbs that kill community, eat up green space, and force everyone to drive a car. 

We live in Beaches-East York to escape this. The Beach is so nice because it grew organically before urban planning.

Some regulation is needed, but the tendency of bureaucracy unchecked is always to overregulate to the point of strangulation. The great political philosopher Ibn Khaldun, back in the 14th century, explained that this is how civilizations die: overregulation. We are seeing it acted out in our time. 

Civilizations die of strangulation, from the top down.

Municipalities are the creatures of the provinces; the province can cut away some of this red tape and speed construction. In future, for every new zoning regulation, it should be a requirement that at least two old ones be scrapped.

One business owner on Queen Street complained to us that he could not allow dogs on his outdoor patio. Health regulations. But in the Beach, everyone owns a dog. His customers wanted their dogs. Why not let the consumer decide? 

I love dogs; if you don’t, another establishment will surely cater to you.

Owners may fear that fewer restrictions on development might harm the value of their property. But if land is opened to the highest and best use, all real estate becomes more valuable.

I’d love to see Toronto full of distinctive walkable neighbourhoods like the Beach.

But there is also the immediate crisis of homelessness. 

I have another suggestion.

There are aging motels in smaller towns falling into disuse. Many are being torn down. The days of motels are ending, with less tourism by car, and more AirBnBs. They are available, if we move quickly, for immediate low-cost conversion as shelter for the homeless, especially the mentally ill.

Why I Run

 

Last evening, at an all-candidates meeting, someone asked for the transcript of my opening speech. And so I reproduce it here. Not exactly as I spoke it, but as I meant to speak it; I had to abbreviate for time.

Unaccustomed as I am to speaking to live people these days instead of on Zoom…

I watched the leaders’ debate from North Bay a couple of evenings ago.

Why did it remind me of professional wrestling?

Did anyone else see that? Was it just me?

Was any of that real?

Down to business.

Why is New Blue for you?

I expect some of you have never heard of it. 

New Blue is a broad coalition of conservatives and liberals; or libertarians, as they are sometimes called these days; but really, liberals.

Blue for conservatives, like the old Quebec Parti Bleu, 

Gold for liberals, like the Liberal Democrats in the UK.

We believe in equality and human rights. We believe in parliamentary democracy.

I hope at least some of you will be surprised. 

Don’t we all support that? 

Don’t all parties support that?

New Blue grew because a bunch of us think they no longer do. 

We think the PC party is no longer conservative. 

The Liberal party is no longer liberal. 

The NDP no longer cares about the working class. 

They have abandoned it all for a new idol, sometimes called Critical Theory, or postmodernism, or cultural Marxism. It is all the same, or each is a tentacle of the same thing.

It is what is behind all you hear these days about pulling down statues, renaming universities, calling Canada racist, and trying to silence open discussion and dissent.

Critical Theory makes three claims: 

that race is essential to a person’s identity;

that there is no objective truth; 

and that all social relations are about power.

Believing that race is the core of one’s identity is racism. 

Believing there is no objective truth is insanity.

Believing that all social interactions are about power ends in a war of all against all to the last person standing—who will be the most ruthless and most powerful. 

If there is no truth, the only way to deal with someone who disagrees with you is to silence them.

I did not especially want to run for public office. I’m busy as a college instructor, editor, and writer, now managing my own online academy. I’m a husband and a father. I wish I could spend time with my family. But these are not ordinary times. These are the times that try men’s souls, and in such times one has a civic duty.

 I run because no one else was running for New Blue here in Beaches-East York. If I did not run, there was no one to vote for.

I have lived in Toronto on and off since 1982, but also in other countries: the Philippines, South Korea, Qatar, Saudi Arabia---and in Wuhan China back in 1992. 

I swear I had nothing to do with the coronavirus. 

This has given me some perspective on what we have here in Ontario, and what we could lose. 

I am a past president of the Editors’ Association of Canada, a past director of the Book and Periodical Council of Canada, and advised on the establishment of the Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing.

More importantly, I have two kids, Francis and Maryanne. They and their mother are currently trapped in the Philippines by the pandemic and the mandates. They have been trapped there for three years. I am missing their adolescence, and they are missing their studies.

I run for them and for their future. And for all our children.

The Ontario NDP Platform

 

My local NDP candidate in the upcoming provincial election sent me this flyer. 

A response to her promises.

Expanding OHIP to include mental health care.

Unfortunately, there is little or no scientific evidence that psychiatric/psychological approaches to mental health actually work. So this probably amounts to shoveling a large amount of taxpayer money to wealthy professionals, with no net benefit to the mentally ill. Who may be all the more neglected due to the illusion that “Something is being done.”

The best mental health care is religion, stable families, and voluntary associations. Unfortunately, political parties like the NDP tend to kick at such supports.

Invest in safe schools and affordable child care.

“Invest” is a weasel word invented by Bill Clinton. It means “spend.”

In the case of education, as with mental health, more money is not the solution. We spend more than Finland, and consistently get worse results on standardized tests. We spend more than we used to, but student results have been flatlining or declining. Most of the growth in educational spending has been on administrative positions, not education.

The solution is to introduce competition to promote better performance.

Affordable child care must not disadvantage those who choose to stay home to raise children; for we know this is the best option for the children. The state cannot do as good a job as the family—witness the residential schools. When we subsidize child care out of general revenues, we are acting against the children’s best interests.

Cashable child care vouchers might be the solution.

Fight the climate crisis with a bold and realistic plan to bring us to net-zero emissions.

The truth is that no provincial plan to fight climate change is realistic. Bringing Ontario to zero emissions would have no detectable effect on climate change. The problem is global. Most emissions come from countries like China, India, and Russia. 

Tougher environmental regulations and carbon taxes will only push manufacturing to these countries, crippling our economy and worsening the problem.

The way out of the climate crisis is improved technology. The pro9vincial government might to its small part with research grants, but these too easily turn into welfare for corporate cronies. Perhaps instead, a prize for significant research results.

Better long term and home care.

This is an empty promise. After the deaths in nursing homes during COVID, everyone demands this. So the only basis on which to vote NDP rather than PC or Liberal is if they seem to have a better plan. And they are not saying what it is.

Here’s a proposal: mandated 24-hour webcams, so that families could monitor the care their relatives are receiving.

Make housing more affordable

Another pie in the sky promise. Everyone recognizes the problem, but what is their plan to fix it?

The main problem is that overregulation means developers cannot offer what the market wants and can afford. Most of this regulation is at the municipal level—but the municipalities are the creatures of the provinces. Thoughtful deregulation is the efficient fix, and costs nothing—indeed, reduces government costs. I suspect the NDP would want to add more regulations, making the problem worse.

Homeowners may worry that deregulation would reduce the value of their homes. But this is short-sighted. Opening up properties for the highest and best use should, instead, on balance increase the resale value of their real estate.

Let's Put All Those Evil Guns in Jail

 

Liberal Party leader Steven Del Duca has announced a plan to ban handguns if his party takes power, to “protect the people of this province against gun violence.”

Would a handgun ban have any such effect? Most mass shootings happen in gun-free zones. Switzerland and Israel require all able-bodied men to own guns; their rate of gun violence is lower than Canada’s.

Arguably, if there were fewer guns, there would be fewer guns in the hands of criminals. Equally arguably, if there were fewer guns, the criminals would still have them, and nobody else would.

There are other reasons why a gun ban is a bad idea. 

Both the American Bill of Rights, and the English Bill of Rights, include the right to bear arms. Both say this is a basic human right. Why?

It follows from the right to self-defense. Not just against predatory wild animals, or predatory criminals, but against predatory government. The development of democracy in Britain has a lot to do with the fact that the English longbow could penetrate a suit of armour—a man’s home became his castle, because he could defend it against the nobility. Swiss democracy emerged because Swiss pikemen could do the same—hold off their armoured overlords. The continuing right to bear arms ensured and ensures this.

This being so, any attempt by any government to limit arms should be looked at with suspicion. Especially so soon after a peaceful protest was illegally suppressed in Ottawa.

There is yet another reason why gun control is a bad idea. Consider the current case of Ukraine. The government has passed out arms to every male citizen, and called on them to fight.

Consider the military advantage any country has in such a situation if its citizens generally know how to use a gun, and may have one in their basement. 

It has been said that the many guns in private hands make the USA unconquerable. It has kept Switzerland out of two world wars. Canada’s relative familiarity with rifles made Canadians the shock troops and flying aces of the Allied forces in two world wars. 

The cheapest and best way Canada could improve its own defense  would actually be to give or even require firearms training for all adult citizens, and hand out free guns.

I wager violent crime would go down too.

Honesty Is the Best Policy

Results are in on the Ontario provincial election.

Before her concession, the polls showed Wynne's Liberals on track to win just one seat.

She finished with seven.

Warren Kinsella is now officially an idiot.

Latest Polls Show National Socialists on the Verge of Taking Power

Riaz's actual Facebook post, 2013.

Doug Ford’s PCs are stumbling in the current Ontario election. When the election was called, they looked inevitable. Last analysis I saw, last night, they would still win a majority government—and the Liberals would be down to one seat!—if the election were held yesterday. But all the momentum has leaked over to Horwath’s NDP. That’s the danger when you start out with a big lead, and then try to nurse it by being cautious. Somebody else, who has nothing to lose, starts to look more exciting and dynamic.

But now, Providence seems to have intervened. Or perhaps this was inevitable. It was just a matter of time before someone found something like this on the NDP. Two PC candidates have presented a Facebook post by one NDP candidate, Tasleem Riaz in Scarborough-Agincourt, from as recently as 2013, making a blanket endorsement of Adolf Hitler. Complete with a photo of him giving the Nazi salute to troops marching in review.

It is hard to imagine anything, short of showing up with a loaded machine gun in Nathan Phillips Square, and starting to fire with enthusiasm, that could more clearly and immediately disqualify someone from public office.

More amazingly, in her first reaction to the revelation, Andrea Horwath did not seem to grasp its seriousness. She expressed continued support of the candidate and said the matter would be looked into. Boilerplate, and no sense of urgency.

The candidate’s own response was yet less reassuring. She did not deny posting it. She just says she does not recall, and does not endorse the sentiment. Anyone can always say that; even if caught red handed, videoed live in the act of posting it, you can still never be proven to have lied. Yes, you really may not recall. But you resort to that line if you posted it, know you posted it, and suppose there is a decent chance someone out there can prove you posted it. And by saying you do not recall, you avoid having to explain or defend it. First and automatic line of defense when you cannot think of any defense. If there were some context around the original quote that would justify or even partly justify it—and if she did not recall, Riaz could just as easily as anyone else have gone back and looked at the post to check context and other posts around the same time—this is where it would have appeared. She had nothing to offer. She probably has no defense. She did it, and she meant it just as it appears she meant it.

Any attempted defense that someone else hacked her account is kind of precluded by the fact that another incendiary post fairly widely separated in time has also been found, calling Canada’s military in Afghanistan a machine for slaughtering innocent men, women, and children and urging all Muslims to vote NDP. Okay, not another open declaration of Nazi allegiance, but demonstrating that she is pretty outspoken and racist.

Now, it is not just a good election tactic for the Tories to hammer away at this issue. It is a civic duty. We are actually talking now about electing an open Nazi to government in Ontario, with the endorsement of the rest of her party and the rest of the government. I could not have imagined we had become that depraved.

Almost as alarming, people seem to be talking about this as if it were an issue of “antisemitism.” Hitler was about one hell of a lot more than antisemitism. There was that little matter of the Second World War. You might recall; it was in all the papers. And that odd bit about enslaving the entire population of Eastern Europe. Yeah, and ruling the world. There was that dictatorship bit, endorsed in detail here by referring to Adolf as “The Ruler,” Der Fuhrer. And that inconvenient absence of all human rights, or norms of government, and personal rule without regard to morality of any sort. And Germany itself left in rubble. At the end, Hitler literally wanted to have them all killed—all Germans.

Riaz was openly endorsing all of this. Up to and including an image of lines of marching men.

At the same time, she was implicitly at least--actually, pretty explicitly--declaring a disregard towards any democratic restraints on her or restraints of parliamentary tradition or law. Her core idea as expressed is that, like the Nazis, whatever she says or does to get power, once given power, she will do with it just as she pleases.

But hey, everyone is cool with that bit.

We are all doomed if the NDP gets into power, with her still a candidate.

In fact, it looks as though we are all doomed if the NDP gets into power, with or without her. Because they obviously do not see this all as terribly problematic. This is the true face of the modern left.

No, strike that. Whether or not the NDP gets into power, we are all doomed. Because nobody now seems to see this as a big deal.

I tremble for my old province when I consider that the Lord is just.