If abortion is such a hard decision, as even advocates maintain, why aren't women allowed the time to make it?
There are Canadian women whose waiting doesn’t matter. And then there are Canadian women whose waiting is especially terrible and reported on regularly. The Canadian Press reported on Aug. 15 that a 29-year-old whose birth control failed got the abortion she wanted. Except it wasn’t quite fast enough. She waited two months for her abortion…
Although health centres are owned by the province, they serve the community and sometimes the community has to help out
Kenneth Brown of The Clarion The Rural Municipality of Kindersley has taken over yard maintenance duties at the Kindersley and District Health Centre, to the benefit of residents and visitors. Lionel Story, a councillor for the RM of Kindersley, said the municipality has been doing the yard maintenance at the health centre since 2016 after…
New immigrants and those from poorer neighbourhoods screened at lower rates in Canada
If you live in Ontario and you’re turning 50, expect to receive a birthday letter in the mail. It’s not from your loved ones (though they may send one, too) – it’s from the province’s cancer agency, Cancer Care Ontario. These letters represent a paradigm shift. A health-care agency is reaching out to people at risk…
The federal government routinely denies the Disability Tax Credit to those who need it – and are eligible by law
This story began when I offered to represent the mother of a three-year-old with PKU, a rare genetic disorder, in a federal tax court. She had never even fought a parking ticket before she went against the federal government. We won. It turns out, evidence matters. But the story doesn’t end there. We went to…
In fact, removing prohibitions would better utilize our health care professionals and reduce the suffering of those on long waiting lists
In a recent multi-part series that included an opinion piece headlined “Double-dipping doctors defy the spirit of Canadian health-care,” the Globe and Mail alleged that physicians working in private medical clinics are billing both the public system and the patient for the same service. Shortly after, Federal Health Minister Jane Philpott and B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix announced an…
Nicotine is both the problem and the solution to smoking and the epidemic can be stopped by using non-combustion alternatives
At the end of July, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did something remarkable – even revolutionary. It decided to behave in a rational way about nicotine – embracing a sensible harm-reduction approach. Canada would do well to follow. Instead, Canada has been focused on risk aversion where nicotine is concerned – and…
The claim that suicide makes life meaningful is bizarre and wrong. Suicide is foremost an evacuation of all meaning and potential
Several months ago, I left the classroom under a dark cloud. Suicide was on my mind. It came up in a class discussion. How we got to suicide, I can’t remember. What I do remember is the student who said that the person who commits suicide deserves respect, if not praise, for showing courage and assertiveness.…
Canadian preschool teaches kids with autism and typically developing kids together in a unique integrative program
My oldest son came home one day with an excellent idea. Little did we know how it would shape all our lives. In Grade 4, Liam handed me an application to attend Montreal’s Mackay Centre School where he, as a typically developing child, would learn alongside physically disabled and deaf children for one year. The…
Two solutions to increase pharmaceutical manufacturers’ accountability to Canadians and their governments
By Vanessa Gruben and Louise Bélanger-Hardy University of Ottawa The 10 provincial governments recently accepted a class-action settlement with Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin. The settlement concerns the misleading claims Purdue Pharma allegedly made to physicians about the addictive nature of the drug. These claims may have contributed to Canada’s epidemic of opioid addiction.…
We have one of the most expensive health-care systems in the world, yet other countries with universal health care routinely outperform us
It seems like a simple question: how much do you pay for public health care? And yet it’s one that most Canadians would struggle to answer. Many would say “it’s free.” Others may point to health-care premiums in provinces that charge them. And those more familiar with the statistics may cite the amount Canada spends…
There are Canadian women whose waiting doesn’t matter. And then there are Canadian women whose waiting is especially terrible and reported on regularly. The Canadian Press reported on Aug. 15 that a 29-year-old whose birth control failed got the abortion she wanted. Except it wasn’t quite fast enough. She waited two months for her abortion…
