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Bringing about a higher level of transparency and accountability in provincial and federal governments to help protect taxpayers from abuse

Bringing about a higher level of transparency and accountability in provincial and federal governments to help protect taxpayers from abuse.

Consulting firm hired to conduct health care review

The consulting firm KPMG LLP has been awarded a government contract to find ways to eliminate waste in Manitoba’s health care system and improve its efficiency and responsiveness.

The province says the government, regional health authorities, Diagnostic Services of Manitoba, Cancer Care Manitoba and the Addictions Foundation of Manitoba will be included in the Health Care Sustainability and Innovation Review.

Health Minister Kelvin Goertzen says the firm will look at whether services are being provided at a reasonable cost, if they’re producing good results and if expectations are being met.

He says in a release that the review — which was promised by the Progressive Conservatives several months ago — is timely in light of pending cuts to the Canada Health Transfer.

Goertzen also wants a first ministers meeting with the prime minister to discuss what he calls a long-term, predictable and flexible funding mechanism for health care.

Source: http://www.winnipegsun.com/2016/11/01/consulting-firm-hired-to-conduct-health-care-review

Trump campaign once again slams Canadian health care

The latest villain of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign: Canada’s health care system.

Trump’s Republican running mate, vice-presidential candidate Mike Pence, knocked the Canadian system during an appearance with Trump on Tuesday, following Trump’s inaccurate criticism in a radio interview last week.

Canada’s government insurance program has emerged as a late-campaign foil for the Trump campaign even though he has expressed strong support for it in the past. He has begun targeting Canada’s program as he has tried to turn public attention to problems with Obamacare, a much different program that involves government subsidies for insurance plans purchased from corporations.

Speaking in a hotel ballroom in an important suburb of Philadelphia, Pence, the governor of Indiana, falsely suggested that Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton is proposing a Canada-style “single-payer” system.

“She actually went to Canada and gave a speech that came out not too long ago,” he said. “She told Canadians and business groups that she wanted to get, and I’m quoting, ‘universal health care coverage like you have here in Canada.’ Well, we don’t want the socialized health care they have in Canada. We want American solutions.”

In that January 2015 speech, at Saskatoon’s Arts and Convention Centre, Clinton did not seem to be suggesting she wanted America to adopt Canada’s system. Rather, while defending Obamacare, she said she wanted all Americans insured.

Source: https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/11/01/trump-campaign-once-again-slams-canadian-health-care.html

Focus on innovation, not more cash, to improve health care in Canada: doctor

Squabbling by provinces in the run-up to a new health accord points to the need for an agency that would share regional health-care innovations with the rest of the country, says an editorial in Canada’s premier medical journal.

Dr. Matthew Stanbrook, deputy editor of the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ), made the case in an editorial published Monday, saying spats over money and self interest could end in failed negotiations with the federal government, which must fund the proposed agency.

“A temporary tinkering with the health system, without a wholesale system change, will not deliver the health-care improvements Canadians need,” he wrote.

Much of the friction at a meeting of federal, provincial and territorial health ministers in Toronto two weeks ago stemmed from the Liberal government’s plan to adopt the former Conservative government’s decision to slash the six per cent funding increase to three per cent in a new health accord starting next April.

Stanbrook said innovation is the key to changing a health-care system that can’t be sustained as costs soar without better outcomes, especially for groups including seniors, indigenous peoples and the mentally ill.

Source: http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/focus-on-innovation-not-more-cash-to-improve-health-care-in-canada-doctor-1.3139392

ADHD: A Destructive Psychiatric Hoax

Earlier this year, Alan Schwarz, an investigative reporter for the New York Times, published his latest book: ADHD Nation.

The blurb on the jacket states:

“More than 1 in 7 American children get diagnosed with ADHD—three times what experts have said is appropriate—meaning that millions of kids are misdiagnosed and taking medications such as Adderall or Concerta for a psychiatric condition they probably do not have.  The numbers rise every year.  And still, many experts and drug companies deny any cause for concern.  In fact, they say that adults and the rest of the world should embrace ADHD and that its medications will transform their lives.

In ADHD Nation, Alan Schwarz examines the roots and the rise of this cultural and medical phenomenon: The father of ADHD, Dr. Keith Conners, spends fifty years advocating drugs like Ritalin before realizing his role in what he now calls ‘a national disaster of dangerous proportions’; a troubled young girl and a studious teenage boy get entangled in the growing ADHD machine and take medications that backfire horribly; and Big Pharma egregiously over-promotes the disorder and earns billions from the mishandling of children (and now adults).”

Source: https://www.madinamerica.com/2016/10/adhd-destructive-psychiatric-hoax/

Five companies charged in telephone scam that targeted Canadians, Americans

They bought Internet phone devices in bulk, used thousands of prepaid debit cards to launder money from North America to India and left behind elderly victims who were bullied into forking over thousands of dollars.

U.S. authorities announced on Thursday that they had charged 56 people and five companies operating call centres in India in a case that offers a peek into a widespread telephone scam that has swindled millions of dollars from people in Canada and the United States.

While the allegations unveiled on Thursday do not mention Canada, the indictment says the victims were “in the U.S. and elsewhere.”

An RCMP spokeswoman said the force believes there might be a Canadian connection.

“Victims have reported that at times a caller would identify themselves as [an Internal Revenue Service] agent to the victim, and then change tactics when he/she realized that in Canada there is no IRS,” Sergeant Penny Hermann told The Globe and Mail on Thursday in response to a question.

Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/five-companies-charged-in-international-telephone-scam/article32562168/

Canada Budget Deficit Widens in August from Year Ago

Canada ran a wider budget deficit in August than the same year-ago month as expenses surged on tax breaks for households with children and a ramp-up in the payout of jobless benefits.

The pickup in Canada’s budget deficit reflects a weak economy, and Liberal government efforts to pump up growth through expansionary fiscal policy.

Public-finance data for the first five months of the 2016-17 fiscal year indicate Canada is running a deficit of C$ 5.45 billion, compared to a surplus of C$2.82 in the comparable year-ago period. In the 2016 budget plan, Canada’s Liberal government forecast a deficit in the current fiscal year of C$29.4 billion.

Canadian Finance Minister Bill Morneau is set to unveil the government’s economic and fiscal update on Tuesday, and market watchers expect the deficit forecast to widen amid a downgrade in economic activity. Indicators suggest the Canadian economy remains on a slow-growth track, and is still in the early stages of a recovery after a downturn fueled by the commodity-price swoon.

Source: http://www.nasdaq.com/article/canada-budget-deficit-widens-in-august-from-year-ago-20161028-00558

Who wants legal marijuana? Not so many Canadians as once thought, survey finds

A large majority of Canadians wants marijuana to be legalized and made available for sale to every adult in the country, regardless of medical need. Right?

Maybe not. A new survey conducted by a major financial advisory company and obtained by the National Post ahead of its release casts some doubt on that piece of conventional wisdom. Deloitte LLP surveyed 5,000 Canadians 19 years and older this summer and found that only 40 per cent favour marijuana legalization, with almost as many opposed, throwing shade on one of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s key campaign promises from the 2015 federal election.

In B.C., the province most closely associated with pot production and consumption, 42 per cent of people surveyed were in favour of legalization, with 33 per cent opposed. Next door in Alberta, more people were actually opposed to legalization than in favour of it. In Ontario, 40 per cent were in favour with 36 per cent opposed, while Quebeckers were almost evenly divided.

The Deloitte findings seem at odds with results from similar but smaller surveys conducted earlier this year by other firms, when as many as 75 per cent of respondents nationwide said they supported legalization.

The latest survey comes just ahead of a final report from the federal Task Force on Marijuana Legalization and Regulation, to be delivered next month to Trudeau and his cabinet. Chaired by former Liberal cabinet minister Anne McLellan, the nine-person task force is meant to “provide advice for the design of a new legislative and regulatory framework” for recreational pot.

Source: http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/who-wants-legal-marijuana-not-so-many-canadians-as-once-thought-survey-finds

Investigators track millions of dollars from Russian tax fraud coming to Canada

Investigators have tracked millions of dollars associated with an elaborate tax fraud in Russia to bank accounts in Canada, bolstering their call for Ottawa to adopt legislation to freeze the assets of corrupt foreign officials.

Anglo-American financier Bill Browder and a team of investigators and lawyers compiled the data on the transfers of the funds, which indicate a clear Canadian connection to a $230-million (U.S.) swindle in 2007 by Russian officials who used his Russian-based hedge fund, Hermitage Capital Management.

Sergei Magnitsky, a legal adviser for Hermitage, was allegedly tortured and died in a Russian prison in 2009 after exposing the fraud to Russian authorities. Since then, Mr. Browder has helped international authorities track and freeze $43-million (U.S.) in assets related to the fraud, and persuaded governments to take action against Russian officials he says are engaged in the fraud and the cover-up of Mr. Magnitsky’s death.

In 2012, the United States adopted the Magnitsky Act, which freezes assets and bans visas for Russians who violate human rights.

While Canadian political parties are in favour of a Canad

Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/investigators-call-on-ottawa-to-adopt-magnitsky-style-anti-corruption-law/article32542084/

Donald Trump said 35 false things on Tuesday, Oct. 25

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump had a jam-packed day on Tuesday, Oct. 25. He did radio interviews with Rush Limbaugh, Herman Cain and a Cincinnati host, plus one with Reuters and one with Fox; made a brief speech at his Doral hotel in Florida; and held two rallies. And he said 35 false things, a day after tying a personal record with 37.

1.Falsely said federal authorities refused to detain an Ohio illegal immigrant who allegedly committed a murder three weeks later “even though they knew he was very dangerous.” (There is no evidence the Border Patrol or anyone else knew Juan Emmanuel Razo was dangerous; local police said he was sweating and seemed suspicious, but “no crimes were discovered (i.e. burglary, theft, vandalism), and subsequent data base inquiries showed no criminal history.”)

2.Falsely described Canadian health care: “You know, if you look at even Canada, the people come down. When they want an operation, they come to the United States to get the operation.” (It is very rare for Canadians to leave the country for any kind of healthcare. Even according to the conservative Fraser Institute, 99 per cent of patients stayed in Canada for care last year.)

Source: https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/10/26/donald-trump-said-35-false-things-on-tuesday-oct-25.html

Nurses who kill: There’ve been more of them than you might think. And there could be thousands of victims

Some claimed they did it for the good of their patients, others created scenarios where they could try to heroically save a life, and some just seemed to enjoy the power to inflict sudden death.

The multiple murder charges laid against a Woodstock, Ont., nurse Tuesday may have shocked many Canadians, but the case was hardly unique.

Across North America and Europe, dozens of nurses and other health-care workers have been accused of deliberately killing patients, usually with medications meant to make their charges better.

By one academic’s estimate, health-care criminals have been convicted of killing at least 328 people, while close to another 2,000 suspicious deaths have been linked less definitively to those medical murderers.

“It’s relatively rare in terms of murder and serial murder,” David Wilson, a criminology professor at Birmingham City University in Britain, said Tuesday. “(But) it’s just that it’s so shocking, because clearly these are people to whom we entrust our families, our loved ones.”

Many have noticeable personality or psychiatric problems that are missed because health-care administrators desperate for more nurses often fail to check references, he said.

Source: http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/cases-of-patients-being-killed-by-health-care-workers-may-be-shocking-but-arent-unusual