If you observed Canadian elections for the last 10 years (probably more!) you’d think Canadians are the stupidest people on Earth. We keep voting for people who claim to be able to solve the same problem with the same solution.

Yeah… healthcare again. I know…

Read the Canada Health Act. Find out how limiting it is. There’s only so much a province can do to deliver healthcare to its people.

I don’t want to go to the ER and wave a big wad of bills around so I can get my broken arm set. I want to go to some guy’s business (AAA Aardvark limb menders?) where I have to have a big wad of cash to get it done. So do a lot of us.

And don’t give me this bullshit about “do you want an American system?” That’s idiotspeak. Say what you will about the US system. At least there, when you need a hospital bed, you can get one. Paying for it… that’s another issue.

I would be able to afford the privilege if the gov’t would quit taking 40% of what I earn and blowing it on the same broken system.

I this still the biggest issue in any election?  I think the reason every poll says “healthcare is the number one issue…” is because respondents don’t know what else to say; it’s reflex by now.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my 30-year career as a Canadian it’s that there are two things money can’t buy: Happiness and improved healthcare.  If this weren’t true, we’d have better healthcare in Canada.  How much more money should we throw at the issue before we decide that we have to start doing something radically different.

The biggest problem in Canada is that people don’t know how to use hospitals properly.  Sounds dumb, but everybody knows it.

Here’s a very elementary analogy.  Hospitals are like restaurants.  People wait in line to have a nice big meal.  There is no reason they should have to wait behind a guy who just needs a quick fix like some bread and butter or a muffin.  That muffin-eating schmuck is going to take up a whole table… you see where I’m going here?

That guy needs a snack-bar or a convenience store.  We need more of those.

If death isn’t imminent, don’t go to the hospital.  Bloody noses, sprained joints, and upset stomachs belong in clinics, not ERs.  We don’t need more spending.  We need a clue.

I’ve been nervous about this number for a while, and this article in the Globe and Mail confirms that I should be.

It seems like just last year… wait, it was just last year, that I moved back to Alberta from the socialist commune of British Columbia.  I despised the province because I believe that the most capable labour groups are more concerned with a 37.5 hour workweek than they are with building a thriving economy.  The Alberta way is to give a little blood and get a lot of oil.

Now, I find that those same people who abandoned their provinces and rushed to Alberta to take part in one of the world’s hottest economies are willing to trade the gov’t that made it happen for one that could stifle it.  Interesting…

The sky isn’t falling.  It’s not doom and gloom (yet.)  But it does make me wonder.  Why vote in the same ideologies that made you leave the place you came from?  You don’t meet many Soviet defectors who would vote Marxist-Leninist, even if it did mean lower rent.