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Toronto Star Sun May 10 2015

There is a basic cognitive science result I call "pre-conscious assimilation." Within a tenth of a second, incoming information - whether in language, vision, or touch - is unconsciously changed, often radically, to information that better fits what is already in your brain. In short, what you become conscious of often depends on what you already assume, not on external facts presented. Those brain structures are called "frames." If the facts don't fit your frames, the frames stay; the facts are ignored, belittled or attacked. The facts alone won't set you free. All words are defined relative to largely unconscious cognitive frames. Hearing a word activates and strengthens the frame.

If I say "Don't think of an elephant!" you will think of an elephant. Arguing against, or negating, frames just helps the other side. This is a key insight for politicians. All politics is about morality, about doing what you assume is right. Different policies follow from different notions of morality. When you speak your moral language, you strengthen your political frames. When you speak in the language of your opponents, regardless of what you say, you only strengthen theirs.

October 13, 2015October 13, 2015

All federal election platforms are finally out (Conservatives, NDP, Liberal & Green). The Conservatives have also been running on Budget 2015, which they tabled in the spring. With these documents in hand, we can finally do an in-depth analysis of what the different parties have on offer.

The official Conservative election platform actually included no mention of the 6% escalator, but in a news release sent out 17 days later, the Conservative campaign referenced the promise three times.

A re-elected Conservative Government will build on our strong record of protecting Canada’s universal health-care system by increasing funding for health care by 6 per cent per year

Reelected on May 2, the Conservatives then wrote the 6% promise into the Speech from the Throne.

The Globe and Mail Thu Sep 17 2015

The New Democratic Party unveiled its economic plan Wednesday, relying on corporate tax increases to pay for a suite of spending programs and promising four years of budgetary surpluses if it forms government next month. The plan, however, came under fire as critics say the party overestimates how much new revenue the corporate tax hike would actually bring in, given the potential for companies to shift profit elsewhere. There were also questions over why the NDP is relying heavily on April's budget numbers as economists have since lowered their forecasts for economic growth and federal revenue.

With the release of the NDP numbers, all three major parties have now outlined in broad strokes how they would govern if elected - and their visions are starkly different. The economic plans will be put to the test Thursday evening as the three major party leaders take part in a debate in Calgary on the economy hosted by The Globe and Mail that can be seen online or on the Cable Public Affairs Channel.

National Post Wed Aug 19 2015

Frustration at the way the general election campaign is unfolding for the Conservatives bubbled over at a campaign event in the Toronto suburb of Etobicoke Tuesday. One angry Conservative left his porch long enough to berate the CBC's Hannah Thibedeau and CTV's Laurie Graham for daring to ask the party's leader about the Mike Duffy trial.

You are a piece of s-t," shouted the supporter, an outburst that will confirm for many the impression Stephen Harper leads a nasty party, backed by a zombie army of the unthinking. But everyone should take a deep breath and let the temperature drop by a few degrees. We are in mid-August. It's no wonder, in George Bernard Shaw's words, the media can't distinguish between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilization.

Waterloo Region Record Thu Aug 27 2015

Canada's main political leaders have much to say about the ailing economy. None has yet produced a plausible plan to fix it. This week's stock market chaos served only to illustrate how ill-prepared the Conservatives, Liberals and New Democrats are when it comes to dealing with economic crisis. All responded with campaign bromides to the unsettling news that China, the world's No. 2 economy, is in trouble. Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper urged voters to stick with his recipe of tax cuts. Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau talked of the need to build the middle class.

New Democrat Leader Tom Mulcair, meanwhile, repeated his pledge to solve the crisis by lowering taxes for small business. These ideas aren't necessarily stupid. But in terms of dealing with an unusually stagnant economy, none of the parties' economic platforms - so far at least - is even remotely sufficient. First, look at where we are. The world economy has been weak since 2008. Europe and Japan are in trouble. The U.S. is only starting to pull out of its funk. For a while, China led the pack. But as this week's stock market scare demonstrated, China can be a slender reed to lean on. Former U.S. treasury secretary Larry Summers refers to what the world is going through now as "secular stagnation." It's as good a term as any.

Toronto Star Mon Oct 12 2015

There is no election issue more deplorably ignored than health. At 11 per cent, health is a far larger slice of Canada's economy than oil (just 3 per cent). Provincial governments spend a staggering 40 per cent of their budgets on health; their health ministries are bigger than the next 10 ministries combined. Voters ignore health at their own peril, because as Canada's population ages, how politicians address health only matters more. So why is it that, at election time, voters indulge candidates who do not talk about health, but instead fret over the niqab? It makes no sense: while every Canadian family has a life-or-death drama to tell about a visit to the doctor or hospital, who can honestly say their lives were changed by someone's head covering?

On Saturday the Star reported our poll of Canadians' attitudes to health in this election. Unlike other polls, this one began with questions prepared by health experts at the University of Ottawa, without any sponsorship from political parties, health professions, corporations or unions. We executed this poll independently, because we think it is crazy that voters and politicians are disregarding this vital issue. And Canadians agree with us. When we asked Canadians to play prime minister for a day by choosing how to spend a billion dollars, they put health at the top of their lists. Of Canadians' top five spending priorities, fully three are health-related: improving public health, investing in disease and injury prevention and improving health care in the final years of life. These are things that Canadians overwhelmingly believe make their lives better.

Mar 16, 2016

Today the Premier of Manitoba officially dropped the writ, beginning a month-long election that will determine the next government of Manitoba on April 19. But what does this election mean for CUPE members? The Conservatives and Liberals want to cut jobs, privatize services, and reverse the gains we have made as workers under the NDP. While election platforms will be rolled out throughout the campaign, we have already seen overtures made by the Conservatives and Liberals that will affect our members. This is a brief overvie

Health Care workers: When the Conservatives were last in power, Brian Pallister was a Cabinet Minister and he cut health care jobs. Many CUPE members remember the impact of these cuts. The Conservatives today are no different. They have already discussed finding ways to reduce the workforce in order to “save money”. In Saskatchewan and Alberta conservative governments have privatized laundry services and cut jobs. The Alberta Conservatives even wanted to introduce fees for health care services. Albertans had enough, and voted in an NDP government. In Ontario and BC, Liberal governments have found “savings” off the backs of workers. In BC, laundry services have been contracted out resulting in job cuts and pay cuts. Liberals in Manitoba would surely follow that lead.

'This hospital was not built by the Conservative party,' doctor says after candidate visits

Aug 20, 2015

Nova Scotia's new health authority barred campaigning politicians from hospitals during elections Thursday, vindicating a complaint from a Truro doctor who objected when two Conservative candidates stopped by her hospital this week.  In a letter to medical staff, Dr. Nancy McNeil — a radiologist at the Colchester East Hants Health Centre in Truro — called a campaign stop by Cumberland-Colchester Conservative candidate Scott Armstrong "outrageous."

Canadians deserve a full debate about health care, but most Conservative candidates have refused even to discuss it.

Natalie Mehra

Fri Oct 16 2015

On Nov. 24-25, 2005, Prime Minister Paul Martin, the premiers and aboriginal leaders met in Kelowna for the First Ministers Conference on Aboriginal Affairs. The meeting resulted in a five-year, $5-billion plan to improve the lives of First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples.

Seventy-two hours later, Martin's minority government fell, triggering a federal election won by Stephen Harper's Conservatives. When the Tories tabled their first budget on May 2, 2006, they said they were committed to meeting the targets of the Kelowna deal.

But aboriginal leaders criticized the $450 million set aside for aboriginals in the budget, saying it didn't come close to the funding promised at the first ministers conference.

By Dave DormerCalgary Sun, April 29, 2015

Restoring a $1 billion cut to funding and eliminating personal levies is the prescription to fixing an ailing health care system, NDP leader Rachel Notley said Wednesday.

“That is a private clinic behind me and that is what Jim Prentice has in mind for you and your family,” she said while campaigning in southwest Calgary. “That is what a billion-dollar health care cutback leads to and I have a fundamental problem with private clinic health care.

National Post Thu Aug 20 2015

Dozens of groups with their own political agendas could spend millions in this federal election campaign trying to influence voters. These "third parties" (they aren't political parties) are registered to advocate and run advertising during the federal election campaign. Their goals include: boosting funding for the CBC; improving seniors' care; restoring door-to-door mail delivery; securing better services for veterans; electoral reform in Canada; and strategic voting, to name a few. "The outcome of the election is going to come down to a handful of Conservative swing ridings, so we're trying to build blocks of voters to vote together to defeat the Conservatives," said Amara Possian, election campaign manager with Leadnow, an organization calling for action on climate change, democracy and the economy. The group's entire campaign is about channelling resources from what she says is a 450,000-person community across the country into ridings that can influence the outcome of the federal election.

There are 72 Conservative swing ridings where the group believes people who want change can, by voting together, determine whether a Tory candidate wins or loses. Leadnow has teams in a dozen ridings going door-to-door signing people up to vote: Fredericton, Kitchener Centre, London North Centre, Etobicoke-Lakeshore, Eglinton-Lawrence, Willowdale, Elmwood-Transcona, Saskatoon-University, Calgary Centre, Edmonton Griesbach, Vancouver-Granville and Port Moody-Coquitlam. The Canada Elections Act regulates third parties that conduct election advertising. A third party "is considered a person or a group other than a candidate, registered party, or electoral district association of a registered party," according to Elections Canada. There are no rules on how much third parties can spend on advertising before the official start of an election campaign. Each third party can spend up to $439,410.81 on election advertising expenses during the 78-day campaign, and a maximum $8,788.22 in any one of the 338 electoral districts.

Toronto Star Thu Aug 27 2015

Tom Mulcair has made the deficit fetish his own. The New Democratic Party leader has vowed that, no matter what happens, he will balance the federal budget if his party wins government. Even Conservative Leader Stephen Harper hasn't gone that far. He says governments may have to run deficits during recessions. Coming at a time of a wobbly world economy and falling oil prices, Mulcair's promise is almost certainly bad economics.

But for a party saddled with the (largely undeserved) reputation of wasting public money, it is probably good politics. The reason Mulcair's promise is bad economics is that deficits are sometimes necessary. In times of recession, for example, efforts to balance government budgets by raising taxes or cutting spending can make matters worse. The NDP understood this in late 2008 when, as part of an ill-fated coalition attempt, it said Ottawa should spend billions and endure at least four years of deficits in order to fight the worst economic slump since the 1930s.

The Pembroke Observer Thu Sep 3 2015

OTTAWA -- Stephen Harper and Tom Mulcair found themselves in unfamiliar economic territory Wednesday -- sharing the same page on when they think it is acceptable to plunge the country into a deficit. The Conservative and New Democrat leaders, along with their Liberal counterpart Justin Trudeau, still expressed sharp differences on the economic way forward following Statistics Canada's recession pronouncement a day earlier.

The three federal leaders attempted to put a bit more flesh on the bones of their respective economic positions after the agency reported on Tuesday that the economy had contracted for a second straight quarter--the technical definition of a recession. But as they dealt with the fallout from the data, it was Harper and Mulcair who found themselves occupying the same position on an important, related question: When is it OK to run a deficit?

Survey flyers ask for readers' opinion on health-care cuts for refugees

Sep 06, 2015

These surveys, which ask about health-care cuts to refugees, were supposedly mailed to various ridings held by Conservative MPs over the past few years.

Calgary Herald Tue Aug 16 2016

Oh, no. We're into it again - back to the endless, arid Alberta debate on public versus private health care. Jason Kenney, the early bird unofficial Progressive Conservative leadership candidate, said Monday he thinks Albertans deserve more health options, on the models of Quebec and British Columbia. Kenney was answering questions about the Herald story that revealed MRI wait times in Calgary are up 20 per cent. Too many people are on the list who don't belong there, and the machines are idle too much of the time. "I think there needs to be more flexibility in the way the system is administered," Kenney told the CBC's David Gray.

"It means allowing people more options like the model in Quebec, which is universal and complies with the Canada Health Act." The interviewer asked if that means more private care. "As long as it's competition within the public system and everybody gets access to quality health care, I don't see any reason why Albertans should have less

Contributed by admin on Feb 19, 2014 - 09:25 AM

The NDP is outraged that eight years after Stephen Harper promised to reduce wait times for family doctors, four million Canadians still can’t find a family physician and worse yet, more and more doctors can’t find work.

“There is no good reason why any Canadian should wait months to get care, while qualified doctors can’t find work,” said NDP Health critic Libby Davies (Vancouver – East). “New Democrats have long proposed a practical solution that will find work for doctors and reduce wait times for Canadians. Instead of acting, the Conservatives are turning their backs on health care.”

National Post Thu Sep 18 2014

"It really brings an unpredictable variable to the last week of the campaign because issues that are personal to people, that are emotional could motivate them to go vote, whatever side of the issue they're on," said J.P. Lewis, an assistant professor of politics at the University of New Brunswick Saint John. The Liberals have an 11-point lead in the polls over the incumbent Conservatives, with 44.3% support Wednesday compared to the Conservatives 33.7%, according to poll aggregation site threehundredeight.com. Until recently, the campaign had been a "one note" affair focusing on shale gas extraction in the province by way of hydraulic fracking - the Conservative government sees it as the key to economic rebirth, while the Liberals would call a moratorium on fracking until more environmental assessment is done. Mr. Gallant was criticized by abortion- rights activists this year when he suggested much the same approach for abortion - a close study of barriers before discussion of repealing current regulations. "We're not against a study, we're just against any delay," said Wendy Robbins, past-president of the N.B. Women's Liberal Commission and current member of the N.B. Liberal party and advocate for greater abortion access. Mr. Gallant is being targeted with the issue because he's the front-runner, she said. The provincial New Democratic Party and the Greens say a repeal of the abortion regulation is the first thing they'd do if elected.

Conservative government’s cutbacks and controversial policies diminishing Canada's role on world stage, article in Lancet Global Health says.

By: Raveena Aulakh Environment, Published on Fri May 02 2014

The May edition of The Lancet Global Health, a sister journal of the highly regarded general medicine journal The Lancet, includes a piece that is a scathing attack on the Conservative government. In the opinion piece, Chris Simms, an assistant professor at Dalhousie University’s School of Health Administration, makes the case for Canada’s diminishing role on the world stage triggered by the Conservative government’s cutbacks and controversial policies. In the article titled “A Rising Tide: The Case Against Canada as a World Citizen,” Simms says Canada has slipped in many ways, including in the tackling of greenhouse gas emissions.