05.03.07 what i’m not voting for
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I have seen people start life out with many strikes against them, and succeed, and I’ve seen the reverse. I believe that in Canada, individuals are to a good extent in control of their ultimate condition in life. I feel that as a member of the middle class, I am overtaxed without having need (and especially access) to most of the social programs financed by said taxes. I do not believe any one lifestyle choice (like being childless and taking a high paying job, or staying home and having lots of kids) should be penalized by the state.
I strongly believe in the separation of Church and State, but I think some recent blanket bans on religious iconology in schools are excessive and xenophobic.
I believe governments should establish and maintain serious, long- and short-term measures to reduce global warming.
I believe in the right to abortion, in gay rights to marriage and adoption.
I think it’s important to protect French in Quebec. I believe the province has been given adequate power to do so, and has done so efficiently. I believe the language is well-protected and no longer threatened. C’est assez.Â
I believe that basic medical care should be accessible to everyone, but I think it would be best overall if people who can afford it could pay for faster treatment.Â
I abhor unions. I believe in the defense of basic workers’ rights, of course, but I also believe that companies should compete for the best qualified resources by offering attractive working conditions. I don’t believe in a system that is based on an adversarial relationship between employers and employees. Meritocracy has its flaws, but it’s more productive, and I believe conducive to happiness than the blind hatred of The Man I’ve seen in unionized industries.
Some of my values contradict each other, some of them contradict yours I’m sure. But they reflect what I think we should be talking about and working on. As much as I would like my values to decide what I do in three weeks, they won’t. What’s most important to me is to make sure Quebec doesn’t spend any more time, energy and money on such an out-dated and low-priority diversion as separation, but rather on the issues here. Therefore, I will vote for the party most likely to keep the PQ out of power, whoever that is. Doesn’t that suck?
Je te comprends tellement!
Well said. I’m voting LSC.
Out-dated? Le Québec n’a jamais ratifié la constitution. On vit dans un vide constitutionnel. Facile de dire que c’est dépassé quand on est plus fédéraliste que Stéphane Dion. Mais moi je ne suis pas Canadien, je ne le serai jamais et c’est une préocupation de la première importance.
Oui c’est vraimen triste de voter contre le PQ par simple peur d’un référendum. Premièrement, le PQ n’est jamais très pressé d’organiser des référendums. Deuxièmement, si jamais référendum il y a, t’auras juste à voter non. C’est ça la démocratie.
Et puis le niveau de Francisation des immigrants n’a jamais été aussi bas. Le français n’est pas la langue de travail dans bien des millieux, comme ça devrait pourtant être le cas. Le français est plus menacé que jamais.
Et puis c’est certain qu’une bonne façon de répondre au manque de médecin, c’est de prendre une partie des rares médecins qu’on a et de les réserver à un système parallèle payant. L’équation est élémentaire, moins de temps d’attente = un plus petit ratio médecin/patient. Ce qui créé une catastrophe dans le système public, mais ça on s’en fout, parce que nous, on a de l’argent. Mais comme le système public péréclite, même ceux qui n’en ont pas doivent se ruiner s’ils veulent bénificier de soins. On appelle ça les États-Unis.
I wonder if the members of any minority would ever feel safe as long as they are not the majority. When will the ones that fear for French ever feel safe? From my point of view, francophones are at a disadvantage compared to, say, anglophones since anglos are forced (FORCED, mind you, which may be another discussion) to learn a second language, while francos are not. It is, ironically, a francophone policy that has caused this. Who is more attractive on the job market? The fully bilingual ones. The anglos. And anyone else whose first language is not French.
If you have the money, then you can get better care. Okay, fine. Just like better legal representation or anything else. However, one proble m that Quebec has is that good doctors are leaving due to the policies (as well as the language) that are in place here. A two-tiered system might keep them around, but only a few people are going to benefit from them, so this system is only a disadvantage for most people living here. The average annual income for someone living here is only $30K, remember.
A two-tier health system will lead inexorably to the decline of the lower (tax-funded) tier until it is inadequate. Just as you are opposed to paying taxes for services you don’t need, you will be opposed to paying taxes for the lower tier (which you wont’ use) when you are already paying private insurance premiums for the upper tier.
So you will vote for the party that lowers your taxes and cuts the lower tier services, perhaps saying to yourself “Let the poor pool their resources and pay for their own health system”. Eventually, without any countervailing force, we end up with a decimated lower tier. You might say “what a shame”, but given that you have won the big competition that is life, you won’t do a serious thing to change it.
I suggest you pay your taxes thankfully, realizing that that small sacrifice is one of the main reasons you live in the paradise called Canada.
As for unions, as with any good thing, taken to an extreme it becomes a bad thing. The adversarial relationship, as you put it, is a two-way street; It flows from the employer at least as much as it flows from the employees.
The thing with English is that it is, whether we like it or not, the International language. It is not possible for businesses to operate in French alone unless they do no international business whatsoever, which in this day and age is quite unlikely. Pride in one’s language is one thing, shooting oneself in the foot by refusing the knowledge of another language based on this pride is ludicrous. I have met individuals like this, both anglo and franco. Neither win, both lose.
I think separation would be a waste of precious resources and energy. So many daily living things need to be fixed and paid attention to in this province before putting what will naturally be skyrocketing costs into separating into an independent nation (outside of Canada). Healthcare! Taxes! Road conditions! Education! Etc.!
I wonder about the merits of an inter-tiered system, where doctors can have a private clinic but who are also forced to practice publicly as well. I agree that we should not go the way of the states, privileging people who can pay will not fix the problems. In fact, it may make it worse for the public system. Once the wealthier are better taken care of, there is no voice with influence and/or money really to voice any concerns for the less wealthy. I consider the state of our healthcare to be of the utmost importance.
I agree with everything MJ said. Although Dr. Wank brings up very good points for the 2 tiered thing.
Jonas, first of all we also HAVE to take english classes and being submerged in an english speaking continent kind of forces us to speak it anyway. Even with the forcing of anglos to learn french, there are still more (or at least as many) francos speaking english then anglos speaking french (I’m talking about actual effectiveness in the language).
Phil, nomme-moi un domaine ou les affaires se font uniquement en anglais au Québec. Pas une compagnie, un domaine. Et j’ai pas encore compris qu’est-ce qui fait que tu n’est pas canadien autre que “je me reconnais pas” je vois pas qu’est-ce qu’il y a de si différent entre toi ou plutôt entre un québécois et un gars de l’ouest. Ou plutôt, je vois pas pourquoi ces différences sépareraient? Tiens aussi en compte que j’ai des amis qui sont aussi fières que toi d’être québécois mais auront peut-être plus en commun avec ta liste décrivant des gens de l’ouest que celle te décrivant. Comment ça se peut?
Côté menacé, ça fait lonnngtemps que j’ai pas entendu ça. À moins que tu trouve le français menacé quand tu entend parler anglais dans ton quartier ou sur le Plateau? Dans le Mileend? Ça c’est pas parce qu’on est menacé, c’est parce qu’on est plein de gens qui ont commencés à se mélangés, à connecter, à vivre dans des coins traditionnellement réservez à l’autre langue, au lieu de vivre chacun de notre côté de l’île et se regarder de travers.
Pour ce qui est des médecins, j’ai tendance à penser que toi et le Dr. avez raison concernant le manque potentiel de médecins si il vont en clinique payante mais quand j’entend le discours séparatiste je ne peut m’empêcher de penser aussi à tout les médecins et autre professionnels et compagnies qu’on a perdus au profit de Toronto, repoussés par les histoires de référendums. On a dit NON deux fois, ça en prend combien pour comprendre?
Ce qui me déprime le plus, c’est les québécois et québécoises de mon âge (et plus jeune) qui insistent qu’ils ne sont et ne seront jamais Canadien.
On a juste à reculer un peu en arrière, peut-être l’âge de nos grands-parents, et on apprendra que c’est nous, les québécois, qui sont les vrais Canadiens. Le reste de Canada, c’était “les anglais”. Une preuve? Le Canadien était une équipe de francophones, l’équipe anglaise était les “Maroons”.
Malheureusement, on a avaler tout rond la désinformation de Landry et sa gang. On fait tout pour oublier notre héritage, et c’est triste.
A part de cela, je n’ai pas d’opinion.
Patrick, although French people here do have to take English classes, it’s not the same as being forced to go to school completely in a different language. From a functional point of view, I don’t see this as a problem; as I said, it puts young anglos at an advantage.
One cute example is that Rose, Petunia and I went to the People’s Church (English) on Sherbrooke with friends a couple of weeks ago. Petunia speaks little English and when it was time for the children to have their Sunday school downstairs, it was the English children who translated everything for her. She loved the whole thing, and wants to go back. By the way these kids are ten years old, they are better in both languages than either of us are in our second languages.
I would say that the lack of functional French in anglophones will change greatly in the years to come. Right now, sure, francophone Montrealers are the masters of bilingualism, but in 15 years, this may greatly change. In this sense, the whole save French movement is a great success.
Les médecins et autres professionnels ne sont pas partis à cause des référendums, du moins pas en majorité. Ceux qui partent le font parce qu’ils sont mieux payés ailleurs, ou parce qu’ils y ont de meilleures conditions (de recherche, de vacances, de bons collègues de travail, etc.)
MJ, you’ve told me all of this in person but somehow reading it like this, as a nice and clean list, scares me. A little. Could be my lower class roots (I don’t come from a middle class family), but it’s hard for me to see a young, compassionate person become so anti-union/lower my taxes/let the rich get better care than the poor. I can see how the argument can be made for each and every one of these issues, but the bulk of it scares me. It’s weird. I don’t know how to explain it better than to say that it scares me. It’s like there is no room for any kind of collective dream or solidarity, except perhaps on the environmental front.
Ok, pas les médecins francophones, je parlais plus général. C’est pas des inventions que beaucoup de gens et d’argent sont partis suite à la “menace” référendaire.
I think that’s an important observation, Martine. Mine is that these separations appear, to other groups such as the disadvantaged, to come from selfish and classist places. From the “have” group it could come from resentment, or maybe other things. But are they really? It isn’t likely all that simple.
MJ, the way to make sure that you don’t pay for what you don’t use is to privatize EVERYTHING.
It’s nice to see that there are other people out there who believe the exact same thing I do. It’s nice to know I’m not crazy… Or is that another debate entirely???
So, let’s say we both discovered lumps in our breasts. They could be cancer, but we don’t know. We’re scared; our loved ones are scared. We’d do anything to be okay. So we make appointments with our doctors, and they refer us both to have mammograms.
Until this point, we’re pretty much the same. Except that you’re good at your job and earn a good salary, so you can pay a fee to have your mammogram scheduled within two weeks. I’m good at my job too, but I make $15,000 a year, so I take my place in the public queue. My appointment is scheduled in two months.
You have your mammogram. It’s good news: the lump is benign. You cry with relief. Your loved ones exhale. You blog about it, and everyone you know writes happy, grateful comments. Everything is okay. Thank God.
Meanwhile, I wait. I am still afraid; my loved ones are still afraid. My mother is beside herself. I try not to think about the lump, but I think about it all the time, wondering how quickly cancer cells spread. I blog about it. People offer sympathies and try to reassure: it’s probably nothing, I’ll be just fine. But none of us know, and my stomach will churn with fear every single day for the next two months.
You read my blog. Then you see me at Yulblog. You know exactly what I am feeling, how awful it is. You can see that I’m only half there, like you were only half there. What do you say to me?
If the situation were reversed, I’m not sure I could look you in the eye.
Patrick: je vais me faire l’avocate du diable sur la question, mais certains considèrent encore cette “grande fuite” comme un mythe ou du moins comme un phénomène exagéré. ( voir point 4 ici: http://english.republiquelibre.org/myths-and-fallacies.html )
Thanks for all the comments.
Vila: in your example, we would not wait 2 months, but 4 (124 days). The average wait in the six other G7 countries, all of which use some form of two-tiered system, is 19 days. I’m not saying a richer person is morally entitled to quicker relief from anguish than a poorer one, and it’s a little disingenuous to suggest that I am saying that. But right now they *both* wait over 6 times longer than they would in the other system, but one gets to work two days out of every week to pay for the (shitty) health system they both use. How can there not be resentment after a while?
Martine: Do you really think I’m suggesting the rich be better treated than the poor??? I’m suggesting that social help be dealt out on the basis of need, not income (which is a big part of need, but it’s not the whole equation). Ideally, the “better paid” would be so because they truly deserve it, because they contribute the most to the whole. Ideally, there would be true inducements to social contribution (not just contribution through procreation). You talk of social solidarity, well that’s just it: I feel left out of that societal dream, simply because I make an ok salary. It doesn’t matter whether I worked my ass off for it, or inherited it. I get cut out of the solidarity all the same, and I only get to finance it. If social assistance (medical, legal or other) was really based on level of need, and not level of income, 1) I wouldn’t mind paying for more of it and 2) those who really need it, regardless of income, would all have access to it. Isn’t that the real collective solidarity? Peut-être que je suis naïve, et que dans un tel système je me ramasserais à payer encore plus, mais au moins ça me semblerait plus juste
Phil: Tu te sens pas Canadien, je respecte ça sincèrement. Moi, je me sens pas juste Canadienne, ni juste Québécoise. Je détesterais vivre dans un monde strictement anglophone comme l’Ontario ou dans un monde strictement francophone non plus. J’ai besoin des deux, je suis les deux, Québécoise pure laine et All-Canadian, Kids in the Hall et Rock et Belles Oreilles. Je te dis juste ça pour que tu comprennes un peu d’ou quelqu’un comme moi veut en venir. Y’a pas d’autre endroit au monde que le Québec ou je peux vivre ma vraie identité, qui est cette belle dualité.
MJ: Thanks for your response. I did not think you were saying that “a richer person is morally entitled to quicker relief from anguish than a poorer one,” but I did wonder if you had considered the worst-case scenario as well as the best one. You’ll understand if I remain skeptical about idealized solutions when there is ample evidence to suggest things don’t always work out the way their proponents would have us believe. The public education system in the United States works very much like what you have proposed for health care, and it clearly demonstrates that when private options siphon off money from the public system, it can lead to disastrous results.
Also, while I understand your frustration, and I completely agree that the health care system has been allowed to rot, I wonder why you cite the person who works “two days out of every week” as an example of where the current problem lies. There are an awful lot of people out there who work 40+ hours a week who could no more afford additional fees than someone who doesn’t work at all. Can you imagine the resentment they’d feel at getting screwed from both sides?
Honestly, I don’t mean to be a pain in the ass, but having recently been given the option to pay a user fee to see a dermatologist more quickly about a weird-looking mole, I’m not feeling especially charitable about the issue. I just know that we all deserve better.
As a footnote: http://econrsss.anu.edu.au/pdf/DP448.pdf
Well, if the point of my post was that we should be talking about these issues, mission accomplished. I’m learning
“Ideally, the “better paid†would be so because they truly deserve it, because they contribute the most to the whole. Ideally, there would be true inducements to social contribution (not just contribution through procreation).”
Hey, that’s a lot of idealism! You are starting to sound like a member of Québec Solidaire! (see Philippe-A’s post…)
But it’s nice to know that you still have idealism in you. It makes me a little less scared.
Mission accomplished, indeed.
FWIW, I think it is enormously cool when conversations like this happen. Now, if we could just get our politicians to have them…
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C’est vraiment un drôle de sentiment de se sentir left out, comme ça. Surtout que c’est tout à fait erronné. J’essais de comprendre comment tu peux te sentir left out du “social dream”. Le système de santé, justement, tu y as autant droit qu’un millionnaire ou qu’un assisté social. T’es pas allé à l’école toi? Pas fait genre… deux bacs? Si t’es allé au privé (qui est tout de même majoritairement financé par le public), c’était ton choix. Et personnellement, pour avoir été à l’école privé et public au secondaire et au primaire, je peux te dire que l’association privé=meilleur éducation est un grand mythe. Mais c’est une autre histoire.
Ensuite, c’est vraiment facile de décrier le système de santé. Mais chaque fois que mon entourage y a fait appel, que ce soit lors du cancer de mon père ou de la dépression d’Audrey ou des inquiétudes de ma mère devant un hypothétique cancer du sein (justement), le système a répondu de façon rapide, adéquate, sans que qui que ce soit déclare faillite. Il faut aussi arrêter de considérer que tout le système est pourri. Je déteste cette expression, mais c’est vraiment un cas de jeter le bébé avec l’eau du bain. Certes, il y a matière à amélioration, certes il faut se débarasser de certains dogmes qui persistent. Mais il faut aussi arrêter de penser que le salut est dans le privé. La santé, c’est un domaine qui ne devrait jamais être associé au concept de profits.
Si on met de côté la santé et l’éducation, ne pas avoir besoin du filet social qu’offre notre société est une véritable bénédiction. Parce que tu n’as pas besoin d’aide sociale, tu ne devrais pas y contribuer? Le jour où tu en auras besoin, elle sera là pour toi… et tant mieux si ce jour n’arrive jamais.
Mais j’aimerais vraiment savoir en quoi tu te sens exclu du filet social
Pat, pour ce qui est du sentiment nationaliste/patriotique, l’expliquer est une chose assez complexe et fastitieuse. “Et je n’ai pas compris ce qui fait que tu n’est pas Canadien” et moi je n’ai pas compris ce qui fait que tu l’es. Si tu tiens à le savoir parcontre, ça tourne énormément autour de la question de la langue et de la culture. Je n’ai strictement aucune référence culturelle commune avec un Canadien. Ou enfin, toutes celles que j’aurais, je les aurais aussi bien avec un Américain. Que je me rende au fin fond du Lac-Saint-Jean ou de la Gaspésie, je me retrouve quand même avec des gens de mon peuple, des gens qui parlent la même langue que moi et qui ont pratiquement toutes les mêmes références culturelles. La culture canadienne, pour ce qu’elle est, je n’y connais que dalle. Et les Canadiens n’ont aucune idée de ce qui se passe ici. Sure, je connais (et j’adore) Joni Mitchell, mais de la même façon qu’un Américain la connaîtrait. C’est ça qui crée le sentiment d’appartenance à un peuple. Est-ce que ceci justifie une séparation du Canada? Pas tout à fait, mais combiné à la question constitutionnelle, absolument. C’est facile de dire qu’il s’agit d’un vieux débat, en s’enfonçant la tête bien creux dans le sable. C’est un débat qui a exactement mon âge en fait!
Le fait de vivre au sein d’un pays sans jamais en avoir reconnu la constitution est un problème de taille. Et malgré plusieurs tentatives, on n’est jamais passé même proche de s’entendre sur la question. Les Québécois ont fait preuve d’ouverture, c’était le “beau risque” de René Lévesque. Mais ça a donné l’accord du Lac Meech et la suite qu’on connaît.
Si les médecins arrêtaient de se la jouer éllitiste, d’abord et ouvraient un peu plus les portes de leurs écoles, une grosse partie du problème serait réglée. Le manque de médecins de famille, c’est pas le privé qui va le résoudre. Or il n’existe pas de meilleur indicateur de la santé générale d’une société que l’état de sa médecine de première ligne.
One myth I see with regards to public vs. private health care systems is that long wait times are a necessary part of the former but not the latter. This is a lie. You can have long wait times in either system if it is underfunded. We slashed the crap out of medicare in the 80s and 90s and now we’re “shocked, just shocked!” that it doesn’t work very well. I think I am the only person who wants to pay more taxes and get better services for it. Canada is on a course to become a meaner, harsher society because people have forgotten how it got so good here in the first place.
I always think of 19th century England, where wealth disparity was so severe that poor women routinely abandoned their babies. This was so common that churches had little “mail shoots” for putting abandoned babies in. Now Italy and Japan have recently instituted modern versions of the same thing. The rich of Victorian England only decided to do something about their social problem (set up tax-funded orphanages) once they got tired of stepping over dead babies in the street. This “competition for competition’s sake” thing has a way of snowballing because the winners have more power and therefore make the situation more competitive until you get abysmal conditions for the losers. I see that happening slowly in Canada.
The Québecois/Canadien debate is an interesting one… and for someone who grew up in Scotland with a Scots dad, allthe while living in a country calle dthe United Kingdom, I have some sympathy with Phil et al who are attached to their identity. I still feel intrinsically Scottish.
But we were lucky. The Scots people were granted ‘nation’ status many many years ago, in much the same way the the Québecois(e) have been given that title recently, so I grew up understanding that although we were part of a larger scheme, we were still Scottish, and all I had to do to prove that was to open my mouth, or wear a kilt or something. Everything else about being a part of a nation took care of itself in it’s culture, humour, and everything else that goes with it.
Recently, Alex Salmond who is the leader of the Scottish National Party has been campaigning for full independence for Scotland on the 300th Anniversary of the Treaty of the Union. …and to what end?
The very same question I would ask to Québecois(e) who wish to seperate? Where does the 2 tier system go if that happens? How does a health system start again? Because, it would essentially have to. Not to mention an economy… And for what?
A sense of identity?
Maybe I don’t fully understand the ins and outs of Québecs ‘persecution’… but I grew up with the same history…
I guess this is a long winded and probably misplaced statement to agree with MJ completely.
Unfortunately reality and sentiment are two entirely different species.
I don’t really understand what you mean by 2tier system. But healthcare is a provincial juridiction, wich means that technically, federal government doesn’t have a word to say about it.
Quebec was not granted the status of nation, that was just a statement, that has no political or judicial attachment to it. A nation has much more liberty to deal with its issue.
Quebec’s economy is doing great and would be doing just as good if it were to separate. That’s one of the many unproven spooks of federalist: In case of separation, Quebec would go bankrupt. Wich is soooo absurd.
As a Yank, I’m envious of anything that resembles an equitable healthcare system, and not even close to qualified to comment on it.
But I do know that my family would have never clawed its way into the middle class if it weren’t for unions, and that the decline of unions in the U.S. has coincided with the shrinking of the middle class and the growth of the lower one.
That’s not to say that unions have never abused their power, but I think that the threat of unionization is one of the things that keeps employers (who otherwise enjoy the lion’s share of the power in the employer/employee relationship in most locales) offering attractive working conditions.
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