Please dear reader, let me know if a spiral situation like this can go on ad infinitum for a government and its bureaucracy which wants more and more money all the time. This government and the Saskatchewan Association of Health Organizations (SAHO) have no understanding of what it means to create wealth, of what it means to build healthier communities, of what it means to be democratic. What they know is to ask for more money all the time; and to have money circulate in the province means taking from the poor to the rich, from the rural to the urban, from the small business to the big business. This is the master plan of this government; in an era when geographical and temporal boundaries are being broken, this government is pursuing a policy direction for the benefit of the few and privileged, a policy direction which is void of any imagination for creating healthier communities.

I reiterate, and I will never get tired of it, that health care is mismanaged in Saskatchewan, it is mismanaged across Canada. In Alberta we have a government which is putting $95-million into Alberta Hospital at Ponoka(1), a brooding, neo-Gothic structure built in 1911. The Canadian Mental Health Association has stated that putting so much money into this institution "is a regressive step to a Dark Ages solution." And to people who have been complaining that such expenditure will take away resources needed in other areas of health care, David Bray, a spokesman for Alberta Health, has stated that these $95-million "will not take away from other programs." It is an absurdity, and I cannot understand how these politicians and bureaucrats play with blatant lies and get away with it.

We have another number game in Newfoundland. Premier Brian Tobin has just released a budget which sees health care expenditures jump to 35% of the total budget ($1.2 billion out of a total $3.4 billion), an increase of 25% over the last five years(2). After health care boards went over budget by some $40 million and with such a big expenditure into health care, Premier Tobin is trying to show his commitment to health care and become the Saviour of Canada's faltering medicare system.

But wait, the number game is bigger in Saskatchewan, and this is not happening by chance. We must remember that Saskatchewan created medicare, and this socialist NDP government wants to be first at any cost, and in any area. First in infant mortality rate; first in being a racist society; first in juvenile crime rate; first in giving the finger to the electorate; and first in spending more relative money in health care, a whopping 40% of the provincial budget, plus today's current health districts' deficit of some 50 million dollars. No doubt, Minister of Health Pat Atkinson is running first for the laurel of becoming the Saviour of medicare, and no doubt she will be playing the old song and ask for more money of more money in the next meeting with Allan Rock, Federal Minister of Health.

Endnotes:

Quote by Albert Einstein "Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them"

Quote by Donella Meadows "challenging a paradigm is not a part-time job. It is not sufficient to make your point once and then blame the world for not getting it. The world has a vested interest in, a commitment to, not getting it. The point has to be made patiently and repeatedly, day after day after day" ftp://sysdyn.mit.edu/ftp/sdep/Roadmaps/RM1/D-4143-1.pdf http://iisd1.iisd.ca/pcdf/meadows/default.htm

General reference: Articles by Mario deSantis published by North Central Internet News

1. Alberta invests $95M to rebuild neo-Gothic mental hospital, by Robert Remington, National Post, March 06, 2000 http://www.nationalpost.com

2. Tobin budget aids health care, Michael MacDonald, Canadian Press, The Globe and Mail, March 23, 2000 http://www.globeandmail.ca/gam/Health/20000323/UNEWFN.html