Patrick":35m3wowl said:
Tony Crocker":35m3wowl said:
We're all waiting for
to weigh in here.
Sorry folks, but life is sometimes very busy. :roll:
1) Admin had a question about people being down in Quebec City.
As I mentioned a good proportion of the population don't like the Canadian winter...some of them cannot stand the sight of snow. For them winter snow are sooooo long. I presume the overall mood Admin encountered was due to the weather, probably not the economic situation. I speak from years of experiences living in a maze of cubicals with other lab rats looking outside the windows.
2) Quebec's economy.
The economy isn't great, however hearing you folks about you would believe that Quebec was the third world. Am sure that are a few US states that would fair much worst than Quebec. The Quebec provincial government and Canadian federal government budgets are both in the black and have been for a few years now. Okay, that might be about to change with a recession. The new Unemployment numbers for november were release last week, I believe that the Quebec rate had a slight increase with 7.1% while the Ontario economy is the one that losing many jobs right now and saw it's rate jump to 7%.
3) Health Care
Geoff":35m3wowl said:
jamesdeluxe":35m3wowl said:
Tony Crocker":35m3wowl said:
is Canadian national health care really provincial health care? Thus Quebec's chronically depressed economy can't fund adequate health services?
I'd like to know that too... why would Quebec's hospitals be funded less than Ontario's?
Yep. Much o' the funding comes from provincial taxes. There's a federal program called "Canada Health Transfer" that partially funds healthcare in the less affluent provinces. The affluent provinces like Ontario and Alberta don't get much federal money. Since funding is uneven, the care delivered is also uneven.
Geoff's understanding of Canada is amazing. I'm impressed.
Health care is a provincial juridiction. Without getting in to many details, there is the Canadian Health Act which the provinces are pretty much obliged to respect, but the funding comes out of the Quebec coffers (helped also by some Federal transfer payments like the other provinces). (Quebec is the only province with it's own tax collection agency like the IRS) The Canadian Health payments from the Federal government to the provinces was substantially cut in order to eliminate the huge Federal deficit in the 90s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Hea ... l_Transfer
James' wonders if it's true that the Quebec system is less funded than Ontario. Ontario is (was) definitely one of the richest province in Canada, Alberta is the richest. However there are issues with Canadian Hospital in pretty much every province, but not all the same.
In the previous Quebec adminstration (pre-2003), the government made huge cuts in government spending. Health care, Education and the general public administration are big. One of the way was through wage freezes, early retirements opportunities for those that wish. The problem was that they allowed this to happen across the whole public sector as the government was aiming for a ZERO deficit at all cost. The results was that many physicians, nurses and other staff left the Health sector on early retirement.
The current problem in Quebec Health care right now isn't the money, but lack of specialized staff to deal with demand. It takes a long time to get new physicians and nurses students trained and ready for the hospital. Anyway, that is my understanding of the situation.
4) Canadian Health Care
Through all it's fault, 100% of the population is covered in this system. The US system might be quicker, however not all the people are covered if they don't have a personal insurance. Plus the US government spends more of it's GDP on Health care than Canada's. As I mentioned about, Canada's expenses in the system was cut when all government were dealing with massive deficits.
I've had to go to the ER in France back in 98, it's wasn't great either. In France, there are a different class of hospital, some are for folks with good coverage on their insurance and some for the rest of the population.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care
Country Canada / US
Life expectancy 80.5 / 77.5
Infant mortality rate 5.0 / 6.0
Physicians per 1000 people 2.14 / 2.56
Nurses per 1000 people 9.95 / 9.37
Per capita expenditure on health (USD) 2,669 / 5,711
Healthcare costs as a percent of GDP 9.9 / 15.2
% of government revenue spent on health 16.7 / 18.5
% of health costs paid by government 69.9 / 44.6
% of health costs paid private insurance 12.6 / 36.8
% of health costs paid by consumer 15.1 / 13.3
The US currently (2007) has the most expensive health care of any OECD country and also has the highest percentage of costs paid privately with some of the worst health statistics in the free world.
http://www.who.int/
5) Quebec language and Nationalism in Politics.
Nationalism in Politics isn't limited to Quebec. Everyone goes it and some do it more than other. Waving the flag to rally the electorate has always been popular. Quebec's politics definitely go in a direction where most North Americans would find strange, but if you go back to the pre-1776 days, I'm sure that independence was a topic.
There is always going to be somewhat independent movement in Quebec, it's only natural. You have a strong language minority in one country which is a strong on a given territory. Like most other independent movements around the World, it's has to do with different language/culture/way-of-life/economic in danger (real or perceptions) of being lost or have little say in the governing of the National government. Not saying that I agree with it, just presenting the facts.
with a breast that bring back hope of a better day :-"
