LIVE WEB UPDATES from Vancouver

Jan Malek and Guy Caron onsite in Vancouver

- August 16-22 -

The Canadian Medical Association is having their annual general meeting in Vancouver. This is the second time the Council of Canadians has travelled to the location to speak on behalf of our members who are concerned about protecting public health care. With the election of Dr. Brian Day as its president and recent CMA policy clearly supporting health care privatization, the CMA is taking a clear position in the debate. The Council of Canadians is here in Vancouver to provide evidence in support of public health care, of public solutions to wait times, and of the urgent need for governments to act against Canada Health Act violations. Profit is not the cure for Canada's health care system.

August 16 - Press conference and speaking to the media

Visit WorkingTV.com to watch video of press conference.

Our visit to Vancouver began with a press conference to call attention to incoming CMA President Dr. Brian Day's recent admission of allowing people to pay directly for surgeries at his private Cambie Surgery Centre. We also highlighted the Specialist Referral Clinic, where Dr. Day is Medical Director, that appears to violate the Canada Health Act and BC Medicare Protection Act by asking people to pay for medically necessary health care services.

Several members of the media, as well as representatives of the BC Nurses Union and BC Health Coalition, joined us to hear BC regional organizer Carleen Pickard and Health Care Campaigner Guy Caron talk about how private health care clinics hurt the public system. Guy gave clear examples of public solutions for the public system, which were also outlined in our materials.

The journalists asked some good and pointed questions, and wanted to know more about how private health care drains the public system of doctors, nurses and other health care professionals.

We continued to get media calls sporadically through the afternoon. After finishing with those it was time to get the materials ready for our citizens' action outside of Dr. Day's Specialist Referral Clinic, where we will be using his own words to show how he favours privatization over public health care. We will be delivering our booklet for doctors to Dr. Day called, "Public solutions for a public system" and letting him know that profit is not the cure for Canada's health care system!

Visit WorkingTV.com to watch video of press conference.

- Jan Malek

August 17, 2007 - Protesting private health care

Click here to see more photos from the event.

Good morning Dr. Day!

Joined by picketers from CUPE Local 15 representing the striking workers of Vancouver's City Hall, members of the Council of Canadians gathered Thursday morning to express their support of public health care in front of two private clinics owned and/or operated by Dr. Brian Day: the infamous Cambie Surgery Centre and the lesser-known Specialist Referral Clinic.

About 20 people rallied in front of the Specialist Referral Clinic and marched, carrying signs expressing their support for public health care, or highlighting some outrageous quotes uttered in the past by Dr. Day, such as "I do not support the principles of the Canada Health Act" and "I'm still a socialist. That's why I support private health care."

The marchers then moved on to the Cambie Surgery Clinic. Carleen Pickard, BC/Yukon organizer for the Council, and I entered the waiting room area of the Centre where we were "greeted" by a centre employee. Here is how the conversation went:

"We would like to meet with Dr. Day," we said.
"He's not here and if you don't have an appointment, you will have to leave."
"Would it be possible to set up an appointment to talk to him?"
"No, and if you don't leave, I'll call the police."
"Well, it's too bad because we wanted to share information with him, to discuss our concerns with private health care," we continued while giving her a media kit and asking that it be given to Dr. Day.
"We can discuss this outside, but not here. There are patients waiting."
"No problem. Are you coming outside with us to talk?"
"No. Goodbye!"

So much for information sharing.

So we left the clinic to join the marchers outside, but not before their voices were heard chanting, "Profit is not the cure" and Public health care works!" We rallied back to the Specialist Referral Clinic, and thanked all of our supporters for coming. One last task remained.

Carleen and I entered the Clinic and asked to speak with Dr. Day. We were greeted by Dr. Zoltan Nagy, whom some of you may recognize as the President of the Canadian Independent Medical Clinics Association. We chatted rather cordially for about five minutes, giving him a copy of the media kit for information-sharing purposes. He told us that if we wanted to meet with Dr. Day, it would be preferable to do it through the Canadian Medical Association office. We told him that we and other like-minded organizations would be interested in debating Dr. Day publicly on the private/public health care issue, and Mr. Nagy said they were open to it.

We finished by thanking him for his time, and also inviting both Mr. Nagy and Dr. Day to our public event Sunday afternoon in support of public health care. We asked if they could put a poster on their clinic window promoting the event. He said they would think about it and thanked us for our time.

Stay tuned!

- Guy Caron, health care campaigner

August 19, 2007 - In support of public health care

Click here to see more pictures from the event.

A strong public showing

Well we didn't see Dr. Day or Dr. Nagy, but hundreds of other people stopped by the Vancouver Art Gallery to express their support for public medicare.

They added their signatures to our "Public health care works! Profit is not the cure" banner, and picked up materials with information about the benefits of public health care.

The event was organized jointly by the Council of Canadians, the BC Health Coalition, and was supported by the BC Nurses Unions, the Hospitals Employees Union and the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions. Volunteers from all these organizations showed up to leaflet, talk about the issues with people passing by, and hand out balloons and apples. We also had a visit from the Raging Grannies, who sang some tunes about the importance of public health care.

Later in the evening we joined the Canadian Doctors for Medicare for a panel discussion and free showing of Michael Moore's new documentary, SiCKO. The meeting room was filled with more than 175 doctors and local citizens.

Tomorrow we head to the Canadian Medical Association annual meeting, which starts off with federal Health Minister Tony Clement's speech to the delegates.

- Guy Caron and Jan Malek

August 21, 2007 - At the CMA meeting

Guy Caron and I have been in the lobby of the Westin Bayshore Hotel monitoring the proceedings of the CMA meeting from afar. It is a bit of a frustrating affair, with information slowly trickling out. Of course our original plan had been to be inside the meeting to hear the proceedings and discussions directly, but the CMA denied the Council of Canadians observer status. In all aspects, the CMA has tightly controlled the flow of information and representatives have not been interested in hearing from people (or even having them around) who support Canada's public health care system.

Yesterday, the big news was the visit by federal Health Minister Tony Clement. Apparently at one point a CMA delegate asked if the Conservative government would be amenable to opening the Canada Health Act to revisions (presumably in support of private health care). Minister Clement replied that opening the CHA was not on the government's agenda. This, at least, is good news. Now if we can only get the Conservative government to enforce the CHA and do something about all the private for-profit clinics operating across the country!

Today is Dr. Day's presidential acceptance speech. He will be leading the CMA for the next year before handing the reins over to Dr. Robert Ouellet, who is another private health care supporter. Dr. Day has promised to provoke debate about opening health care delivery to "market forces" (so hospitals and private clinics will be competing for patients).

The Council of Canadians will be there to challenge Dr. Day's ideas and to point out that all the evidence supports public funding and public delivery of health care. Public health care is more efficient, cost-effective and ensures health care is accessible to all Canadians.

- Jan Malek

August 22, 2007 - Another day at the CMA

Guy Caron, Jan Malek (Council of Canadians) and Dr. Karen Palmer, Dr. Danielle Martin (Canadian Doctors for Medicare) hold the "Public health care works" banner, which was signed by concerned citizens in Vancouver.

Recycling at the CMA

The 140th Annual General Meeting of the Canadian Medical Association will be concluding tonight with the Coronation Ball to mark the beginning of the term of the new President of the CMA, Dr. Brian Day. The Council of Canadians has not been invited to this grandiose black-tie affair, but we have gotten hold of the commencement speech, delivered by Dr. Profit during the Wednesday luncheon.

You should know that Dr. Day loves recycling. He has been recycling his speeches and tired, unproven arguments for the last three years. Today was no exception.

After the obligatory mention that he went to high school with some of the Beatles, Dr. Profit stated that all he wants is "to give Canadians timely access to health care." However, he made no mention of how private clinics like his own Cambie Surgery Centre can make a quick buck by cream-skimming the easiest cases, leaving the more complicated cases for the public system.

He falsely said that the Chaoulli decision rendered the Canada Health Act unconstitutional, and said that surgeons were leaving Canada because of a lack of resources. He didn't mention that Canada is now welcoming more doctors from the U.S. than are leaving. He predictably said that the payment-by-result model is the way to go for hospital funding (even though CMA delegates refused to go further than adopting a resolution to study the feasibility of the model), and he called for private insurance and contracting out to increase access without bothering to qualify his comments with any evidence whatsoever.

All in all, it was the same old rhetoric from Dr. Day.

No wonder he refuses to participate in any debate with knowledgeable experts in favour of public insurance and non-profit delivery. It is clear he would not be able to reply to any evidence-based argument. When the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario demolished the arguments of the CMA's Medicare Plus position paper a few weeks ago, he simply bashed them as a union... which they are not. He didn't respond at all to the arguments put forward by the RNAO.

It is sad that doctors across the country - many of whom do not support Dr. Day's privatization agenda - will be represented this way. As was learned today, the CMA refuses to release the results of an IPSOS-Reid poll conducted with their members on the level of support for the privatization proposals in the paper, which leads us to believe that they are not that compatible with the will of the CMA membership.

But the general will of the public and doctors, and public policy evidence has never stopped Dr. Day from spouting nonsense.

- Guy Caron

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To find out more about the Council of Canadians, and to become a member, visit our website at www.canadians.org, or call us toll free at 1-800-387-7177.