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U.S. health care spending per capita is the highest in the world. Yet, as The Economist notes , "America lags behind other wealthy countries in the overall performance of its medical system". It might seem ironic then, that the same magazine has stated that the U.S. "offers the best health care in the world." But keep reading: If you are lucky enough to have proper insurance and be admitted to the Mayo Clinic, the UCLA Medical Centre or Johns Hopkins, you will enjoy outstanding treatment. Unfortunately, as the tens of millions of uninsured and underinsured have discovered, America offers some of the most unreliable, costliest and least equitable health care in the world too. The U.S. spends around 17% of its GDP on health care. This compares to Canada where we have a publicly-funded system, and spend around 9% . Now there are lots of complexities here and I don't mean to oversimplify. The Canadian health care system is far from perfect, although I think most ...

As I pointed out in my recent post , democracy is not so easy to measure. The sine qua non of democracy is generally felt to be "free and fair elections". But that begs quite a few questions: Can you have "free and fair" elections without freedom of the press? How was the list of candidates assembled? Is wealth a precondition for running? Have there been any implicit or explicit threats conditional on the outcome? But there's a lot more to democracy that elections ("free and fair" or otherwise). Elected representatives should be responsive to their constituents' concerns. When those concerns are consistently ignored, there is clearly a problem. This has been just the case with Canadian public opinion on the war in Afghanistan. According to public opinion polling conducted by The Strategic Counsel for The Globe and Mail and CTV News, since the summer of 2006, a majority of Canadians have opposed sending troops to Afghanistan. In the poll of Janu...

Once upon a time there were two senior civil servants, Linda Keen and Rick Hillier. Linda Keen was head of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, and had serious concerns about the safety of an aging nuclear reactor. She was steadfast in refusing to go along with the Conservative government's intention to reopen the facility. Prime Minister Stephen Harper referred to her in parliamentary debate as a "Liberal partisan". She was fired with a late night phone call. General Rick Hillier is Canada's Chief of Defense Staff. On several occasions he has publicly expressed his opinions on Canada's military presence in Afghanistan. Not on how to conduct military operations, which is his job, but on political issues such as how long Canadian troops should be there. Just a few days ago he argued for an extension and went on to suggest that domestic debate about this was endangering Canadian troops: ... the longer we go without that clarity, with the issue in doubt, the m...

It came as no great surprise: the Liberals today proposed a very gentle amendment to the Conservatives' motion to extend Canada's military stay in Afghanistan. The key difference is that the amendment calls for withdrawal of troops starting in February 2011, whereas the original motion simply referred to extending the stay until 2011 (and then?). Seems like a cosmetic change to me, but I guess it keeps everyone happy (except, of course, the Canadian public, who have consistently been of the opinion that the Canadian military presence needs to wind down). Stephen Harper must have been delighted. But it's not yet a fait accompli , so he prudently kept his response low-key, referring to the amendment as a " positive development ". The Liberals, who got Canada involved in Afghanistan in the first place, have some internal divisions about this. But it lets hawks like Michael Ignatieff pretend to be doves. Here he is, yesterday in the House of Commons: When the govern...

When I talk with people about Canada's military involvement in Afghanistan, their reaction is pretty consistent. Yup, it's a mess. Yup, maybe we shouldn't have gotten involved in the first place. But the Taliban were pretty nasty when they were in power [Agreed!] particularly in terms of how they treated women [Agreed again!]. Should we withdraw? Probably ... except ... Except we have a reponsibility to the people of Afghanistan. Except if we did, the Taliban would take power again. Except if we did, women's rights would disappear. Except our NATO "partners" would be upset. Except how can reconstruction take place unless order is established? It's no wonder that with obstacles like these, many Canadians feel quite ambivalent about the idea of withdrawal from Afghanistan. But the real obstacles are in our minds: we are imprisoned by our own assumptions. To list a few: the assumption that we know best; the assumption that the Taliban are the source of all tr...

John Manley, chair of the Independent Panel on Canada's Future Role in Afghanistan: If Canadians really don't want to do this, well then that is something that has to be respected. But in the past, Canadians have shown a willingness to do things that were difficult and required sacrifice and were challenging. But you can't feed them news about young men and women dying without putting it in a context in which they can say this is why and this is meaningful and this is tragic but it's worth it. Presumably Manley was referring to the young Canadian men and women dying in Afghanistan. The Afghan victims (young or old) are rarely mentioned. I was reminded of Madeleine Albright's infamous remark regarding the deaths of many thousands of Iraqi children due to the sanctions, "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it." I'm not trying to equate these situations, but note that while Manley and Albright both conclude tha...

Last week the Independent Panel on Canada's Future Role in Afghanistan released its report . The full report is available here . The basic message? Stay the course: Canadian soldiers should stay in Afghanistan well into the future. The argument is propped up by the usual noble words—and a few ignoble graphs, two of which I've shown here. The graph below shows Afghan's opinions about the direction in which their country is moving: Comments both graphical and political would be most welcome!

The Ottawa International Airport has a large banner in the arrivals area proclaiming that "We Support Our Troops". I think it's worth considering what this means , so let's take it word by word ... We Who exactly is "We"? Perhaps the Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport Authority , since they're the ones who presumably authorized the banner. But isn't the airport a public place? Nobody asked my opinion. Support Perhaps the key word. As a taxpayer, I suppose it's a given that I support the troops financially . But let's cut to the chase: we're talking about the Afghanistan mission here, and I don't believe Canadian troops should be in Afghanistan . My disagreement is not with the troops themselves, it's with the foreign policy of the Canadian government. Our Troops The trouble is, the wording of the slogan seems to suggest that if you disagree with the presence of Canadian troops in Afghanistan, then somehow you're ...