Jolimont

So many Americans are so damn proud of their health care system. And it is grand indeed. If you can afford it and half of the population can't.

Sakpo

What do you mean by "blatant injustice" ? There's plenty of it in Canada. Sure, you won't see it on a nice visit to a touristy spot, and most Canadians would deny it, but then again, on a trip to a touristy American spot it'd be easy to avoid seeing any injustices, and most Americans deny the injustices in America.

Canadian wealth distribution.

We have people living on the streets. People selling themselves on the streets. People who wrongfully get sent to prison. Problems with corrupt, racist and brutal police (not all, or even most of them, neccessarily). Screwed over native peoples. The seriously screwed over Inuit. The Vancouver Police Dept., which sat idly by and claimed nothing was amiss as dozens of poor women from the downtown eastside (a slum), mainly prostitutes, often drug addicted and/or native, dissapeared (it seems we're slowly digging up their bodies now on a pig farm a little while out of town). This went on for years, even after a couple people specifically reported the pig farm/the now suspected/accused serial killer. Why? Because they were women who didn't matter in Canada, until it finally became a juicy news story that got the media to salivate a little.

It wasn't long ago that it turned out that cops in Regina, in the winter, were driving natives outside of town, taking their warm clothes, and abandoning them (subjecting them to serious risk of death). Toronto's black community has long complained of police harassment and brutality.

People born wealthy have the system stacked in their favour.

The federal election system has been messed with to deny democracy to the western provinces (which, if they ever gained their fair share of power, would work hard to swing the country to the neo conservative theocratic fascist way of doing things :banghead: ).

Canada has blatant injustice aplenty.

There's economic injustice, bad cops, a bad justice system, racism, classism, etc, up here in Canada, and it can be pretty blatant. Overall, Canada is a nice place, I'm not denying it. But Canadians tend to represent it as nicer than it is to foreigners, glossing over our issues, and are typically in self denial as well (this is hardly unique to Canadians, of course).

Godless Dave

I've noticed this as well, particularly in regard to treatment of natives. Do you think having the US to the south makes it easier to gloss over the kinds of injustice you mention? "Sure, we stole the Indians' land and treated them like crap, but the Americans treated them worse!" "Sure there's prejudice against blacks up here, but we never had slavery!" etc.

(Kind of like how France can pursue imperialist foreign policy secure in the knowledge that whatever they do won't make them look as bad as the US).

BTW, Sakpo, what do you think of Canada's health-care system?

Clutch

Absolutely.

Being "better" than the Americans is a perennial aspect of our national identity; but this often amounts to an excuse for dismantling, rather than maintaining or enhancing, the apparati of social justice. With the USA setting the bar so low, and moving it still lower over a long period via its passionate affair with neoconservativism, the idea sometimes amounts to being barely better than the USA -- as if that's really the only goal, instead of some independently conceived standard of "The Just Society".

FoE

Better healthcareh at half the price?

Laci

That's not at all what I've heard. You can say that. But I've talked to the individuals who are trying to see doctors down here or waiting for a very long time to get an operation.
If it's 1/2 the price, it's probably not a bargain.

:boohoo:

FoE

Then why is the average life expectancy 2 years longer in Canada? Americans pay twice as much, live shorter lives and still have something like 40 million people with no coverage.

Laci

I'll have to look into that and get back to you on statistics.
Life expectancy. Interesting. Maybe because it's colder in Canada. And people just live longer. Too simple.

Yes, not everyone has coverage; some don't have good coverage.
I've been thru this myself. No we don't have "free" health care like you do. But we still have the very best doctors and facilities in the USA. I know that for a fact!

:boohoo:

FoE

The cold makes Canadians live longer? Somehow i doubt it. People just live longer? Come on now, people live longer because we have a better healthcare system.

The difference in life expectancy can be found on the CIA World factbook website. American Senator John Warner claims here that 41.2 million Americans (14.6%!) have no healthcare. Some Googling should find more statisitcs.

Farren

I suspect Laci's a musician. That must be the 100000000000000000th post I've read from him/her that has a :boohoo: at the end. Or maybe she just hates her violin lessons. He does look depressed.