Once again Quebec is taking top honours.
We are not only the highest-taxed place in North America, and our school dropout rate is among the tops, with our unemployment rate always way above the national average.
Now, we are told we have the worst emergency room waiting times anywhere in the western world.
That probably doesn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone with the misfortune of needing an ER visit.
Every new health minister who is sworn in promises to fix the problem and it just gets worse.
35% of patients have to wait five hours or more in chronically overcrowded Quebec Ers.
It’s a shame.
In all fairness, if it’s a life-or-death situation, Quebec ER’s do very well.
Hospital organization is to blame, so is a lack of nurses, and there are many more reasons.
One in ten patients leaves an ER before being seen by a doctor.
Whenever I hear a health minister vow to fix things, I don’t believe it. Plus ça change plus c’est pareil.
Stumped
What’s a million here, a million there? It’s only your money.
Montreal City Hall obviously doesn’t have a problem spending it.
One: we learned this week that $3.5 million will be spent on granite stumps for Mount Royal.
That’s a lot of rock to rest your butt on, but we are told it is public art for the increasingly ridiculous 375th birthday celebration.
The project is already 27 percent over budget.
Maybe we should use some of that granite for potholes Mr. Mayor.
Two: the Mordecai Richler gazebo which has become an embarrassment for Montreal and for the Richler family.
The original cost to restore this modest structure was to be $370,000.
Two years later it is still not finished and the cost is now three quarters of a million dollars.
Three: taxpayers in Montreal spent $8 million last year in overtime costs so police could direct traffic.
Projet Montreal this week denounced the city paying $60 an hour for off-duty police officers on traffic duty. It’s a job civilians could easily do if there was the political will to do something about it.
Four: the number is $6.2 million.
That’s the loss Montreal will assume for cancelling the World Police and Firefighter Games this summer.
The city decided to pull the plug because Montreal’s police and fire unions had vowed to boycott the event because they are still having hissy fits over provincial pension reform.
City Hall knew about the possibility of a boycott a long time ago but pressed ahead and now we are stuck with the bill.
Plus ça change, plus c’est pareil.
Honouring Jacques Parizeau
There is a certain irony in naming the head office of Quebec’s pension fund after Jacques Parizeau.
In all fairness he was an innovator but he was not afraid to use the Caisse for political means, like preventing Loblaw’s from buying Steinberg’s back in the 80s.
In 1995 Parizeau was ready to use your pension funds to prop up Quebec finances after his planned unilateral declaration of independence.
Another irony is that Parizeau denounced the hiring of the guy who now runs the Caisse .
Parizeau was obviously suspicious of an Anglo federalist like Michael Sabia running his pet pension fund.
So the building will bear his name but the ironies will likely remain hidden in the fog of history.
Especially his plans for your pension money from the Caisse de depot on the day after a yes victory.
