Supreme Court strikes down Quebec medicare laws

CTV News ^ | June 9,2005 | CTV.ca News Staff

[inquest]

The law has a clause that says the Quebec Charter has precedence over another act (even those passed after it), unless that act "expressly states that it applies despite the Charter."

Someone else mentioned to me something about a "notwithstanding" clause. Is that the same?

[GMMAC]

Maybe look at it from the point-of-view of 'states' rights' and not wanting everything run from Washington in your country?

There's more than one edge to this sword and seemingly some are being distracted (blinded?) both by that it happens to involve Quebec and looks somewhat like a victory over something akin to Hillary-care.
As most conservatives on both sides of the border hold that their federal governments already have their snouts into far too many local concerns, in my view, any apparent win for 'centralism' merits our very close and thorough analysis.

[GMMAC]

"Someone else mentioned to me something about a "notwithstanding" clause. Is that the same?"

'The 'not withstanding clause' or Sec 33 of Canada's socialist imposed Constitution or Charter gives individual provinces the right to opt out of Court decisions founded upon same.

The Quebec (provincial or 'state') law cited is more like a 'launching pad' for invocation of this proviso.

Note that the hypocritical Liberals whine non-stop that every single word of their precious Charter is sacred while:
1. equating any mention of Sec 33 with veritable treason.
2. so successfully intimidating the provinces that they never invoke it.
3. applauding their hand-picked Judicial hacks whenever they 'read in' imagined 'rights' which aren't mentioned and ever some that Parliament - the peoples' duly elected representatives - specifically deemed not to include!

[Springman]

Rush just talked about this.

Just want to know, are the unions for the Big Three going to want this?

[GMMAC]

IMHO Rush (whom I heard) and everyone else who's taking the decision at its face value has it very simplistically wrong.
On Toronto talk radio, every commie with a phone is calling in to hail it as a victory since, to them, it means even more squandered tax-dollars for our completely out-of-control and grossly mismanaged 'public' healthcare system.

This, in and of itself, should give us pause.

[Springman]

OK, I know that I don't know.

However I do know I don't to want to deal with OHIP. Like my FRiends from the south, east, and north.

I have problems w/BCBS, but I can deal with them.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

the health care system at work: a 50 year old woman in Canada (won't say which Province) will be dead in three months because her doctor did not do an x-ray when she had pneumonia last fall (she is a smoker). Her lung cancer progressed too much since then. She is a very wealthy woman who goes to one of these clinic for the poor (what is that in Canada since there is socialized medicine) -not sure what her reason was. They have waiting lists for x-rays I gather and are so overwhelmed that they did'nt bother

There's No Place Like Home: What I learned from my wife's month in the British medical system.
The Wall Street Journal Opinion Journal | June 8, 2005 | David Asman

Article and comments quite interesting.

[rasblue]

A nice kick in the balls for the socialists and Marxists in Canada.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

This is a wonderful development for two reasons.

First, it might actually lead my fellow Canadians to have a reasonable debate on health care. For far too long, our medicare system has been elevated almost to the status of a state religion. Despite numerous studies and commissions on health care, and several elections at both the provincial and federal level being fought on health care issues; there has been no real, honest debate. Supporters of the status quo accuse anyone criticizing the system of supporting "American-style" health care. The fact that even "progressive" European nations all have mixed public/private health care is left out of the debate. Perhaps now Canadians will actually engage in a real, and possibly productive debate about the issue.

Second, it was the Supreme Court of Canada, in an instance of judicial activism that brought down this decision. Left-wingers, and "social progressives" have staunchly defended judicial activism since the advent of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms gave our Supreme Court much the same power as the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down legislation it deems "unconstitutional". Now, the public program most sacred (literally) to the left has been attacked by the infalliable Supremes. I imagine that heads must be exploding, trying to reconcile these facts. Perhaps now, we Canadians can also have a reasonable debate about judical activism.