We’re all victims of politics

Steve Campbell

I read the other day that plans are underway to possibly build a new hospital just up the road from the current one.
I’m not against such a thing – I hear there are problems with controlling airborne bacteria in older buildings – but I’m a little puzzled.
If we look back on the history of PEC Memorial, or QHC PEC, or whatever it’s called now, it seems that time and time again County people have been called on to ‘save the hospital’.
It has been under attack a number of times, especially after it was swallowed by its Belleville Big Brother. Cost-cutting was the number one reason, and beds and staff were always under the gun.
But, when you start talking about a New Building, all of a sudden millions of dollars start showing up from the government coffers.
This is what bugs me. It seems that governments love bricks and mortar more than they love people. To me, they have their investment principles backwards. A strong Ontario and Canada should be measured by its good, skilled workers, not by the volume of steel and glass.
Meanwhile, hard-working people are out there trying desperately to get donations from County locals to buy much needed hospital equipment, because the province doesn’t do that part.
Anna Marie Ferguson of the Hospital Foundation is out there pounding the streets, and clubs and organizations and businesses of every kind are helping out with funding to the best of their ability. The Hospital Auxilary and County Rotary Clubs alone should be proud of their ongoing efforts to keep our hospital alive and thriving.
Nancy Parks and her group are trying to create a new Hospice structure through countless more hours of volunteer work, straining to get this worthwhile project off the ground.
And still, you need to beg and scream and plead and cry to get one more full-time nurse added to hospital staff. But hey! If you’re building a building – Oh, look! I just found several million in my other pocket!
To me, if the province had a couple of extra mill banging around for hospitals, I wish they would have produced it when we needed it most.
The problem is, it’s all about politics.
And we always seem to be paying the tab for it.
As an example, The Toronto Star reported that, days before the last election, McGuinty cancelled a binding contract for a new gas-fired power plant in Mississauga. Local residents were upset about the project, which was already under construction, and Liberal seats were on the line. The move bought him re-election for four Liberal incumbents.
The price tag for the cancellation: $180 million (and climbing).
You see, Dalton’s Green Energy Act is not about Green Energy. It’s not about clean energy. Hell, it’s not even about energy. It’s about politics.
Stephen Harper’s study on the health effects of industrial wind turbines, though welcomed, is more about politics than genuine concern for our health.
Everyone screams for statistics but, as one pro-wind letter writer said: Stats and studies can be bent to give any result. She was hedging her bets in case the tests turn out bad, but it could twist the other way round, too.
Because what decides the results? Science? Reason? Common sense? No, the preferences and politics of the person who commissioned the study.
This is why coffee is bad for you, and then good for you again a year later.
Have you ever seen a consultant report that says: “Your staff is great, your sales are strong, but all of you management people who hired me should be fired, because you’re incompetent, and you’re sucking all the profits out of the company.”
To me, that lost $180 million would have built a damn fine hospital in the County. But you can be sure the province will drop as little of our tax dollars as possible into our project.
And we’ll be left, once again, to raise the rest.