Problem: A systematic voting bias that favours public servants.

There exists a systematic, undemocratic bias that appears during every political election that  favors public servants - in particular those that are represented by the collective bargaining process that is the government granted privilege of union membership.

The problem has  two dimensions. 

First. All tax revenues come under the spending discretion and control of public servants. Consequently,  then public servants  as a class of society ultimately possess the collective voting power (and self-serving) tendency to vote in favor of political platforms and government internal policies that will serve their individual and personal interests AS public servants. Examples of such self- interests include:  voting for new or expansionary government programs that will provide more job opportunities for themselves within the public service; voting for employee compensation and benefits increases for themselves; voting against any measure that proposes a reduction in the power, size, mandate, revenues and influence of government in our lives.

Second. When public servants are members of a union, this systematic bias becomes dramatically reinforced. Since the majority of public servants are union members, then this systematic bias clearly favors society's 'political class' over those that fund their jobs - the wealth-generating citizens who are employed in the private sector. It must be noted that the citizens who are employees of the public service are members of the wealth-consuming class, and that any taxes that they must forfeit from their pay-check  are paid by monies that originated from taxation rather that the wealth-creating activities of business.

Everyone understands the power and influence of unions today.

Unions have been granted by government authority the "right"  to employee "collective bargaining" tactics  to extract compensation and other job-related advantages from employers for their members. Their leverage to achieve these ends is directly proportional to the percentage of the employer's workforce that belongs to the union membership. The threat that the union presents to the employer to “negotiate” better employment terms is strike action, or other less-punitive job action which will threaten the employer's reputation and will withdraw from the public community that the employer serves the services upon which they have come to depend.

Solution: Collective voting.

I am proposing “collective voting” to counter the bias of "collective bargaining".

Under collective voting, any public servant that enjoys the benefits of collective bargaining under union membership must forfeit his or her individual vote at election time, but  will be entitled to influence the single collective vote that will be granted to every separate union organization that employs public servants. Furthermore, to prevent unions from re-structuring themselves into many smaller voting units in order to counter the purpose of this collective voting scheme, a single vote will be allowed for every distinct community  of public servant - one vote for all teachers; one vote for all health care worker; etc.

It is anticipated that many union members will not willingly  forfeit their individual vote in favor of the voting restriction imposed by union membership - they will likely argue this as being  "undemocratic”. I sympathize with them. 

For this reason, a concurrent law must be passed to make union membership voluntary. In this way, every public sector employees will have  the democratic choice between the advantages of collective bargaining and the ability to exercise their right to vote as a citizen of Ontario.

Anticipated consequences:

While this "collective voting "proposal is not ideal, if implemented it will greatly reduce the systematic and undemocratic voting bias that currently exists. Two scenarios are likely to become manifest as result of this change. 

First , union membership may not change at all but the voting influence of unions will become almost nonexistent, thereby eliminating the bias. 

On the other hand, if membership in unions drops radically, then the number of citizens who lobby for internal policy changes  or at election time, vote  in favor of self-serving political objectives - these will also be reduced along with the bias. 

In either case, the interests of democracy will be served.

Government Productivity Dividend - a policy proposal

Government Productivity Dividend

I have been employed in the recruiting industry since 1981 and have found it to be a very rewarding profession - financially, intellectually and socially. During 28 years of this period, I earned my living based on a 100% commission plan. This reality provided me with a constant reminder that I needed to be focused, productive and ultimately successful in staffing the job openings assigned to me by my clients, or else fail to provide for my family.

As a specialist in the Information Technology and Business Transformation Consulting sectors, I have learned many useful and interesting things about people, technology, business, sales, economics and government. One of my clients during the late 1980s and early 1990s was a very successful executive named George Sekely. 

George was the Executive Vice-President of the Computer & Communications Division of Canadian Pacific Limited – one of Canada’s largest corporations at the time. He directed an organization of over 400 IT professionals and he had built a reputation as one of the best Technology executives in Canada. George had a formula for fostering increasing productivity within his organization:

1-    Hire the most talented people you can find for each and every job.

2-    Invest in the best tools and training to enable work to be performed in the most efficient and effective ways possible.

3-    Incent top performance by providing a framework of clearly-defined goals and rewards to encourage all staff members and teams to strive persistently to achieve the desired results.

It was essential that all 3 components of George’s ‘Productivity Formula’ had to be implemented and supported by C&C’s management team if increasing productivity was to be expected. Failing to invest in one or more of these elements would lead to deteriorating performance and unsatisfactory results.

I have seen this  ‘Productivity Formula’ work very successfully within many private sector organizations. However, I've never seen it applied successfully in the public sector. There are many reasons for this failure and anyone familiar with government operations would be able to identify many of these quite readily. More on this later.

Call me naive, but it has always been my understanding that the purpose of government is to provide a limited range of protective services for the taxpayers who fund its operations and programs. While this was likely the original intent, it seems to me that the exact opposite has evolved over time - that all governments now exist ( and continue to expand!) for their own self-serving reasons.  The predictable rhetoric of politicians and government leaders, of course, claim otherwise - professing public assurances that the interests of all citizens is all that matters to them. Here’s a reality check ….with the current crushing levels of public debt standing in stark contrast to the rich entitlements that have been bestowed on our “public servants”, is it any wonder that no one believes their claims any more?

What I find most frightening about this scenario is that there no longer appears to be anything to stop the creeping expansion of the state in all areas of our lives.

I was raised to believe that I must live within my means. It has been a matter of personal pride that I have been able to provide for my family and for my retirement with the knowledge that I will never become a financial burden to anyone  – with one exception  - my share of the public debt. This debt, has been estimated at $122,000 per family, was ostensively incurred on my behalf even though I never wanted it, never asked for it, and never had any control over it!

There needs to be a set of “hard checks” on public spending if we are ever to live within our collective means. 

Hard checks are baked into success in all business enterprises. Competition and the need to be profitable are the two enduring realities that ensure companies invest thoughtfully in George Sekely’s  3 productivity levers if they are to survive. These “survival of the fittest” checks and balances continually guide and mold successful, wealth-creating businesses. Unfortunately no such unrelenting checks exist in government to determine success or failure.  Oh sure, you often  hear politicians and bureaucrats sing the right words to the appropriate productivity tune, but the measures to control government excesses are as flimsy and flighty as the whims of the electorate at election time.

The sad truth is that there exists no incentive for government leaders and workers to increase productivity or control costs.

Human nature, which is governed heavily by the survival instinct, is inherently self-serving. This fact is clearly manifested in the poor attitudes towards work responsibility and work performance of too many government workers today. To add injury to insult, these same people have manned picket lines to extract rich entitlements (compensation, employment benefits, job security and pension schemes) in spite of their dismal productivity records.

Why is this the way things are?  Simply put, public servants have no “skin in the game”.

There is nothing  to encourage them to reduce costs and/or to increase their productive output. On the contrary, the pernicious influence of trade unionism has actively pursued an ethic of less productivity within their memberships. With some 750,000 government workers in Ontario working under union-negotiated employment agreements, this represents collectively an awful lot of lost human productivity.

Wikipedia defines “productivity“ as: “a measure of the efficiency of production”;  “a ratio of production output to what is required to produce it (inputs)”;  and “total output per one unit of total input”.  From my own studies in economics, I have learned that there are 2 types of “productivity” - human and capital (aka “return on investment”). If we refer back to George Sekely’s Productivity Formula, the capital form is derived from the investments made in tools and training intended to leverage human efforts for greater gains. However, in government, a positive return on capital investments is unlikely when it is so difficult to satisfy the other 2 components: ie hire the best talent and provide truly motivating incentives. Government hiring practices are often designed to meet other objectives that take precedent over hiring the best talent – meeting “diversity quotas”; giving preference to “qualifications” over hiring the best person suited to achieving best results. Once hired, their incomes rise on the basis of “cost of living adjustments”, tenure, and negotiated collective agreement gains. Promotions are bestowed on people with “seniority” over people who have produced real achievements and meaningful results.

As a government stakeholder - a taxpayer - I have been concerned for many years about the juggernaut we call government and the never-ending lip service it has paid to attaining productivity gains in its own operations. Mostly, I am frustrated by my inability to do anything about it. How many Canadians feel helpless like I do about the current state of Government in Canada?

I yearn for real levers of accountability that I can employee as a stakeholder in order to obtain more for the tax dollars that are taken from me every day and, better yet, achieve a situation where less of my earnings are taken as taxes.

Government workers that are employed by trade unions have an unfair advantage over the non-unionized taxpayer. They are, collectively, able to organize and exercise very powerful levers of political influence to obtain financial and employment conditions that favor themselves - at the expense of the rest of us.

Some may argue that all taxpayers have the right to vote for the government they desire. However, a single vote can in no way be compared as a lever of political influence when matched to that under control of trade unions. The balance of power has become overwhelmingly in favor of serving the needs of government employees at the expense of the stakeholder citizen.

There is an old saying that there are only two things you can count on in life: death and taxes. I don't believe that the second part of this saying necessarily has to be true.

I am proposing a rebalancing of the levers of power that will provide ALL citizens with a governance structure to protect their interests without taking anything away from the public servant that he or she has not earned. I call this governance structure the Government Productivity Dividend. Here's a summary of its main features:

Government pension contributions will only be made when annual budgets balance. If pension contributions are missed one year, then an opportunity to regain part of those losses will be available if the budget is balanced the subsequent year; in such a case, the pension contribution would be 125% of the amount expected as a reward for making up for the failure in the prior year. This, of course, will apply to the pensions of all elected government representatives in all levels of the public service sector (no exceptions), as well as all union officials.

Government Revenues (GR) (from all sources) must not exceed a predefined percent of GDP. To achieve progressive productivity returns over time, Government Revenue Targets (GRT) will decrease each year so that a combined provincial and federal Government Revenue rate of 20% of GDP is ultimately achieved and maintained in perpetuity.

Government Revenue will be adjusted for government-induced inflation. This adjustment will reflect the inverse relationship between the GR and changes in the money supply effected by the Bank of Canada. This measure is intended will discourage political and government leaders from hatching schemes to manipulate the Government Productivity Dividend for political or self-serving ends. For example, if the money supply increases by 1%, then the GRTs must decrease by 1%. Note that this feature of the Government Productivity Dividend program makes it impervious to government efforts to “inflate away” public debt.

It is well-known that changes in government operations occur at glacial speed. There are many ways for politicians and bureaucrats to stall efforts to implement programs. However, since the levels of public debt at have reached near crisis levels with no credible signs for correction, then we cannot afford to delay implementing the Government Productivity Dividend. The sooner it goes into effect, the sooner we can expect to reap its rewards and put our fiscal house in order.

I do, however, recognize that the Government Productivity Dividend should be phased in over a few years. For this reason, I propose the following:  

Schedule of Pension Contribution payments to be made whenever annual budgets fail to balance:  

                   85% in Year One;  

                   65% in Year Two;  

                   40% in Year Three;

                   15% in Year Four; 

                   0% thereafter.

The reaction to the Government Productivity Dividend is as predictable as the sun rising each day. The self-serving union leaders and membership will howl that the Government Productivity Dividend is an attack on Canada’s hard working public servants and their families. The appropriate response is to point out that their defined benefits pension plans is an exclusive, tax-funded privilege that may have been viable at a different time in Canada's history. However -  times have changed and government must change as well for the enduring benefit of ALL hard-working Canadians and their families, not just those within the government class.

Furthermore, it is appropriate to point out that pension contributions are not being eliminated but will be earned as a reward for success rather than bestowed as an entitlement.  If all government works and their union reps pull together to achieve their targets, there is no reason to expect that they will lose any pension contributions. The onus will be on every public servant at every level of government to put forth a collective and concerted effort to earn their Productivity Dividend by using our hard-earned tax dollars wisely!

I believe strongly in the fairness of the proposed Government Productivity Dividend. It benefits everyone. Even the retired public servant can look forward to a future in Canada where the likelihood of economic crisis will be greatly reduced by the powerful fiscal governance effects of the Government Productivity Dividend.

As a final comment, I believe that the public servant who has a sincere interest in working for “the public good” will embrace the Government Productivity Dividend. These workers will come to feel proud to deliver his or her work efforts  within a framework of increasing productivity and fiscal responsibility. Human capital is a terrible thing to waste and personal self-esteem is often derived from knowing that the work you are performing provides real value for the costs (wages, benefits, tools, training, etc) incurred.

Having been employed in the personnel industry for nearly all of my adult life, there is one recurring theme that has arisen in conversations with the tens of thousands of job candidates that I have interviewed: people want assurance that their work efforts will contribute in a meaningful way.

I also spoke with many people who were employed by government organizations in  “make work” assignments that resulted in little or no output of enduring value. I feel story for these people. Let’s dedicate our efforts to them, and make the Government Productivity Dividend a reality as soon as possible so that we do not unnecessarily squander another man-day of Canada's national stock of Human Capital.  

A libertarian defends public education (sort of)

As a libertarian, I am at odds regarding the role of  Public education in society.

Most libertarians would embrace a laissez-faire, free enterprise means of delivering education services to our children. 100 years ago, when the need for a good education was not so critical, a laissez-faire form of education system would have been acceptable to most citizens. The majority of citizens either worked on the farm or in factories. The need for an advanced education was not so critical.

Today, it is commonly accepted that one would never exceed a standard of living beyond the poverty level without at least a  college diploma or a tradesman's certification. In addition, everyone wants a good future for their children. Finally, a countries overall standard of living is dependent upon an educated workforce that can produce the goods and services required to compete successfully in both domestic and world markets.

 For these reasons, it seems self-evident to me that in benefits everyone and society in general to achieve the highest level of education possible for all citizens.

Not all of us are created with equal opportunity or ability. Some children are born into wealthy families where the cost of an education is easily born. Others are less fortunate. Some children are born with innate aptitudes for learning and academic achievement. Others are not born with these gifts. Most children are born with natural talents  which can be developed to their advantage and to the general advantage of society.

Libertarians believe that government has a legitimate role to play in protecting private property and the personal safety of its citizens. An educated and productive citizen is arguably more safe than one who is failed to achieve the necessary credentials and skills to be a productive member of the workforce. There are all kinds of examples of men and women who failed to find their place in society. These people can be found in our prisons or amongst our homeless.

The current public education system which is delivered on a monopoly basis and using a monopoly workforce is less than ideal. Unions have become too powerful and have shaped the attitudes of our teachers that their needs exceed the needs of the  children they teach. These teachers wish to be treated as professionals yet behave as a blue-collar workforce under union rule. They can't have it both ways.

Monopolies have been outlawed in the private sector for many good reasons. Yet monopoly delivery of our education programs is not only allowed, but is lauded  as the best system in the world. Can anyone explain this double standard to me?

Every child needs to be prepared to enter and compete in a workforce that demands such a high degree of skill, knowledge, and ability to work within teams. To limit access to a good education for any child would be a great disservice to both the child and society in general. For this reason, I believe that  every member of society benefits directly by enabling every child to achieve his or her potential to become a productive member of society.

The question is how to achieve this objective.

 I believe in competition for its ability to best bring the best out in people.

I believe in competition for its ability to allocate human resources effectively and efficiently.

I believe in  competition for its ability to provide incentives for individuals to Excel and for businesses to deliver services in such a way that customer satisfaction is attained in a cost-effective manner.

A modern education system needs to be one based on a Competition and not Monopoly  model.

Voucher systems have been used with mixed results in other jurisdictions. In theory, it seems to be a model that could combine some form of  limited public funding as well as the best features of competitive delivery. I favor constructive and enthusiastic debate on this topic, or any other model that would help us to move away from a monopoly system.

The very thought of any form of “social engineering” with respect to an education system goes against the grain with me. However, education is one domain where I believe it may be necessary. Call it a “two-tier” education system if you will,

How does government grow?

How does government grow?

All governments grow 'one regulation at a time'.  

Since governments operations today are so very large and ubiquitous, government growth imperceptible to the average citizen. Like a cancer, however,  that also increases one cell at a time, the final results can be devastating to the 'public body'.

With the creation of every law, bi-law, policy, regulation and/or  statute comes a legal obligation of the state to enforce it. This results in the hiring of more public sector workers including lawyers and their support organizations, court clerks, policy analysts, police officers and their support organizations, judges and their supporting resources, technical writers, IT support staffs, sign creators and installers, etc.

The forgoing identifies the financial costs. What about the costs to freedom. For example, as a citizen, do you spend a few hours each week to read up on all these rules and regulations to ensure that your actions confirm to their legal constraints on your freedom to act ? No? I didn't think so. BUT - be for-warned: "Ignorance of the law is no defence."

Our tax and government debt burdens have grown continually at rates that have exceeded our national wealth accumulation and rates of inflation ( which is created by government as another form of taxation) over my lifetime ( since 1951). Governments justify these increases due to increasing costs of ever-expanding public programs and services,  and their own rising administrative costs associated with meeting these responsibilities. We Taxpayers have also faced increased costs of living and we are all individually expected to 'live within our means, the state continues to claim that their needs are more pressing than ours and unapologetically demand ever more from us. At what point in our history did the needs of the state become a higher priority that the needs of the citizens that it is alleged to serve?

As a Libertarian, I seek smaller government. To achieve these, it stands to reason that you cannot reduce government size until you reduce the "responsibilities" that we, The Voting Public, assign to government. It seems to me, however, that we are more than willing to ask the government to take on New Responsibilities (ie add new regulations and programs) BUT we also never stop to reconcile whether its existing work assignment still provide any measurable value to us. For this reason, it is past overdue for The Public to implement a program of "Regulation Rollback" at all levels of government with the long terms vision of achieving a state of "Regulation Equilibrium". Allow me to explain….. 

Currently, there are some 500,000 regulations on the books in Ontario. I contend that many (most?) of these have out-lived their usefulness and currently consume more TaxPayers' Dollars than the value they provide. In business terms, a Public ROI could not be found that would justify their ongoing costs. Consequently, I propose Regulation Management & Retirement Board  (RMRB) that would possess the mandate to manage and trim all provincial regulations with the ultimate objective of reaching a state of "Regulation Equilibrium".   To achieve this, the RMRB would:

1. Prevent the passing of any new regulation unless 5 existing regulations could be identified and retired which no longer meet a pre-defined Public ROI yardstick. 
2. Ensure that all costs associated with passing new regulations, as well as researching/identifying the 5 to be retired, must be born by the party that seeks to new regulation. 

The expected outcome? - over time, the number of regulations will decrease along with the costs associated with enforcing them. 

 It can logically be expected that groups interested in creating new government regulations will find it increasingly difficult to identify existing regulations that the Taxpaying Public is willing to eliminate. "Regulation Equilibrium"will be  achieved when, theoretically, these special interest groups will be unable to identify 5 existing regulations that can be eliminated in exchange for the one new regulation they desire. At some point, it may become necessary to change the rules to allow the exchange  of 3 existing regulations for one new one, then 2 for 1 and ultimately 1:1.

One advantage of the RMRB is that it will become increasing difficult to pass new regulations,  or maintain existing regulations,  that only serve small interest groups, and not the broader interests of society. The small interest groups will seek new channels to satisfy their interest without incurring public costs.

Excessive Regulations serve as a dead weight hung about the shoulders of the creative, entrepreneurial and productive elements of society. Wealth creation is the primary goal of any nation's economy so that the standard of living for all citizens can continue to rise. If the regulatory burden continues to increase, then the wealth creation process is further hampered.

On the other hand, some level of regulatory control is necessary and beneficial. It is hoped that the "Regulation Equilibrium" that is reached and maintained finds the right balance for Canadian society.

Consider a theoretical continuum of regulatory burden in a province like Ontario - the extreme left of that continuum would start  with zero regulations and progress towards the extreme right to represent  an infinitely rising number of regulations.  A state with no regulations would manifest  as the purest form of laissez-faire market economy with the greatest level in individual freedoms − some may call this 'utopia'; others 'anarchy'. As the regulatory burden increased from zero the economy would pass through various stages of 'controlled anarchy' through states of various degrees of socialism and/or fascism, and ultimately communism controlled but dictatorship with little to no individual freedoms for the public masses. Somewhere along this continuum, an optimal level of regulations would be struck to find an acceptable balance of personal and market freedoms and controls for all.

 I believe that a properly implemented Regulation Management & Retirement Board  could go along way to finding and maintaining this balance, 

Dragon's Den for Privatizing Government Monopolies

My wife and I have a wonderful weekend routine.

I make a "red eye" coffee for each of us on our Gaggia espresso machine, then we settle on the couch with our 2 cats in attendance and chat about all sorts of things, including politics.

Yesterday, Cynthia and I were discussing how to reach and encourage entrepreneurs to create new and profitable business models that could address our GTA commuting and transportation problems. That's when she came up with a brilliant idea!

"What if" she said "there was a Dragon's Den for privatizing government monopolies like the parts of our transportation sector that are publicly controlled and operated?"

With that question, the creative juices began to flow  ….

Like the current Dragons Den, the format would include a small panel of experts that would receive entrepreneurs to hear and critique their business ideas related to replacing or augmenting an existing public sector monopoly with competing, pay-for service, private sector alternatives.

The panel could include current or former political leaders who understand government and business. Likely candidates: Mike Harris, John Tory, Bill Gairdner (Author of 'The Touble With Canada - Still'), John Manley, Maxine Bernier.

An important role of the panel would be to identify the monopoly roadblocks that government has imposed to deter or prevent private sector competition. These identified roadblocks could feed action items for politicians to act upon so that the proposed business models could become viable.

The business proposals could come from anyone with a good idea - whether it is an individual citizen or a major domestic or international corporation.

Some of the problems we face in Ontario are similar to those that have been addressed successfully in other countries or Canadian jurisdictions. To hear the visions of entrepreneurs as well as the success stories of existing business enterprises, and their discussions with the expert panel concerning their viability in Ontario, would make this version on the Dragon's Den as compelling as the original one..

Now all we need to do is to take this idea to the Dragons' Den to see what kind of traction we can get on the idea.   :-)

Is Dalton McGuinty hooked on OPM?

Have you ever wondered why Dalton McGuinty was unable to keep his promise 8 years ago to not increase taxes?  My theory is that he is hooked on OPM!    ;-)

For politicians like Mr. McGuinty, the temptation must be overwhelming to project himself as the 'Iron Man' of  political heros by throwing OPM (other people's money) at every problem and hope that the problem will go away as if by magic. This seems to work in comic books but not so well in reality.

I wonder how well Mr. McGuinty would fare at the election polls if he no longer had access to a reliable supply of OPM? How would he solve problems? …. and if he promised to solve them without OPM, would anyone belief his promises?

I have come to believe that OPM is a dangerous and powerful stimulant that needs to become a controlled substance in Ontario. In the hands of the wrong people, they can experience delusions of grandeur that, to thousands of observers, can appear real. Yet, the schemes that they concoct and the promises that they make while under the influence of OPM often have little or no basis in reality.

Curiously, dependence on OPM appears to be an affliction that is experienced only by some members of the political class. They are easy to pick out of the crowd — they are the politicians who make big and expensive promises that can only be implemented if they have access to an endless supply of OPM. In the case of Mr. Guinty, his OPM habit is obvious from the years of growing OPM use that we have all observed.

Now, a word about OPM.

• The clinical features exhibited by a person hooked on OPM include: grand delusions of power - a smarmy smile when speaking publicly - and a Pinnochio-like nose after prolonged use. Strangely, not everyone can see the nose extension feature — like in 3D movies, only those who own a pair of 'OPM abuse detection glasses' can observe the nose elongation.
• OPM is produced in Ontario which makes it a popular resource among Ontario politicians because they can claim that they only obtain their supply from local producers. 
• The crop of OPM can vary from year to year depending upon a myriad of conditions —  for this reason, politicians hooked on OPM cannot depend upon a bumper crop every year. 
• In manufacturing terms, it takes an almost infinite range of 'factors of production' combined with hard work, creativity and personal sacrifice in order to produce OPM. 
• All OPM producers are obligated by Ontario law to give up a portion of their crop to the political class every year in return for "protection services". Failure to comply can result in fines ( ie confiscation of more OPM) and/or a prison sentence. 
• Many producers are resentful about how much of their OPM crop they must forfeit each year. A few have begun to openly compare the expensive operation of the political class to the 'protection rackets' of the mafia during the last century. 
• OPM is a precious crop to its producers who must retain sufficient portions in order to meet the needs of themselves and their families. A curious feature of OPM is that its clinical features do not appear when used by the producers and their family members

Members of the Ontario Libertarian Party have no OPM suppliers. They conduct their affairs within a small budget that has grown through the generous and voluntary donations of time and money by people who are opposed to the abusive use of OPM in political affairs.

If you are also opposed to the abuse of OPM by our political class, I urge you to vote Libertarian on October 6.

The Party of Choice on Patient Waiting Lists

We read and hear about it all the time —  patients with medical conditions, serious or otherwise, that find themselves waiting weeks and sometimes months for a visit with the appropriate medical professional.

Our usual response is generally apathy because we have become immune to the constant media barrage of bad news …. until the day that a medical crisis hits us, or someone close to us!

Any suggestion of a  "2-tier Health Care System" commonly elicits responses of fear that the fable of Canada being home to "the best health care system in the world" would prove untrue.   Cynics, 'statists' and 'bleeding-heart' liberals  acclaim loudly that our sick and dying would only have timely access to needed medical services based on their ability to pay,  and the poor would be left out in the cold.

Well, at the risk of prompting responses of hysterical resistance, I wish to propose an idea that lays out a new approach to a "2-tier Health Care System" with a twist. I must re-emphasize that this is only a suggested approach and not a finalized program. The ideas  below will need lots of work and discussion if they are to work, but the general approach is what is important.


The Proposed Scenario:

• For patients who are unable to secure the services of a Personal or Family Physician, they are free to use the services of a PS (Pay-for-Service) Physician if their own OHIP-covered Physician is unable to see them within 48 hours. This option can be chosen in lieu of attending a hospital Emergency department or OHIP-covered drop-in clinic if so desired.
• For patients that require access to a Medical Specialist, they are free to see a PS (Pay-for-Service) Physician Specialist, if an OHIP-covered Specialist is unable to treat them within 72 hours. It is better that patients seek local help that feel that their only option is to leave Canada to find the care urgently needed.
• Any Medical Doctor who can submit proof of Medical School graduation from any other country in the world, but who has not received a license to practice in Ontario, can also offer PS (Pay-for-Service) Medical Services. The onus will be on the patient to decide if the service is worth the fee charged. In addition,  PS (Pay-for-Service) Physicians will be free to charge fees that will attract and retain patients. They will also be legally required to carry medical malpractice insurance to protect the patients they treat. In general, the "buyer beware" principle will apply in the relationship between patient and PS Physician.
• Supply and demand will determine the viability of the Second Tier PS Physicians' practices —  the best will thrive and the worst will fail as in any market. Since Toronto has immigrants from virtually every country on earth, it is likely that many of these immigrants will be willing to trust a PS Physician from their homeland if they have the means to pay the medical fee. New PS Physicians may opt to charge low fees when they first begin to practice and adjust their rate schedules as their practice becomes more successful.

This proposed approach may appear radical to many of you, but it has its merits. These include:

• Foreign-trained doctors can be legally employed in Ontario to practice their profession. 
• Patients will have another local avenue to explore in order to receive prompt medical attention rather than waiting and fretting while their medical conditions worsen.
• The OHIP system will face real competition for the first time. The likely outcome will be shorter waiting lists as patients find successful treatments from PS Physicians, or it will increase the interest of OHIP-covered MDs in seeking ways to serve their patients in a timely manner.
• Ontario will attract and retain foreign-trained medical professionals when they learn that the Public Sector Health Care Monopoly has loosened its grip to make room for them to practice.

In Ontario, one thing is clear - the current Health Care Monopoly is rapidly becoming unaffordable. Conditions will only get worse over the next 30 years as demands on the system rise in response to the increasing needs of our aging population.  The status quo can only lead to 2 possible outcomes:

1. Our ever-rising Health Care costs will bankrupt the province, OR
2. Our Health Care Monopoly will be forced to ration even more health care services than it already has, and this will inevitably lead to either longer waiting lists or medical conditions than will no longer be covered under OHIP.

We can ignore the inevitable and wait for this medical tsunami to hit our shores, or we can act now to implement a Pay-for-Service  alternative similar to the approach suggested above. When the tsunami hits, it will likely be our only lifeboat. 

The Ontario Libertarian party is The Party of Choice for good reason. We believe in the power of free markets to out-perform government monopolies because history confirms this belief a thousand times over. From the beginning of the Industrial Revolution until today, the standard of living we all enjoy today is the direct result of the collective efforts of many generations of entrepreneurs who have continued to win the trust and pocketbooks of people by solving their problems for a profit. 

Its time to provide the people of Ontario the power to choose other health care options than those solely supplied by our existing Heath Care Monopoly.