Doctors and med students interrupt Minister of Resources announcement at Toronto General Hospital

The health care cuts to refugee services that Dr. Chris Keefer mentions are part of the omnibus budget legislation being slated to be passed by the Senate.

CBC News has more on the event.

The comment section is littered with comments like "why should they get **MORE** than me?" and all kinds of privileged whiners, one person even writes

Why not, they're already used to hardship.

The Harper Government and its supporters are taking Canada in a terrible self-destructive direction. Their xenophobia, anti-science attitude, and disregard for the well being of fellow humans and the environment is setting us back. History will show their policies not only led us astray in a moral sense, but their management of healthcare and science will be detrimental to the country's economy.

A couple photos from Ottawa

I just got home from spending a couple days in Ottawa. It's been at least ten years since I was there last and I forgot how beautiful the city truly is.

Here are few quick shots I took with my phone while walking around.

Accountable to no one.

Bob Rae, via CBC News:

"Any company that made a mistake of this kind, that misled its shareholders, that misled the public, that put out a misleading prospectus, that published false figures and false documents to the tune of billions of dollars, any company that did those things would fire the CEO and replace the board of directors,"

That may be, but the Prime Minister is not a CEO and with a majority government he is much less accountable than his counterparts in the private sector.

Electoral fraud, mismanagement of Department of Defence funds, rigging the system to bypass environmental regulations in order to expedite controversial pipeline construction, what else can "the Harper Government" get away with?

Based on how little the general population seems to care, I'm willing to bet it could get a whole lot worse.

More on Canada as a petro-state

Shouldn’t the Federal and Albertan Environment Ministers be horrified with the oil sands environmental impact on the globe? Instead they’re announcing this pale attempt to care, clearly backing the side of big oil. Notice how the only people happy about the oil sands are the people making money from it?

I’m clearly not the only one who feels like this. Just look at CBC’s pole that accompanied the article.

Is Canada becoming a jingoistic petro-state?

Will Oremus, writing for Slate

Given that the Alberta tar sands already account for more carbon emissions than 145 entire nations, one would think Canada would have a hard time meeting international environmental standards. One would be right. Under a liberal government, the country was one of the first to sign on to the Kyoto Protocol in 1998. In 2002, even as Bush was gleefully thumbing his nose at the climate treaty, Canada ratified it, promising an ambitious 6 percent reduction from 1990’s carbon levels by 2012. Instead, emissions had risen 24 percent as of 2008. And in terms of energy consumption per capita, Canada is fourth in the world, 15 percent higher than the notoriously wasteful United States.

Canadians still think we are the world’s friendly neighbour, that we’re loved around the world, and still proudly sport maple leaves when backpacking around the world.

Too bad it just isn’t true. Every year we seem to become more conservative, clinging to corrosive industries like oil, factory farming, and even the fur industry, despite being widely banned around the world. Our image is not as spotless as we think.