Archive for: June 2011
Media call averts stealth cuts to medical benefits for Nova Scotians with disabilities
The Nova Scotia Department of Community Services (DCS) backed off a clandestine plan to cut medical services for disabled Nova Scotians living in special care homes late Friday Thursday afternoon, hours before it was to take effect.
The province had planned to implement the unannounced cuts over the Canada Day long weekend, but shelved the plan hours after the Canadian Press News Agency sought comment from DCS Minister Denise Peterson-Rafuse. Operators of special care homes were told the policy was “on hold” in late afternoon emails from frontline care coordinators.
The policy would have curtailed coverage for a wide range of medical benefits including dental care, drugs, and medical supplies.
In one case, workers caring for an elderly diabetic who receives a living allowance of just $125 per month were told his daily insulin injections would no longer be covered, because the type of insulin prescribed for his hard-to-control blood-sugar levels is not on a list of approved drugs. The man, who has a developmental handicap, leads an active life and is beloved by his community.
Another agency was told the province would no longer pay for an anti-seizure medication required by one of its residents.
The new policy would have required pre-approval for most items, including annual dental cleanings. It was developed without consultation with caregivers, operators of special needs homes, or the disabled residents themselves. Frontline DCS workers were still receiving training in the new restrictions as late as yesterday.
Governments often choose to announce controversial measures as holiday weekends are getting underway. In this case, the department didn’t announced the planned cuts at all, although it did find time Wednesday to issue a news release trumpeting increased payments to welfare recipients, also set to take place July 1.
Tipped to the new policy by a mainland organization that operates several special care homes, Canadian Press sought comment from Peterson-Rafuse. She was unavailable, as were all of her key officials. Notoriously sensitive to bad publicity, the Dexter Government closely monitors media requests, with responses tightly controlled from the premier’s office.
The CP inquiry apparently set off alarm bells. At 3:54 p.m., Friday Thursday, a DCS official emailed a dozen operators of special care homes in Cape Breton a one-line email: “Sorry. We just got an email saying that this is now on hold. Continue as we have been.”
DCS coordinators had earlier been told not to let operators of special needs homes see copies of the seven highly technical documents that spell out the new policy. Contrarian obtained copies this evening, and we have posted them to our website:
- Special Needs Policy (27 pp.)
- Financial Needs Policy (17 pp.)
- Appendix A: DCS Basic & Special Needs Rates (9 pp.)
- Appendix B: Funding Source Guide (2 pp.)
- Appendix C: Dental Rate Guidelines (9 pp.)
- Special Diet Rate Guidelines (2 pp.)
- DCS Glossary of Terms (16 pp.)
Who cares about the presumption of innocence? Citizens, yes; Dexter government, not so much
Everyone knew the NDP, once in power, would have to put some water in its red wine. In fact, Darrell Dexter began the process long before winning the 2009 election, and most voters approve the moderating effect of incumbency.
But there’s a difference between moderating extreme views and abandoning core democratic principles as the Dexter Government has done in its embrace of the Civil Forfeiture Act.
The act gives police and prosecutors a way around the presumption of innocence that has guided civilized countries for centuries. Simply put, it lets police set aside the bother of building a criminal case and proceed, Queen of Hearts-like, directly to punishment. Along the way, the hard won safeguards to protect the innocent fall by the wayside.
In Cape Breton, where police have used the act to punish entire families — poor families — because they lacked the evidence to prosecute one suspect in a household, listeners have bombarded the CBC station with messages of outrage. The Dexter government may have swallowed Stephen Harper’s tough-on-crime agenda, but Cape Bretoners still hold dear the democratic principles Canadian soldiers fought and died for in two world wars.
Ross Landry was on CBC Cape Breton’s Information Morning program a few minutes ago, reading empty talking points to defend this disgraceful abuse of power.
Consider this post a placeholder until the interview goes up on the station’s website and I can find time to dissect in in greater detail.
Required reading: shale gas document dump
Nova Scotians could be forgiven for feeling confused about prospects for shale gas fracking in the province. Is shale gas a sensible short-term approach to reduced carbon emissions? Or an environmental calamity waiting to happen?
Those who stand to profit from shale gas, and governments desperate for energy solutions that won’t cripple the economy, are predictably bullish on our shale gas reserves. Many environmentalists oppose fracking with the unreassuring obduracy they bring to every issue (see: the nonsensical flap over biosolids).
I have no idea who’s right about shale gas, but today’s New York Times offers a massive dump of insider documents purporting to show promoters have wildly exaggerated shale gas reserves, while regulators and venture capital companies have averted their eyes. The candid assessments range from “bubble” to “Ponzi scheme.”
[Note: The Times document reader is hard to use, but easier if you click the text tab at the top of the page. See also here and here.]
Random thoughts on the Cape Breton North results
With the coal mining neighborhoods of Sydney Mines, Florence, Bras d’Or, and Alder Point, and the unionized workforce at Marine Atlantic in North Sydney, Cape Breton North ought to be fertile ground for the NDP. Instead, except for a single election in 1978, it has brought the party nothing but heartache.
In a 2001 by-election, it put an early end to Helen MacDonald’s term as leader, passing her up in favor of Cecil Clarke, who insisted the riding needed a member on the Hamm government’s side. In the 2009 NDP, it stopped 165 votes short of joining the massive NDP tide. Last week, it handed the NDP government a humbling defeat, knocking more than 1,000 votes off the party’s general election tally (or roughly 800 after adjusting for reduced turnout).
Some random thoughts on the implications for all three parties:
- The NDP retain their grip on Metro, but the they appear to have frittered away the gains they made elsewhere. Some of this is because they have taken necessary but unpopular steps, like grabbing the HST points abandoned by the feds, and insisting school boards start cutting their garments to fit their cloth. They may have been right to abandon subsidies to the Yarmouth Ferry, but they have been deaf to the hardship this imposed on the region. They were certainly right to abandon the foolhardy pledge to keep emergency rooms open, but having campaigned prominently on that cynical promise in the general election, how did they expect places like Cape Breton North to react where its ER is continually closed? By moving a planned jail from Springhill, where they have no member, to Pictou County, where they have three, the NDP have put that riding out of reach for a decade or more. Doing the right thing is hard. It requires persuasive leadership of a kind the cautious Dexter HQ has so far failed to exhibit.
- Everyone has been waiting to see whether Stephen McNeil or Jamie Baillie would emerge as the main challenger in the next election. The CB North results give Baillie a major boost toward premier-in-waiting status. Disclosure: I’ve known Jamie for years, both professionally and as a friend. I like him, and think he’d make a good premier, but his position on education cuts is irresponsible. It’s all very well to embrace education as a motherhood issue, but he knows as well as Graham Steele that continual budget increases in the face of plummeting enrolments are unsustainable. Instead of offering innovative solutions to that intractable problem, Baillie and his candidate pandered to the entrenched we-can-have-everything-and-not-worry-about-paying-for-it mentality, and the reprehensible tactics of the school boards and their fellow travellers in the unions. (See: Two ways NS could have better schools for less money.) Bill Black must be rolling his eyes.
- What was Stephen McNeil thinking? He had three party members eager to contest the nomination in a riding where the Liberals had been also-rans for the last several elections. What an opportunity to drum up interest and enthusiasm! So what did McNeil do? He accepted a longtime ward-heeler’s advice to cancel the nominations meeting and choose an establishment insider. For two years I’ve been struck by the contrast between McNeil positive public image, and the distain with which so many part members view him. I’m starting to understand.
One more word about the Dexter Government. In discussions over the last few months with friends inside and outside the Dexter inner circle, the insiders have insisted the government has no problems in the rural mainland or Cape Breton. The outsiders are increasingly worried, in some cases dismayed. The fact the government—any government—has problems two years into its mandate is no cause for alarm. They fact the government doesn’t think it has a problem is ample cause.
Words we don’t say
When Hugo Lindgren took over as editor of New York in 1997, he found the magazine’s staff grieving over the firing of his predecessor, Kurt Andersen, now a best-selling novelist. Now top dog at the New York Times Magazine, Lindgren reports that Andersen unwittingly left behind a gift.
Tacked to the bulletin board in the office I took over was a single page titled “Words We Don’t Say.” It contained, as you might surmise, words and phrases that Kurt found annoying and didn’t want used in his magazine.
The list [pdf] stands up pretty well, but I’ll bet Contrarian readers could nominate a few submissions. I would allow indie, and nominate the following additions:
Journey (except meaning “long trip”)
The rest, as they say, is history
Speak to [a topic]
After the jump, the original list:
Ashes to ashes and swamp to swamp
In 2000, the Jazzland amusement park opened on filled-in swampland at the eastern edge of New Orleans. Purchased and re-branded two years later by the giant Six Flags amusement park chain, the park closed in 2005 as Hurricane Katrina bore down on it, and never reopened. Various photographers have infiltrated the site and produced eerie photos of the defunct place of fun, 75 of which form a phantasmagorical display at the lovethesepics website.
Wrote one photographer:
I spotted the haunted lines of its empty roller coaster from the Ninth Ward off Interstate 510 while playing tourist in 2009 and begged a friend to pull over to investigate. We found an open gate, infiltrated it, and proceeded to sneak around the eerie, end-of-world, Zombie-like setting. An adrenaline-enhanced experience I’ll never forget. It was like exploring a haunted, adult junkyard theme park on ecstasy, the sick criminal cousin of Disney World. In a good way….I could have spent days, if not weeks, taking pictures on the lonely grounds.
.
What would it take to turn it back into swampland?
H/T: Steve Maich @stevemaich
Roll another one: Meek misses the point
The reliably sage Jim Meek comes a cropper this morning with a column plucking nits off Canada’s medical marijuana policy.
The occasional Herald columnist, Nova Scotia’s best, professes shock that the number of Canadians with federal permission to smoke dope for medicinal purposes has swelled to 10,000. Well, that’s 0.03 percent of Canada’s population, or about the number who support Elvis for Prime Minister—not exactly a blown floodgate. Nor is the other number Meek decries, the 1,400 Canadians who received permission to grow the drug after Ottawa proved incompetent to deliver reliable quality. Along the way, Meek finds one grower who produced more than he was supposed to, and a Nova Scotia welfare recipient seeking financial assistance to grow the pot she needs. Horrors!
Missing from this searching analysis of contradictions, real and faux, in the minutia of medical marijuana policy is any recognition of the central, top level inanity: prohibition of a product autonomous grownups should be able to decide whether to use and why.
All columnists produce duds—check my back catalog. The trouble with this one is it offers succor to the Harper authoritarians as they plot fresh hardship and misery in the failed war on drugs.
Newsreel: How to pitch a New Yorker ‘Talk’ piece
How does The New Yorker come up with ideas for its Talk of the Town column? Here’s the great magazine’s helpful instructional video:
Yes, with this post, Contrarian has succumbed to shameless viral marketing, but it’s New Yorker shameless viral marketing.
El volcán Puyehue
Lightning flashes around the ash plume rising from the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcano Entrelagos, Chile, on Sunday (Reuters photo by Carlos Gutierrez). Dormant for half a century, the volcano erupted in south-central Chile Saturday, throwing ash more than 10 km into the sky, as winds propelled to toward Argentina, prompting the evacuation of several thousand residents.
José Pujol, graphics editor of the Spanish website público.es has assembled a stunning selection of photos of the eruption. Here’s one more, by Ian Salas of the Spanish news agency EFE.
H/T: Adrian Noskwith
That lucky old sun
A tweet by Brent Gohde alerted me to a spectacular, and apparently unusual solar storm that took place early Tuesday morning. A medium sized flare, the kind that usually escapes from the surface and brings “solar weather” to Earth a few days later, erupted around 1:30 a.m. Atlantic time. But the solar filament that resulted didn’t quite achieve escape velocity, so it plunged back to the surface with a splash that covered half the sun’s diameter.
[Direct video link here]
Wired Magazine reported:
“I’ve never seen anything like it before,” said NASA solar physicist Jack Ireland….
“The unusual part of this event is that a lot of material came back down and interacted with the surface of the sun in a really spectacular way,” Ireland said. “We don’t normally see it in such great detail.”
Rather than falling straight down, as it would if pulled only by gravity, the plasma rain followed invisible magnetic field lines. Some of the material was pulled into bright spots of magnetic activity called active regions.
“A lot of the material looked like it was going straight, but then curved into the active regions,” Young said. “The magnetic field from the active regions sucked the plasma into it. That’s not something I’ve seen before.”
The event was captured by NASA’s Earth-orbiting Solar Dynamics Observatory. But it first came to scientists’ attention after it was uploaded on a citizen science website called Helioviewer, which helps scientists and the public make YouTube videos from SDO data.
“The site has been a godsend for SDO data,” Young said. “As a scientist, I would not be able to look at SDO data in the way that I do now without Helioviewer.”
Because most of the charged material fell back onto the sun, Earth probably won’t experience any effects beyond extra shows of northern lights.
