Staged Cabinet

The BC Liberal Party should be picking up the cost of the almost monthly staged cabinet meetings. From 9:00 AM to noon on Wednesday, April 23rd, viewers were treated a presentation that could have been handled with a one page news release. As it is, government issued several pages of news releases dealing with Christy Clark's backing down on some of her earlier trial balloons for graduation requirements. The only other hard news out of the wasted morning was that there will not be tolls on the Sea to Sky highway, but there will be tolls on the Port Mann Bridge if it is upgraded. What a cash cow! Maybe those seats in Surrey won't be so safe for the libs after all.

Real cabinet meetings do not take three hours to deal with tedious information presentations. If April's show was like the last one, cabinet probably reassembled for a real meeting behind closed doors once the cameras were shut off.

The April 23rd meeting began with an hour long presentation from Health Minister Collin Hansen during which he congratulated himself for how his changes to the system are progressing. He admitted that waiting lists are a problem (they are up over 20% since the libs were elected), but he boasted that more surgeries are being performed. As opposition health critic, Hansen was very good at emphasizing the need to measure outcomes rather than inputs. The service plan for his Ministry puts far less emphasis on outcomes than was the case before the government changed, but it does mention decreasing patient mortality rates for acute myocardial infarction (heart attack) and stroke, increasing 5-year survival rates for lung, prostate, breast, colorectal cancer, increasing relative survival rates for heart attack (365 days after admission to hospital) and stroke (180 days after admission) and decreasing hospital re-admission rates for heart attack, congestive heart failure, pneumonia, and gastrointestinal hemorrhage. Of course, decreasing hospital readmission rates might be more a measure of cost than a measure of outcomes for patients but we can hope that it reflects improved quality of life. Unfortunately, not one word was said during Hansen's hour long presentation about any measure of outcomes for patients. A lot was said about the system not being sustainable from a cost point of view as the population ages. Let's hope that the alternative is not to shift so much cost so that some cannot afford to grow older. What's the use of having a "service plan" if it is ignored?

Minister of Human Resources Murray Coell used the staged meeting to announce a $20 million endowment grant to the Vancouver Foundation to help people with disabilities find jobs. He used the example of automatic doors or ramps as something that could be purchased from the fund. Under questioning he also said that the fund could be used to assist people with mental illness. A $20 million endowment is better than nothing, but this comes from a government that is mercilessly chopping assistance for those who turn to income assistance. It has just put 19,000 disabled people through a gut wrenching with a 23 page re-evaluation form and the promise to cut benefits for some unfortunate souls in June. A one time grant of $20 million is peanuts relative to the established need. If that is government's attempt to wash its hands of further responsibility, or an attempt to distract attention from its heartless approach to the needy, then they deserve the reputation they have earned for simply not caring.