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Friday, April 18, 2008

ron liepert on health-care reforms and watch gary lamphier get spun.

There's been a lot of talk since after the election by Health & Wellness Minister Ron Liepert about reforming Alberta's Health Care system (or as the Department of Health & Wellness website called it yesterday, Action Plan on Health 2008?2009). Liepert says that he's putting everything on the table, including privatization. One has to wonder why Ed Stelmach, Liepert, or any of the 82 other Tory candidates mention anything about these types of reforms in that little thing called an election that happened only a couple of months ago (and politicians are confused when people don't trust campaign promises?).

As the Edmonton Journal's Graham Thomson has pointed out, though Liepert is boisterous and gutsy in his talk about health-care reform, he has yet to show any real details of the Tories' proposed action plan for reform. One has to wonder if Liepert's health-care reform plan is just as rock solid as the Tories' plan to improve the image of their environmental record? Forgive me if I sound like we're just the victims of another round of typically predictable government spin...

Speaking of spin, I was a little surprised by Gary Lamphier's column yesterday in which he wrote about Albertans detestation of spin. While I don't think anyone "likes" spin, Albertans certainly haven't done anything to actively put a stop to the assembly-line factory of political spin that is the Public Affairs Bureau (in fact, giving the Stelmach Tories a 72-seat majority only seems to endorse it). Ironically, Lamphier's article seems to be either an innocent victim or accessory to spin as he demonizes all those nutty environmentally conscious Albertans who have a problem with Alberta's environmental record and the tar sands. I can see it now... Jeez, if only they'd take a brisk mid-night skinny dip in one of those nice tailing ponds up near Fort McMurray, they'd see it really isn't all that bad...

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dion should be flown to Alberta this very night!

Concerned Albertan said...

I have to wonder, Liepert really didn't accomplish much at Education, besides throwing billions at a labour agreement, and mortgaging our children's futures with P3 schools.

Was does everyone think he will end up accomplishing anything on this file again?

Anonymous said...

Ah yes, "spin".

22. Slang. a particular viewpoint or bias, esp. in the media; slant
(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/spin)

Maybe it is just my ESL, but what would you call a hypothetical scenario whereby someone appropriated a certain web address after the previous user let it go, for the specific purpose of attempting to influence public opinion against him/her ahead of an expected election by constructing a "Dave vs Goliath" bullying story?

[BTW, I don't remember UofA offering that course in PoliSci when I was there.]

I certainly know the definition of a case where said strategy completely misfired, and may even have had a positive impact for the target after he was re-elected with a huge majority, and with the perpetrator's party of choice electorally massacred. I would call that "divine justice" or at the very least "one hell of a comeuppance".

Have a nice weekend. And good luck coming up with material for four more years of hidden agenda/gov't-in-the-pocket-of-big-oil/Illuminati mudraking until the next election.

Anonymous said...

Kyle's absolutely right. Liepert's reputation as a tough guy that gets things done is all smoke and mirrors. He accomplished very little with the Education portfolio and he'll probably achieve even less with Health.

daveberta said...

Wow. thanks, anonymous commenter.

That's the first time someone has given me credit for the Tories re-election. I guess I really did save Ed Stelmach's political career.

Wow. I'm pretty awesome.

Have a great weekend too!

Dave
(Apparently a political strategist extraordinaire)

Anonymous said...

I have to agree with the anonymous commentor, Dave. YOU are a pretty awesome political genius.

Ed Stelmach should buy you a beer or something (a domain name?).

Anonymous said...

I doubt very much if Leaping Liepart will get away with the destructive manner in which he will use against our Health Care.To give us our premiums back and then delist alot of the essentials will not go over well.Keep the billion dollar premiums and find a way to fix the mess created by King Ralph.The doctors are laughing all the way to the bank

Anonymous said...

you are pretty awesome dave. Keep up the good work with the blog. Don't let those tories intimidate you, you do a good job.

Anonymous said...

You know in the "good old days" we used to call "spin" --lying

Perhaps we should get back to calling things as they really are.

Anonymous said...

Hahahaha, yeah, politicians never used to choose their words to have the desired effect...that's new *eyes roll so badly the bounce out of my skull*

You don't even have to talk about going back decades, you can go back centuries...man...

Anonymous said...

The time for private health care is come. Liepert is the guy to deliver it.