The difference

Nothing illustrates the difference between the approaches of the three national parties to most public policy issues more than this.

Harper = choice.
Layton = preserving the "system".
Martin = bullshit and double talk.

From the National Post:

Your wife needs a hip. What do you do?

Last weekend, a Corus network radio host asked Paul Martin, Stephen Harper and Jack Layton the following question: Would you consider using a private clinic if your wife needed a hip replacement and was facing an 18-month wait for public treatment while in terrible pain. Here are their answers:

Stephen Harper: Yes.

"As a father and a husband, you do whatever you need to do to take care of your family, [including use of a private clinic] if that's what I had to do."

Jack Layton: No.

"We would work for the public, for the system, because we believe in it."

Paul Martin: The question is moot because no one in Canada faces such a decision.

"I believe absolutely that we've got to get those waiting times down, and hip replacement is one of the crucial areas that we've picked out.

And in fact, the wait times are coming down, and they're coming down quite substantially across the country, some places faster than others ... I don't believe that they are 18 months any longer ... I have discussed this with [my wife]. We've discussed this major issue. I believe taht the public system has a responsibility to deliver, and I would insist that the public system deliver on this. And the fact is that if there are urgent situations with people in terrible pain, then in fact the public system does have the capacity to deal with it.

In fact, wait times are obviously a function of the urgency and the need. And if there is that need, if the pain is the way that you have just described, then the public system could respond and should respond."

On a personal note, I'd like to congratulate my Grandma for her recent and successful hip replacement surgery, for which she waited, oh, about 18 months. The specialist who saw her said that she should have had it done two years ago.

Paul Martin, you are FULL OF SHIT.