Magic Statistics

In response to the 2004 south Asian tsunami, the British government gave £53 million to aid agencies to be spent on relief of disaster victims.  Almost two years later, £9 million is missing and unaccounted for.  It could have been spent on worthy endeavours—or it could be sitting in a bank account somewhere.

The Government has no idea whether £9 million of the cash it gave to victims of the Tsunami disaster in 2004 has ever been spent, the public spending watchdog claims today.

The government will go to the recipient agencies and ask them what they did with the loot.

Margaret Wente has the sad tale of Ontario resident Harold Waterhouse and his absurd treatment at the hands of Canada’s medical-care system.  After developing acute arthritis in his ankle, he waited a year to see a specialist who recommended ankle replacement surgery, for which he’d have to wait another 2-1/2 years.

It got so bad Mr Waterhouse could hardly walk, but Ontario Health Insurance Plan (the beloved OHIP) was in no hurry to pay for his ankle replacement because he wasn’t at death’s door.  Then, mirabile dictu, an outbreak of good sense.

Eventually, OHIP agreed it would cover the cost of sending him for surgery in Ohio. The bill: $35,000 (U.S.). He was all set to go when U.S. regulators put a temporary hold on the ankle device used by the U.S. surgeon, pending final approval by the FDA. The same implant was already in use in Canada. So the U.S. surgeon referred him back across the border, to a place that would take him right away. Better still, it would be much cheaper than in Ohio. Mr. Waterhouse wound up getting his state-of-the-art new ankle at the Cambie Surgery Centre in B.C., for a total cost of $19,463.

Mr Waterhouse finally had a new ankle at a cost of less than half (assuming the BC clinic’s price is in Canadian dollars) what OHIP had agreed to pay the American surgeon.  What could be sweeter?

Unfortunately for Mr Waterhouse, he had not reckoned with the wiles of OHIP, which had by now fully recovered from its moment of sanity.

OHIP was not pleased. In fact, OHIP refused to reimburse him. Why? Because the Cambie Surgery Centre is a private clinic, and OHIP refuses to cover surgical procedures done in private clinics, so long as they're in Canada.

OHIP is obviously not in the business of seeing that Ontarians get quality medical care at a reasonable price.  Rather, it is in the business of political pandering to ideological agendas, and sick Canadians be damned.

There is still a chance that OHIP will get its comeuppance, for it has made a powerful enemy.

“This case is evidence that the politics of health-care funding and delivery often take precedence over responsibility to taxpayers and empathy for patients,” says Dr. Brian Day, who is medical director of the Cambie centre and also president-elect of the Canadian Medical Association.

Go get ‘em, Dr Day.

For access to Margaret Wente’s full column, click here.

A student newspaper at Ryerson University calls itself The Eyeopener, but it sounds like it's been asleep while the Muslim Students’ Association took over the student government.  Now the journalists are shocked—shocked—at the way other religious groups are treated.

As the largest student group on campus, the Muslim Students’ Association has made its presence known in student politics. Former MSA vice-president Muhammad Ali Jabbar is heading up the RSU, thanks to support from the MSA. The group has monopolized use of the multifaith room, putting the true meaning of the room’s name in jeopardy.

Through its renewed fight against Islamophobia, the MSA has also been criticized as being increasingly polarized and turning the RSU’s attention mostly toward Muslim issues. Smaller religious groups with less influence have been left wondering when their needs will be addressed.

A variety of religious groups on campus have said they have felt uncomfortable trying to use the multifaith room.

Eric Da Silva, president of the Catholic Student Association, says the group looked into using the room for mass but was told by RSU front desk staff that the room was “permanently booked” by Muslim students.

Not much a “multi-faith room” any more, is it?

The MSA even prevented a Shiite Muslim student group from accessing the facility during Ramadan.

The Ismaili Student’s [sic] Association, a smaller Muslim student group that practices the Shiite Muslim religion, has experienced conflicting schedules with the MSA for prayer space during the month of Ramadan. On a regular basis, the smaller group uses the multi-faith room for prayer between 6 and 7 p.m. During Ramadan, when Muslims break their fast at sunset, the Ismaili students, who practice a separate form of prayer were resigned to finding somewhere else to pray.

But never mind all that, says the Eyecloseropener, the MSA isn’t so bad: They raised some cash for a local food bank during Ramadan.

Now check this out:

“We were pretty much in a different room every night for a month,” says a member of the group [Ismaili Students' Association] who wished not to be named.
. . .
RSU has put too much emphasis on Muslim issues at the cost of representing the needs of all student groups, says a Muslim Ryerson Business student who asked not to be named out of fear of retribution.

That’s two more people who insist on anonymity when making comments that some Muslim somewhere might consider insufficiently deferential.  (I noted that in a blog post yesterday evening as well.)

h/t: smalldeadanimals

A recent decision by the Alaska Supreme Court ordered the state government to provide the same benefits to employees with same-sex partners as are already available to married employees.  The court imposed an implementation deadline of 1 January 2007.  The state Legislature has voted to ignore that deadline.

Lame-duck Governor Frank Murkowski convened a special session of the lame-duck Legislature to authorise the state commissioner of administration to implement the required benefits.  The legislators had a rather different idea of what to do with the court’s pronouncement, however.

[I]nstead, the Senate passed a House bill that prohibits the commissioner from taking action on the plan by the court deadline of Jan. 1. The vote was 11 to 6.

The Senate also voted 12 to 5 to approve a bill setting up a nonbinding statewide advisory vote in April. It would allow voters to say whether they think lawmakers should place a constitutional amendment on the 2008 ballot to overturn the court's mandate.

(In 1998, Alaska citizens passed an amendment to the state constitution defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman.)

The Alaska ACLU pooh-poohs the legislature’s action.

"The (Supreme) court has made a ruling that it is unconstitutional to continue to provide benefits just to married partners of state employees and not to same-sex partners of state employees and there's nothing in any of these pieces of legislation that affects that," [ACLU Alaska executive director Michael] MacLeod-Ball said.

We'll see.  The state commissioner may be understandably reluctant to implement the court’s ruling without the approval of his employers.

Sponsors of the bill say they want the people of Alaska to decide whether taxpayers should be forced to pay for the benefits ordered by the court.  It now appears likely that the legislation just passed will be challenged in court.  If that indeed transpires, the court’s decision is predictable.

The Anchorage Daily News helpfully editorialises: The people’s elected representatives should render obeisance to their robed masters uphold the constitution.

To muddy the waters even further, Gov Murkowski refuses to sign the two new bills, saying he’ll leave them on his desk for Governor-elect Sarah Palin to deal with.  Mrs Palin, who assumes office on 4 December, hasn’t yet said whether she’ll sign.

If Gov Palin signs, maybe we’ll find out how many legions the Alaska judiciary can muster to enforce its decision.

Previous related post: Republican wins Alaska governorship

UPDATE (23 Dec.): Palin caves.