By Mark Taliano
Nearly 3000 innocent lives were lost on September 11, 2001, and Osama Bin Laden is still alive and well. Instead of completing the task at hand in Afghanistan, Americans diverted their task to Iraq, a country with no Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Many people were lead to believe that Iraq was in some way related to Osama Bin Laden . It wasn’t. It was a de-militarized, largely secular country ruled by a despot. ( Of all the Arab countries, Iraq would have been the least receptive to religious fanatics.) Iraq also has the last easily accessible oil on the planet. Did America’s citizens want to compromise their search for Osama Bin Laden? No. Were they lead to believe that the Iraq situation was linked to Osama Bin Laden? Yes. Misinformation failed democracy.
On the global scene, we have powerful special interest groups shouting that business as usual is the way of the future: drill as much oil and extract as much water as you please. Scientific facts fly in the face of this, but dirty tar sands oil will soon be flowing to the US. Do North Americans want to exacerbate global warming, and compromise the futures of their children and grandchildren? No. Is this currently happening? Yes. In this case, democratic principles are being subverted to well-funded special interest groups.
Rudy Giuliani, mayor of New York City from 1994 -2001, found that when relatively small issues (graffiti, turnstile jumping etc.) were regularly addressed in NYC, it formed a solid foundation for tackling more serious criminality. The same idea can be applied to democratic principles: When “small” issues are correctly addressed, they impact larger issues.
How does this translate to local scenes? Consider these examples:
First, a $10,000.00 tax-payer funded health report on the state of Welland’s hospital has yet to be made public. Why fund a key health-related report, only to delay its publication? Welland citizens paid for the report, only to be denied timely access to it.
Second, larger health systems have made use of well-funded lobbyists to secure a higher percentage of funding, thus creating an uneven playing field for smaller health systems such as Niagara’s.
At first glance, these are seemingly small issues, but they may be keys to opening doors to larger issues that could imperil our health and welfare.
Mark Taliano is a resident of Niagara, Ontario
(Visit Niagara At Large at www.niagaraatlarge.com for more news and commentary on matters of interest and concern to our greater binational Niagara region.)
Niagara At Large 
Dear Mark,
Yes, Welland did hire a consultant to help their physicians prepare a report on how the Hospital Improvement Plan will affect Welland hospital. This was an idea put forth by Mayor Goulbourne, who said it would only take six weeks to complete. That was a year ago last May. The report is now lanquishing in the back rooms of the NHS. Certainly the public should be entitled to this report…..but will it do any good? I doubt it. I suspect WCGH is on it’s way to becoming a long term care home as happened in Port Colborne and Fort Erie.
Second you seem concerned that the NHS is a small hospital system and unable to utilize lobbyists to fight for more funding, and therefore they are not on an equal playing field. On the NHS web site, they claim to be “Ontario’s largest multi-site hospital amalgamation”. Yet CEO Sevenpifer has recently stated smaller hospital systems, like the NHS, simply didn’t have the resources to compete.” Which statement is accurate? And does it really matter…because the NHS has been paying a lobbyist to lobby for more funding for years and was highly successful this year receiving $14 million. Also according the the Dunnville Chronicle the LHIN gave the NHS an additional $11 million in funding last spring.
The NHS claims they only paid their lobbyist $10,000.oo, but we have problems with their credibility. I challenge the NHS to publish their complete lists of consultants and lobbyists over the last four years.
Even with this extra $25 million, has it helped Port Colborne and Fort Erie, or Welland and Niagara Falls for that matter? No. Port Colborne and Fort Erie do not have timely and equitable access to life saving and acute services and hospitals at Welland and Niagara Falls are on the chopping block when the new and only Centre of Excellence is opened in west St. Catharines.
All this new funding will go to this new CoE and people in Port Colborne and Fort Erie may die untimely deaths….not exactly a fair tradeoff or a good use of health care funding.
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Why are the leaders of the LHIN,NHS,&HIP believed over the citizens and workers who are giving concrete proof that the system is “disfunctional and unfair” to many in the areas they are supposed to be serving??? It is bizarre that intelligent people are letting the LHIN,NHS,& HIP continue on their merry way collecting top wages and destroying our health system! Along the way the public is “AT RISK” of death and the adequate support they need to survive when in serious health situations. SOMETHING HAS TO BE DONE…SOMEONE HAS TO RECTIFY THIS HORRIFIC SITUATION!! The new hospital is a nice addition to the Region but certainly is not accessible to all. Now the Region wants to have a gag order on the citizens saying our input is irrelevant and they don’t have time to listen to the public . If they don’t have time they shouldn’t run for the office!! Certainly a good moderator would be able to separate the wheat from the chaff without destroying democracy!
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It’s been my observation if a report is critical or damning of the way things are handled they do get lost in the shuffle,information on many publicly funded agencies, re, the Fort Erie Tourism and Development or the NHS are quashed or told, your not going to get it. I am dissapointed in the last Election, as tranparency lost, and the status quo still exists, the voters do not care!! period.
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