Reap What Ye Sow

The news that 200 workers at a seniors' care home had been fired just after they voted to join HEU would not even be noteworthy if we had not noticed which particular care home is in question here.

Completed in June 2008, the privately owned Sunridge Place facility was built to replace Cowichan Lodge, a government-run care home that served the Cowichan Valley for close to 80 years.

Despite a strong community effort to save Cowichan Lodge, the last patients were moved to Sunridge Place about a year ago.

The closing of Cowichan in favor of this new private facility was just one of many similar initiatives by Gordon Campbell.

This case was particularly galling because of how much the local community enjoyed the staff and services of Cowichan Lodge over such a long period of service.

Now, with private contractors happily in business under the Gordo banner, closing s and labour strife are the norm.

Thanks again, GC.

Fox in Hen House

Two of the biggest - or scariest - stories are related and hiding in the Life section at the back of the Globe this morning.

They are both about Big Pharma taking seats at the table for medical research and medical education.

The CMA has teamed up with Pfizer to run a program for doctors.

Huh?

And a Pfizer VP has been appointed to the governing council of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Now, we can take two different looks at this creepy news.

One, CMA and CIHR are clearly whores.

They should be ashamed of themselves.

Or two, "Remember to keep your enemies closer than your friends." Perhaps this is wise strategy.

Hm...

Doubt it.

They are whores.

Watch for nothing but bad results and increased revenues for Pfizer in the near Pfuture.

3 More Minutes

Jon Ferry was my editor at the Vancouver Province.

In fact, he was the fellow who so kindly surprised me with an invitation to write columns for the paper.

I enjoyed that assignment immensely and the often vigorous parry-and-thrust with Jon over what was written and what needed to be written.

I was equally disappointed, when a little over a year later, the editor in chief called to tell me that my assignment had ended.

I was one of 500+ folks summarily dismissed across the country as Canwest Global attempted once again to scotch the bleeding.

Ah, well. Such is life...

Thus, imagine my delight yesterday at Jon giving me another three minutes of fame by using one of my blog entries ("Armed & Dangerous - An Entire Country" posted on Monday, November 30/09) as his starting point for a column of his own.

More laws and anti-U.S. bigotry are no answers for gun violence

By Jon Ferry, The Province

It's a good one and a riot and well worth the read if you missed it.

I don't feel the need to defend my position or re-hash the argument other than to say that America is a gun culture in a way that Canada is not.

I haven't forgotten for a moment the six people executed in Surrey or the four mounties or the victims of Mark Lapine.

But here is the telling difference.

I know many, many people across Canada.

And I don't really know very many who own a gun of any kind or calibre.

Almost everyone in the USA is packing.

I am not familiar with thousands of strip mall and corner stores in Canada who sell ammo and Uzis.

Canada and America are very similar, and in this regard in particular, very different.

To point out bad public policy is not America Bashing.

It is legitimate and necessary commentary.

Cheers, Jon!