Canadian Wait Times

One of the arguments often used against Canada's public health care system - and in support of privatized services - is the wait times. The Canadian Institute for Health Information has released a report [pdf] that claims that 8 out of 10 Canadians receive treatment within medically recommended wait times in provincially identified priority areas including cancer treatment, cardiac care, joint replacement, and vision restoration.

80% doesn't seem so terrible, unless of course you're in the 20% where wait times can be as much as three times the recommended benchmark. And if you're suffering with a hip fracture, 48 hours might seem like an eternity even if it is the evidence-based benchmark. Generally, although there is variation, Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia are your best bets for receiving timely care. Click the picture to enlarge or check out the full report for a more detailed look.

The study also looked at CT and MRI imaging, though there are currently no pan-Canadian benchmarks. In Ontario, where the provincial target for non-emergency, non-urgent CT scans is 4 weeks, the median wait time is under 10 days and the 90th percentile is about 35 days and trending downwards. MRIs on the other hand, with the same non-emergency, non-urgent target of four weeks have a median wait time of close to 40 days with the 90th percentile mark at 120. And these times have gotten longer over recent years.

Other items of note: If you need a knee replacement, avoid Nova Scotia (only 42% meet benchmark wait times). Ditto for cataract surgery in Alberta (48%). And PEI doesn't offer cardiac services? No wonder Matthew Cuthbert didn't make it.

Strategic voting and the environment

I can't say I'm a fan of strategic voting, the spirit of it defeats the purpose of voting in a democracy. And I want to make sure we continue having a multi-party system, even if it means voting for a party that is not going to realistically take power in a particular election. However many people embrace strategic voting as a means to achieve certain political ends. One of those is ensuring we elect an environmentally-friendly party. So if this is your intention might as well do it in a calculated manner using the "vote for environment" website. Plug-in your postal code and it will tell you who to vote for. And if the seat is not hotly contested it will even let you choose.

Nature Editorial Blasts Canadian Government for Scientific Ignorance

The fact that the Canadian Harper government has so little regard for anything that slows the pace of oil extraction should come as no surprise, but now their ignorance has even managed to catch the attention of the world's most prestigious scientific journal:

"Concerns can only be enhanced by the government's manifest disregard for science. Since prime minister Stephen Harper came to power, his government has been sceptical of the science on climate change and has backed away from Canada's Kyoto commitment. In January, it muzzled Environment Canada's scientists, ordering them to route all media enquires through Ottawa to control the agency's media message. Last week, the prime minister and members of the cabinet failed to attend a ceremony to honour the Canadian scientists who contributed to the international climate-change report that won a share of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

Harper sees himself as the leader of a 'global energy powerhouse' and is committing Canada to a fossil-fuel economy. More than 40 companies have a stake in mining and upgrading the bitumen from the oil sands in Alberta and churning out 1.2 million barrels a day. This activity generates three times as much greenhouse gas as conventional oil drilling. Emissions from Canada's oil and gas industry have risen by 42% since 1990."

These guys are bad news. They need their asses booted out of office before they manage to completely sell off the country and send the rest of us back to the stone age. Luckily, we may soon have the chance to do just that. See south of the border for a preview of where a few years of a Conservative majority is likely to take us.

A Step Backwards

The CBC is reporting that the government position of science advisor is being phased out. The post was created less than 4 years ago under the Paul Martin Liberals and will disappear once the current science advisor, Arthur Carty, retires at the end of March. Needless to say, not everybody is happy with this decision.

Especially at a time when science matters such as global warming, cloning and other genetic technologies, and science education (particularly evolution and particularly south of the border) are highly visible issues, shouldn't we have more science voices guiding our Prime Minister, not fewer?

More reaction at the CBC Quirks and Quarks blog here.

Canadian Politician Stands Up for The Little Guy

Sorry to make political commentary, but this is so ridiculous to me. Maybe someone with political savvy can explain it to me. Seems official opposition leader Stephane Dion is now a salesman for Chrysler (yes the US automaker), and he finds it a travesty that Canada buys a lot of cheap, crappy cars (think Kia) from South Korean companies, whereas South Korea barely buys any expensive, crappy cars from Chrysler (think PT Cruiser), who happen to have factories in Canada. Naturally we need to tweak the trade rules to rectify this situation.

As a Canadian, I don't care
a) how many second-rate cars Chrysler or any other US auto-maker sells to foreign countries or
b) who South Korea buys automobiles from.

Of course the argument will be made that Dion is fighting for Canadian jobs provided by Chrysler's factories. I say why Chrysler? There's lots of ways to create jobs, especially in a so-called knowledge-based economy. Why not provide an environment where the thousands of brilliant engineers and PhDs that our universities churn out every year can apply their skills to develop new industries that serve the interests of Canadian needs, values and culture? We are a prosperous and highly-education nation - why are our politicians always pimping us out as servants to the first heavily-polluting American corporation to cough up a Loonie?

A scientist in Japan: partI

For those of you who may not know, I am now a foreign correspondent to the bayblab, posted in Japan. In the next couple of months I hope to fill you up on how science gets done here. Do not panic yet, we will still be broadcasting the podcast, as soon as we figure out how to record conference calls over IP...

My first week here as been pretty eventful so far. It started out with a conference/diplomatic mission. The purpose of the conference was to setup a bilateral collaboration between Japan and Canada in reproductive research. As you may be aware, Japan is facing some serious problems due to an aging population. It's not so much that people age, we all do, but fertility has reached new lows here, and now over 20% of the population are senior citizens. Japan is therefore very proactive in fertility research. Canada on the other hand also has low birth rates, but immigration more than covers that deficit. Still Canada is very interested in gender and fertility research, and is the only country to have a national insitute and program dedicated to this type of research. Yet Japan and Canada do not have any bilateral agreements when it comes to any life sciences. Most of the agreements and joint research programs to date have focused on aerospace and energy research. The Japanese are especially interested in methyl hydrates as an alternative to foreign oil, and have invested heavily in Canadian research in the arctic. They actually dwarfed our side of the bargain by putting in about 20 times our own funding of such research.

So our delegation included the science and technology councellor of the Canadian embassy in Tokyo, one of the directors of the CIHR program in Gender and Health studies, The COO of the OHRI (the home institution of the bayblab), and about a dozen of reproductive scientists including mostly basic research and epidemiology and representatives from various universities. The Japanese on the other hand were all either scientists or president/program director of local universities. Most of the research gets done by MDs, who are obviously very busy with clinical work. Regulations here are quite strict as to the use of human tissue, and only MDs can manipulate samples such as oocytes.
The irony is that ob/gyn are quite short staffed here despite the low birthrates. So this is where I come in, doing some of the preliminary work on a collaboration on the use of PPar gamma and alpha ligands as well as COX-2 inhibitors for ovarian cancer. They told me I need to teach them techniques, although I'm at a lost as to what exactly I'm supposed to teach them being myself a lowly PhD student. In fact no-one here thinks I'm serious when I tell them I'm not an MD, and they all call me Doctor. I can see it already, bringing me in the OR and asking me to teach them techniques. They better have malpractice insurance.

Now, all of this to introduce the topic of setting collaborations. My thoughts after the conference were that the science collaborations felt forced, not natural. Kinda like when we set my friend, lets hypothetically call him something that rhymes with "Guillaume", on a blind date in high school and he failed miserably in utter awkwardness, and although he still maintains he got to first base, it would be another decade before he got any further. But I digress. I feel that just like dates, collaborations are best set when drinking beer, perhaps after the conference, and only workout if you have things in common. I fear the politics and diplomacy mostly get in the way of that... I hope I'll be proven wrong. Nevertheless the "diplomats" felt pretty happy about it and patted each other in the back. Once the memorandum of understandings are signed and the picture taken, their work is done. The most meaningful exchange of ideas I've had here is ironically with my longtime Canadian collaborator Dr. Bruce Murphy, who is arguably one of the most distinguished reproductive scientist in Canada, and the only person I know who can tell dirty jokes in five languages. He showed some impressive work on adipokines.

Finally, I hope to share some of the wonders of Japan here on the bayblab such as the incredible butt washing dashboard (think star trek here) of my toilet bowl, the electronic key to open my apartment, the special pavement marks for blind people, the TV that sends you faxes and the incredible things you can find in vending machines... More on this later.

Putin Trying to Redraw the Maps

In an effort to grab up huge oil reserves and potential shipping lanes, Russian geologists are claiming that a massive piece of the Russian continental shelf extends under nearly half the Arctic ice sheet, and therefore belongs to mother Russia.

The claim could even be a challenge to Canadian sovereignty, so we need to be getting our facts together. I think Rob should return to his family heritage and start re-charting the Arctic. If we play our cards right, we might even still have time to turn the whole thing around and annex Russia:

"Frankly I think it's a little bit strange," Sergey Priamikov, the international co-operation director of Russia's Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute in St Petersburg, told the Guardian. "Canada could make exactly the same claim. The Canadians could say that the Lomonosov ridge is part of the Canadian shelf, which means Russia should in fact belong to Canada, together with the whole of Eurasia." (Quoted in The Guardian)

Our Empire needs you Rob. All hail the Empire of Canada!

New Canadian Carbon Legislation Pays off for Oil Tycoons

Talk about jumping on a business opportunity. Only days after the federal government announced its latest plan for climate change, which stipulates 18% reductions in industrial CO2 production by 2010 and the payment of carbon taxes, Norway's Statoil today bought itself $2.2 billion worth of the Canadian oil sands. Interestingly, Statoil leads the world in carbon sequestration technology, and has previous experience in dealing on carbon markets through the EU emission trading scheme. The Norewegian state-owned oil company is one of the fastest growing in the world. Calgary oil tycoon and world's 382nd richest man, Clayton Riddell, (pictured above) and his company Paramount Resources Ltd. will make nearly $1 billion off this deal. Now that's what I call timing the market.