There is a “rule” of sorts that every politician I’ve ever met adheres to without reservation, that being the one that says, if he/she is caught off guard by a lack of knowledge on a topic of conditions to be applied towards resolving inadequate policy of any governmental program, bite your lip before saying anything controversial, lest it inevitably demonstrates your own stupidity for not having such information available to yourself.
Several columns back, I distinctively recall recommending to the Saskatchewan Party that before Premier Moe makes any public statement that may result in controversy or voters interpreting it as having legitimacy, they should have someone in Cabinet who, to put thing metaphorically, “takes away his keys” – at least until someone can actually advise him as to how his statements may reflect a bias towards favouring a particular segment of voters (the “Karens” of this world) whose vote he desperately needs in order to survive in the 2024 election, and were the government to even follow up on the pathway he is advocating would result in the health, safety and wellbeing of all its citizens to be potentially if not dangerously compromised.
The premier’s comments about what the provincial government’s response would be were the federal government to require issuance of a “digital ID” in return for increased health care funding is one such comment.
If you haven’t been paying attention as to the negotiation process going on between the federal and provincial / territorial governments as to this sensitive topic, the issue is straightforward. The Covid pandemic has exposed huge gaps in the delivery of our Medicare system; at least 2 million Canadians don’t have a family physician, waiting times for surgery are increasing, and those persons currently trained to assist in the health restoration component of this process are leaving in droves due to their massively increasing workloads. Provincial and territorial governments constitutionally required to administer such concerns need that massive funding increase being promised by the feds, but to Scott Moe, IF it means that everyone in the province is now assigned a digital ID that ties directly to their health records, he will oppose any acceptance of the offer.
The premier is unbelievably offside on this issue, and here’s some of the many reasons as to “why” his stance is not only obtuse, but costly and dangerous to even the most “well” of us:
Everyone already has a “digital ID” of sorts; it’s called our Health Care Card – which, by the way, is how you are able to receive patient care without having to check your bank account before taking yourself or an ill member of your family to see that physician;
Saskatchewan already has many of your health care records on file, particularly those with respect to special tests and procedures – blood work, x-rays, surgical procedures, visits to a physician’s office, and referrals, to name but a few – that enable the attending physician to “short list” possible reasons for your current malaise, thereby potentially eliminating the costly need to re-run any such tests or analytic performances previously performed and found to be negative;
A digital ID health card would perform the same procedures as do your bank card, which only ties to your financial records (and which is also a “digital ID” of sorts) so as to provide you with an updated record of your own health care needs, without first having to call your doctor’s office or fill out reams of paperwork in order to access, time-wasting procedures that interfere with the ability of an individual to transfer health care records to a new physician, such as might be required were you to move or be attended by an ER physician and incapable of providing such information due to your health condition (e.g.: being comatose and without family present).
It’s only natural that local MLA Nadine Wilson seizes upon this issue to once again display her ignorance as to how at odds she is with respect to our personal health care needs, not to mention the financial waste across Canada for this type of system not having been implemented eons ago.
To say that Ms. Wilson’s remarks are “irresponsible” is an understatement as to her lack of knowledge when dealing with the nation-wide issues associated with the delivery of a Medicare system. We already have a province – Quebec – which won’t even pay for its citizens receiving medical consultation outside the province, which then begs the question, “Why do we keep referring to it as ‘universal Medicare services’?” More to the point, our complete lack of any national co-ordination of health care records costs Canadian taxpayers tens of BILLIONS of dollars through needless duplication of laboratory and x-ray services alone.
Were Canada to develop a nation-wide, individualized and secure digital health ID’s, such monies could then be redirected towards the training of more doctors and health care professionals, thereby substantially reducing the need for tax increases to provide trained staff we already know are urgently required as a result of the drainage of personnel during the Covid pandemic. However, since Ms. Wilson is not only growing increasingly desperate to save her own political hide, it’s not terribly surprising that she bases her “objection” to such conditions being “imposed” upon Saskatchewanians by referencing the federal Request for Proposal to implement a digital ID system’s require it to include provision for “Proof of Vaccination Credentials”.
Proof of vaccination is a “must have” requirement for persons wishing to travel internationally, but when used by self-serving politicians such as Ms. Wilson, becomes a dog whistle that, when combined with her maintaining that this system could “easily morph into a China-style social credit tracking system” awakens the know-nothing Karens whose “privacy” she’s committed to protect to rise in feigned protest, all while giving the online disinformation machine yet another opportunity to foment further hatred towards those who prefer knowledge to conspiracy theories.
Premier Moe’s response to Ms. Wilson’s “challenge” is atypical of any Saskatchewan Party dialogue of late; he maintains that “we, too” shall respect the privacy of our voting public, while ignoring the reality that no such threat exists without the cooperation of the individual who is given charge as to the usage of this ID.
For the rest of us, the question we should be asking isn’t about whether we are better off or not, health-wise, were we to be given responsibility for properly utilizing a digital health ID, but rather, “Do we really want either of these individuals responsible for balancing our personal health and cheque books after 2024?”
