The Invisible Hand

When I got home this evening, I was greeted by two e-newsletters in my inbox. The first was from the Conservative Party, and featured a comparison of what Stephen Harper and Paul Martin have be doing over the summer.



It links to a page on the Conservative site with a map that shows how much more Harper has travelled around the country this summer compared to Martin. More importantly, it also features ten issues which have been important to Canada during that time, and contrasts the Liberals' inaction with the what the Conservatives would do if they were in power, including links to the relevant sections of the Conservative policy declaration. The issues are all referenced to the Conservative slogan, Stand up for Canada.

(In the event that one of the conservative.ca webmasters is reading my humble blog, I'd like to point out a small glitch: in the "Devil's Lake" section, the banner text mistakenly says Safer Communities when it slides onto the screen, before changing to the correct version, The Environment.)

On the other side, we have the Liberal newsletter.

Dear Dan ,

In our first survey you told us that health care was your number one priority, as it is ours.

What element of our health care accord is the most important to you?

Click Here Now to answer this short survey about issues that are important to you.

Thanks for your participation!

Funny, when I filled out the Liberal Party's online survey a month ago, I didn't choose health care as my "number one priority." Isn't it nice that the Liberals assume that whatever option wins a plurality of the vote automatically becomes the sole voice of the nation? At least we know why they think they should be able to do whatever they want when they win less than 40% of the vote...

Anyway, let's take a look at the choices in their new survey, asking "What element of our health care accord is the most important to you?"

• Reducing Wait Times and Improving Access
  
• The Wait Times Reduction Fund
  (A tad repetitive, aren't we?)
  
• Strategic Health Human Resource Action Plans
  (If anyone can figure out what the heck this is supposed to mean, please let me know.)
  
• Home Care
  
• Primary Care Reform
  
• National Pharmaceuticals Strategy
  
• Ensuring the Health of Canadians
  (Now there's a specific and meaningful choice.)
  
• Prevention, Promotion and Public Health
  (See above.)
  
• Accountability and Reporting to Citizens
  (Don't hold your breath.)

To the surprise of no one, "Choice in health care options" and "Allowing the private sector to help out" weren't acceptable votes. I guess it would have been rather embarrassing if one of them had won, as their next newsletter would have been forced to boldly proclaim to all Liberal supporters "You told us that you want two-tier health care!"

Labels: Conservative Party, Liberal Party