Leader of the you’ve got to be kidding party, the socialist Jack Layton of the NDP? He dint know nuttin.
New Democrat Leader Jack Layton had hernia surgery at private clinic
PORT HARDY, B.C. (CP) – NDP Leader Jack Layton, who’s campaigning as the defender of public health care, had surgery at a private clinic in the 1990s, The Canadian Press has learned.
Layton had hernia surgery at the Shouldice Hospital, a private facility in the Toronto suburb of Thornhill, while he was serving as a Toronto city councillor. The NDP leader said he wasn’t aware the clinic was private when he went for his surgery in the mid-1990s.
“It’s just part of the system,” Layton said in an interview. “The doctor says, ‘Go there.’ You pay with your (Ontario health) card. It never occurred to me (it was) anything other than medicare, which it is.
“I can tell you now if my doctor ever refers me anywhere, I’ll ask him that question. It never occurred to me at the time, it wasn’t a controversy at the time. It wasn’t something on one’s mind.”
Layton stressed that the Shouldice facility is a not-for-profit facility that has been part of the Ontario medical system for decades.
It was originally set up for veterans returning from the Second World War and was grandfathered into the Ontario medical system, he said.
Layton pointed out he has been aiming at curtailing the growth of for-profit health-care facilities on the federal election campaign.
Earlier in the campaign, Layton criticized Conservative Leader Stephen Harper who said he would send a loved one to a private clinic if it would ease their pain.
Layton pointed to family illnesses, such as his wife Olivia Chow’s cancer treatment and his own attack of appendicitis, as instances where he has had to make the choice to support the public system. He didn’t mention his hernia operation.
Layton said he wasn’t avoiding mention of the operation.
[…] Prime Minister Paul Martin has also visited a private medical clinic run by Medisys in Montreal.
[…]
Earlier today, I blogged that Liberal Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh seemed, according to one report, be financed in part by owners of private medical clinics. Dosanjh, who sounds very much like a communist to me, used to be the leader of the you’ve got to be kidding party of BC, and brought the NDP to its knees when he called an election and was totally rejected by the voters, losing all but two lonely seats in the BC Legislature. Including his own.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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