Canadian public health system threatened by new govt

The former Health Minister for the Canadian province of Ontario, Tony Clement, has been appointed federal Minister for Health in the new Conservative government, amidst much anguish from supporters of Canada's publicly-funded health care system. They see Mr Clement's position as a threat to the concept of a single-tier health care system. He has previously been nick-named in the Canadian press as "two-tier Tony" for his willingness to replace the monopolistic Canadian health care system with a system where patients can elect to pay for private medicine.

Mr Clement has privatized hospitals and authorized the opening of a private cancer-treatment clinic in Ontario, where he was in charge of health policy from 2001 to 2003.

The Health Minister told a gathering of media representatives that his legislative priority would be the passage of a Patient Wait Times Guarantee. Where a patient is not treated within an acceptable time, the provincial health authority would be obliged to either pay for private treatment, or send the patient to another area where the treatment was immediately available.