The Last Exile

 
The list of reasons why I fell out of step with the Harper’s conservatives is fast becoming legion but overall there is this nagging sense that the Conservative ‘talent’ running the various ministries is just not ready for prime time. For the last three years, I have watched with increasing dismay over the performance of the Conservative government. Oh, I know all the arguments about incremental conservatism and I get it, but what has disturbed me was not the pacing or incrementalism so much as the outright incompetence of ministers running their various departments. This is why I believe the sooner the Harper Conservatives are sent to political Coventry the better.

There was a little remarked upon story last week about the Ministry of Health. If you blinked you could easily have missed. I only caught it because I happened to be one of the unlucky sods who possessed the recalled cellphone in question. In fact, if the Ministry of Health had acted upon the reports submitted in March 2008 neither I or the children would have possessed the cellphones in question. Ottawa Citizen:
 

It took the federal government almost a year to get tens of thousands of cellphones off the market after a random safety check found samples of the product exceeded Canada’s radio frequency exposure limits.

The recall of the 129,000 LG 150 cellphones in January — the first in Canada for exceeding cellphone emission limits — was announced more than 10 months after Industry Canada scientists wrote to company officials on March 20, 2008 and warned them that government tests showed the product didn’t comply with a Canadian law governing safe use of radiation-emitting devices. The correspondence was released under access to information legislation. 

LG Electronics announced a voluntary recall nearly a year later, on Jan. 27, 2009, a week after Industry Canada issued a second formal letter.  The Jan. 20, 2009, correspondence also highlighted another delay. The foreign certification body that gave its stamp of approval to the LG 150 for sale in Canada withdrew certification for the unit on Dec. 8, 2008. “As of that date, the importation, distribution and sale of the LG 150 in Canada became unlawful,” the correspondence states.

Either the cellphones were safe or not. And if not,  the government’s only immediate priority was to get these phones off the market asap and January 27, 2009 does not even come close to ‘asap’ or even reasonable. A ten month delay is nothing but sheer downright incompetence. I am probably one of the few people who is not shocked to see the Conservative government spend more in advertising and promoting their managing of the economy than in H1N1 public awareness.

I have no idea whether the H1N1/Swine flu virus will be as big or as virulent as reports originating outside the country suggest, but I do know this; if the reports live up to their hype it would set back the economy beyond what can reasonably be managed by any government. It’s a big gamble for the Conservatives to take and demonstrates a continued cavalier attitude towards the health of country, and as such, there is nothing which suggests, we as a country, should have any faith in their ability to make the right decisions when it comes towards public health.