Recent comments

Well said, Adrian, that's the aim.

When something is "news," it's important to be fair and informed.

When it's time to give perspective to the news, points should be argued with gusto, but with facts. 

When people disagree with "comment" pieces, I think they should feel free to make their point of view heard. More than that, I think they do our community a service by making their point of view heard.

As a venue where news and commentary can be shared in our community, the Telegraph does our local democracy a service.

But these are just my opinions, feel free to disagree!

And things are not about to change as Canadians are too self satisfied and even when some try make changes they are ridiculed. As always the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Maybe when we become a third world country some may wake up to the fact that the middle class is disapearing and the governments are breaking unions. Check out these links.

http://www.forbiddenknowledgetv.com/page/1258.html

Part 2 - 'The Corporation':

http://www.forbiddenknowledgetv.com/page/1259.html

Hmmm... Directing your healthcare decisions is one thing- stating that MDMA is not a typically deadly drug is entirely another. Did I say that I think you should be taking MDMA? No. I stuck to the facts. (By the way, no-one should be 'directing' your healthcare decisions but you. We are only here to provide information, and that includes your doctor.) What we practice in my profession is harm-reduction and health promotion. 

Secondly, you entirely missed my point. Yes, feel nervous about the deaths that have been happening. But get informed about what is actually killing these kids before you just accept what you read in the paper.  Please note that not once did I call it the 'friendly' drug. MDMA is not typically a 'deadly drug'. This article clearly states that it is. I have seen a lot of overdoses that get quite serious, and rarely, if ever, is MDMA the culprit. There are a lot of other drugs being used out there that are potentially much more dangerous. This is my beef with this article: We need less sensational misinformation right now, and more facts. it missed the point and confused MDMA with the 'e' that is implicated in the recent deaths. You are correct in saying that many of the pills being sold on the streets contain all sorts of other chemicals in them. So perhaps we should be talking about what is really killing these kids? Spreading false information is going to lead to more deaths. End of story.

Also, aside from insulting my profession (I guess nurses aren't 'real' professionals?), you over-simplified to make a point. I am confident that our doctors are aware of what is happening out there. I am also sure that they follow protocol in situations like this, and don't just offer advice to abstain from drinking. That is what he told this person, because that is what happened in this particular case. The doctor had already done testing and knew what this kid had taken. Considering this kid was awake and coherent, and went home later that night, I am pretty sure this doc had it handled. I would wager that he knows a  lot more about this than you do. Or maybe he should leave his job to you, or other 'real' professionals?

Finally, I agree with you about discouraging people from taking 'e' right now. it's the best thing to do.  

 

So the healthcare professional here is stating that MDMA is "Typically...not a deadly drug." Well done.....and these are the ones that are directing our health decisions for us! No wonder we are doomed.

We are all a little nervous about the deaths that are occuring for those taking pills that are being sold as ecstasy, after all there has been three related deaths in the last couple weeks (oh yes, eight more in Alberta, but whose counting)

According to a real professional who sees the carnage left by the drug use, there have actually been 18 ecstasy related deaths in BC alone since August of last year - the latest one being this 16 year old boy in the article below.  And surprising, only five of these are related to PPMA.  So 13 that are not related to PPMA. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/01/16/bc-ecstasy-death-langley-boy.html

Even if  MDMA is "Typically not a deadly drug" the problem is that very few of the pills being sold by dealers actually contain MDMA.  They contain any assortment of drugs - our person from Ankors should be able to comment on that.  

If one of our doctors is telling patients who are coming into our emergency wards, its okay to take E right now as long as you don't drink, we may want to educate that doctor that we have a really bad batch of E going around and maybe we might want to discourage taking any E, at least for now.

So health care professional, thanks for your input, but I think I will be discouraging my friends from taking any E...whether they are drinking or not.  People are dying - needlessly.

I am just watching the CBC news report on the widening gap between the rich and the poor in Canada, but I am somehow not too hopeful that Canadians have the wherewithall to stand up and demand economic justice, as the Scandinavians did. 

I would almost expect, with the new tough, poor-exclusive federal budget on the way, that the majority of Canadians, most of whom elected the current government, are more worried about gaining wealth during the current regime, than to be concerned about the lot of the poor in Canada.

Otherwise, I would expect a huge outcry from the general populace, demanding: "Where did this mandate of restraint come from, when, just a year ago, we were  being told that our economy was robust enough to to weather the economic storm befalling much of the rest of the world?" Less than a year after this new government was elected, we are being told that there isn't enough to go around, at least as far as the poorer in our society are concerned.  Funny, I haven't heard anything about tax increases for the top 20% of income earners in Canada.  Maybe too much money was pumped into ridings that voted for the current government for there to be enough in the 'bank' for the election winners to not have to once again make the poor have to suffer for their election extravagences.

It's not a new story; it has happened continually in our fair land.  But I just can't believe how we lined up at the polls to make sure that it would happen once again. If times get hard enough perhaps we will be ready to sell off what's left of our land for the sake of a 'return to prosperity'.

Or perhaps we should, as good Canadians, apologise for 'being upset' and turn our attention back to whatever distracts us from worrying what is really happening to our country.

Thanks for this analysis, Charles--it should probably be a column and not a comment, in fact. I agree that we can't translate systems of governance willy nilly from one country to another, but the main obstacle to greater social justice in Canada isn't, I believe, cultural, but rather the result of media-driven ignorance and distraction. Canadians favour humane policies like universal health care and OAS culturally, but sit idly by while recent governments undermine and subvert them. Why? Because people are busy digesting trivial media.

I think that if the real options were laid out before the Canadian people they would make choices not unlike those of these Scandanavian countries. But will that happen? Umm....

as a healthcare professional and a person who was an outpatient at the emerg department on friday night, I have to tell you that this article is so full of half and non-truths that it is laughable. it is articles like this that perpetuate inaccurate information and the public panic that goes along with it.

Do some research. Typically, MDMA is not a 'deadly drug'. Furthermore, the young man may have tested positive for MDMA, but it should be said that he was told by his doctor that he passed out because he was drinking. The doctor explained to this young man (who was awake and coherent) how and why MDMA can intensify the effects of alcohol. He was advised not to drink when on 'e'. 

I understand that that is not as sensational a headline in the light of all the recent stories of PMMA overdoses (a totally different chemical concoction, FYI) and that yours is more likely to draw readers, but that's the hard truth. And shame on you for serving the interest of the NCP rather than the public with this drivel.

you should be embarassed for jumping on that bandwagon without any factual information to back it up. 

Most of us who want socialism or social democracy for Canada have looked at Sweden, Norway, Finnland or the Netherlands at some time and wondered why we could not practice their kind of government and social order. The British, who are much closer to these states, have never copied it to the UK, nor have the Irish or French.

I am a keen student of history. I always ask about the consciousness of the people of any society whose history seems extreme. The success of socialisms in those nations i mention is pretty peculiar, it has not been capable of export. Exporting our Canadian way of life to Afghanistan or the American way to Iraq, has been dismally stupid in conception yet has been ofered to us as a reason to go and kill people in foreign lands. (many Canadians seem to have bought this Harper-ite/ Ignatief-fool nonsense too.)

And yet... America did somehow rebuild Japan as a liberal democracy after WWII, with many caveats on how Japanese capitalism and Japanese hierarchy are major obstacles to what I would agree is democracy. The consciousness of the J people is not the same as ours. They live a version of democracy I would not want to import here.

And yet... Germany was rebuilt as a progressive republic after WWII. The consciousness of Germans has been through more wrenches, twists and reversals of any modern European nation, and perhaps only the Chinese have a comparable recent history of radical drastic changes. Now I admire much about the German socio-political order, its distrust of war, its Green politics, its relative liberality compared to places east. But then again, Germans have shown a degree of contempt for the Greeks that is not pleasant.

Conclusions: It is not only good policy,  wise political choices, intelligent design of economy, compassionate insight into how equality should work, that makes a social order possible. The Scandinavians have a unique history, as do we all. Some histories shape a popular consciousness that supports a vigorous social democracy. I would posit that Canada's does not.

Our colonial origins militated from the get go, against an egalitarian society, and against strong traditions of resistance to capitalist excess. Racism, against Indians, Irish, French speakers, East Europeans etc is a sad fact of our history.  So is class prejudice. So is religoius prejudice.   All that is at a level of masses of people. Our education system has tried in the past to dilute our prejudices. Now, the advance of private schooling and the decline of public education, puts that agenda at risk.

Then there is our ruling class and elite bourgeois. Officially they are quite "liberal" in many attitudes, towards femnism, gay rights, etc. All well and good as far as it goes. It does not go far when transforming the capitalist foundations of our society. Constant cutting of taxes on corporations has not bothered Canadians in any notable way.

Our union movement has been in retreat since the 1970s' as it has been in the USA. We never had such an ideologically-devoted Prime Minister as we do now in Harper. The National Post newspaper and several tabloid sized papers in the West are more right wing since the 1990s than any papers of such circulation in the past. Our "conservatism" has been transformed into US-style reactionary politics.

Our ruling class is not much like the Swedes' was or is, and a good book to read about that is by a Swede: Goran Therborn, "What does the Ruling Class do when it rules?"

For me, an incisive analysis of socialism in a small homogenous nation with a stable past of progress and modernity such as Sweden enjoys, and a culture of vigorous individualism and self-help, is wonderful to read --- but the lessons that it can teach a nation as unlike that as we are in Canada, are limited lessons indeed. LIving next to the world's most gargantuan experiment in plutocracy, imperialism, militarism and consumptive materialism, we are not well-placed to become another model of Northern social democracy. Sigh. I wish it were otherwise.

charles Jeanes, Nelson

After the week I’d had, I was really looking onthebroadway forward to presence the Follies, and I was thankful by the scene of the show on my agenda’s possibility.

Add this to the mix and it all makes sense...lol. "Nonetheless, there is reason to believe that strict right-wing ideology might appeal to those who have trouble grasping the complexity of the world." Proof at last!