Once again, Ralph Klein, Stockwell Day, Halvar Jonson, Steve West and all the rest of our ReformaTories in the Legislature are taking a run at Medicare.

This will be the third time they have tried to allow privately-owned, for-profit hospitals in Alberta. Each previous time, the vast majority of Albertans rejected this pet Tory project with such vehemence that they retreated with their tail between their legs.

You have to ask yourself: why do they persist in this unpopular nonsense? Do they owe so much political debt to a few greedy doctors that they are willing to commit political suicide over it? Or, do they believe that they can wear down Albertans’ opposition to for-profit healthcare by bringing it forward again and again and again until even their most energetic opponents run out of gas? Or, is it simply that they are so arrogant with power and so puffed-up with their own importance that they cannot abide being thwarted by the great unwashed electorate?

Actually, I suspect that it is really a combination of all three – with a little dash of simplistic, Fraser Institute inspired political dogma to help season the mix.

Our Medicare system is one of the finest achievements of the post-world war two era. It took generations of effort to ensure that universally accessible, best possible medical service was available to all Canadians – as a right not as a privilege. We don’t need these clowns in the Legislature tearing it apart for absolutely no good reason.

What’s in a name? Plenty!
So the Reform Party is now the Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance. But they don’t want to be called a political party even though that is exactly what they are. Why not? Add the word ‘party’ to the name and you get CCRAP!

Talk about honesty in advertising! It took a real bunch of geniuses to come up with this one. I bet they go down the toilet in the next election – that is if they don’t get flushed with their own success first. I think they’ll get wiped out in Manitoba, and continue to create a political stink about immigration and workers’ rights. Try as they might, they’ll always be number two. I always thought that Preston was a little anal retentive. I think they’ve already browned-off to many Canadians.

I’d better stop before I my sense of humour gets strained and leaves me up the creek without a paddle - like Preston and his friends.