The most surprising thing about this article is that someone actually bothered to read the Sun, let alone a columnist for it.

That's the part I found amazing too :) I haven't purchased the Province or the Sun in years. I think anyone working there should hide their head in shame.

An Apology for the Vancouver Sun In spite of being aware that most newspapers are affected by ideological judgment (that could be contrary to my own) and that few if any can be deemed impartial, I feel that as a citizen of Canada living in Vancouver I have an obligation to read the city newspaper and be informed. Some would question the quality of information but few would question that information is information. I am delighted to see that Donald Gutstein is a contributor to the Tyee. At least 27 years ago Malcolm Parry (the then editor of Vancouver Magazine) tapped into Gutstein’s talents for investigative journalism. I feel that if a writer with so much experience and ethics, like Donald Gutstein, is questioning our media then improvement will follow be that sooner or later.

When the Vancouver Sun has a better mix of writers that reflects the community instead of just the right-wing half of it, I'll read it. I do not have a "duty" to buy an advertising vehicle. In this day and age the Sun is not required reading even if you live here any more than a Vancouver edition of Pravda would have been.

Alex, Glad to see you are still writing. As you can see, I am still reading.

I read the Sun up until about 2 years ago. After reading a spin by Michael Campbell on how a lower minimum wage was in the best interest of low-wage earners, I decided that was the last straw. Now I read the Globe and Mail on line, and my local paper. It's sad when you know that if Sun readers believe everything they read in that paper, they will tend to support the ideology of politicians like Gordon Campbell, Ralph Klein and Stephen Harper. Democracy suffers when a newspaper reflects the ideological bent of a far to the left or right owner, be it an individual, or State owned.

Boycotting the Vancouver Sun, Province and Times-Colonist is worth doing. I stopped buying Asper two years ago after reading a) the coverage on the mayoralty race in Vancouver and b) two completely different interpretations of the same Stats Can story on the BC economy in the Globe and the Sun. If you're still reading Asper, you're not getting facts let alone balanced coverage and investigative journalism.

A Further Apology for the Vancouver Sun A newspaper about a city isn’t only about the politics of the city, the province and the country. It is also about its culture. I won’t deny that the Sun’s arts coverage is sparse. But what’s there is informative. I cannot fault the music visual arts pieces by Lloyd Dykk and the contemporary city composer David Gordon Duke. Deborah Myers dance reviews are excellent

The Calgary Herald once had one of the best book review sections of all of the Canadian papers. Its arts and architecture reviewer was also pretty good. When the staff went on strike to keep its editorial control somewhat objective, books editor, Kenneth MacGoogan, was instrumental in drawing 'name' support for the strikers, so Calgarians could see The Atwood and others exercise the courage of their convictions. We all know how the strike went, and as for the entertainment section of that paper, well it's not even worth tearing up to stock the cabin outhouse. The best writing and reviewing goes on in the city's alternative press. So that's what these rightwingnut publishers think of your arts and culture, Alex.

The Herald Arts mostly seems to consist of that tedious syndicated shit about people who live somewhere else and a silicon blonde botox injection tittering about the parties and so-called charity work she attended with the usual rich twits. I can just picture some fanatical terrorist cell using that information to plot something Aldo Moro-ian. It's all there, after all: where, when, who, relative worth in ransom -- not that I'm trying to put ideas in anyone's head. It's obviously never occurred to these excretably stupid and crass folk that publicity has drawbacks.

Alex W-H, yes a community newspaper isn't only about politics. It is also about balance, especially on the editorial page, where criticism of the status-quo should be fair game. Try to inform Sun readers that Michael Campbell, the rightwing economics loonie (my opinion), columnist is the brother of Gordon Campbell and see how quickly your copy is tossed. It is about providing ongoing and balanced coverage of industrial relations practices, which until the past decade meant actually having a labour reporter on staff instead of relying on press releases and whoever isn't busy in the newsroom. Alex, a community newspaper doesn't get involved in partisen political causes such as the "Believe in BC" bullshit the Sun touted for years to prop up a specific political view. In fact, a community newspaper would be better defined as something like the Courier or the Straight, which when they break news stories, are referred to by the Sun snidely as small alternative media. Finally, a community newspaper tries to reflect a broader community rather than just those who advertise or the political allies of the publisher or owners. For me, CBC Radio fills in the details without the spin on any breaking news in BC just fine, thank you very much.

An ever further apology for the Sun Some would say that Vancouver is a one newspaper town. That makes the Vancouver Sun our city paper. That being the case, you could make the comparison of being in a sinking ship in the middle of the ocean. You could try to repair it or “boycott” it by abandoning ship. The former solution with the help of intelligent writers like Donald Gutstein offers a hope. The latter and all the accompanying rants don’t help anybody except perhaps those who rant. While I would agree that programs like The Current and others are good for informing Vancouverites I do believe that unless a Radio 3 or 4 is created our two am and fm CBC stations are being dumbed down to the point that I am now listening to CDs in the car. One name says it all J.J. Lee. Defending J.J. Lee may be even harder than my present task!

Alex W-H, Donald Gutstein appears to be a fine journalist and a good lecturer at SFU, but your use of him to defend the Vancouver Sun, which is owned and "controlled" by Canwest, just like the Vancouver Province, is a bit of a puzzle. Ok, so you like the Sun. A lot of people, especially people who are regulars (call us ranters if you wish), here at The Tyee have an entirely different view of it. I can't disagree that CBC Radio is being dumbed down a bit, but I would suggest you ask Donald Gutstein if CBC has hit the low that the Sun and Province now practice, especially on political stories. Perhaps in the meantime you could direct us to a media in Vancouver that delivers better original national news 24 hours a day and is still fresh enough with good people like J.J.Lee, who can actually attract a younger audience without resorting to blood, guts and sex as the real topics. There was a day when the Sun was a good regional newspaper, but that suffered serious setbacks with Lard Black (now not) of Canada as owner. That would have been a good time to bring the shipwrights on board for repairs, but instead the former newspaper tycoon sold it and most of the rest of his Canadian empire to Canwest. Canwest owners have biased themselves and all their newspapers with their unfair, inaccurate and disgustingly one-sided coverage of mid-east events. BTW, perhaps you missed it, but Don Cayo's initial column on health care was all about politics, which becomes even more clear after reading Gutstein's article above. I haven't a clue if Gutstein writes for the Sun, consults for the Sun or even reads the Sun, although as a communications lecturer at SFU, I guess he'd need a copy every so often if just as an example of what is wrong with some chain newspapers. Are you still working for the Sun Alex?

Allan, I believe The Sun no longer even has a Victoria bureau, which partly explains the politics gap, and the Fraser Institute is clearly running the show. (Apart from Cayo, Campbell and others, there's editorial page editor Fazil Mihlar, another Fraser Inst affiliate, who decides what opinions will appear on the Editorial Page, among others). No newspaper is objective but some do a far better job at attempting balance than others. And with the Internet, city papers can no longer take their readership for granted--citizens will simplu vote with their keyboards, as we're doing here. The Sun's aggressive and incessant slant was just too annoying--I too gave it up a couple years back and I've found it surprisingly easy to replace (except for Vaughn Palmer!). We have the Courier for neighbourhood news, the Straight (arts & entert), CKNW & CBC.bc Online for instant headlines, the Tyee (great regional analysis, with rollicking feedback and debate that beats any Letters page), Sean Holman's Public Eye (which nails BC politics), The Globe and CBC (national news) and Guardian Unlimited covers the rest of the world. Occasionally I'll take a deep breath and check out Fox News Online to see what the right is on about. Overall I'm better off without the Sun. The downside is that online news can be too much of a good thing :-)

That's one way of avoiding a rebuttal -- just dismiss the point of view of anyone who disagrees with you as a 'rant.' To quote the estimable Mrs. Heinz-Kerry when she was confronted with a journalist of the calibre typically hired by the Sun today, "Shove it!" There isn't even a question of boycott; the paper is such an intellectual vaccuum, a mere glance at the headlines causes brain-cells to implode. The ship already sank. Now it's sucking any half-assed journalists who still write for it into a nasty-smelling vortex of its downward wake. Prokokieffs tootling for Stalin. Ezra Pounds slamming for the Nazis. I was going to add the name of whoever it was that stood up for Bush, but there wasn't anybody, was there? Take notice of that, Alex, because as the US starts resuming its incursions into Canadian policy, you just might see artists, performers and writers telling the Sun that its reporters are personna non grata -- just like what happened in Calgary.

Back in the 80s I did a couple of short gigs at the Province and The Vancouver Sun as both a reporter and a copy editor. Back then both were owned by Southam and had on their staffs a number of top-flight reporters who actually gave a shit and were interested in investigative stories. Ben Parfitt and Bob Sarti come immediately to mind. (It seems to me that a certain founder of The Tyee also did some time at The Sun and made the weekend Mix section a very interesting read; but then he got gassed because he was a little too intelligent). I made a choice to not pursue a career at either of these august publications because it was very clear to me that management did not value hardworking, investigative journalists. It was also then, as it is today, a very white environment. Aside from their obvious right-wing agenda, the staff and the consciousness of the two papers fail to reflect the diversity that exists in Vancouver. There are now more than 350,000 ethnic Chinese living in Vancouver and yet it was the Globe and Mail that was the first daily paper to present an excellent and in-depth look at the rise of China as a global power about a month ago in a special Saturday edition. More than a few editors are asleep at the wheel at CanWest. Their right-wing agenda and lack of any quality reporting is eroding their circulation. Just 15 years ago, the daily circulation of the Vancouver Sun was in the neighborhood of 300,000; today, it has dipped to 172,000. That is a decline of more than a third; couple this with the fact that Vancouver's population has more than doubled in that same period of time and the true state of apathy toward our "paper of record" begins to crystallize. There's always talk about some other daily paper coming into the market to provide competition to the two dailies. The fact is there already is, but this is just another under reported story – the other dailies are the Chinese language papers Sing Tao and Ming Pao. The amount of capital required to launch and sustain a daily newspaper is enormous and that's the simple reason the rumours of The Toronto Star jumping in the market never come to fruition. But If the numbers for the Province and The Vancouver Sun continue to tank, maybe one day soon TorStar will take the plunge and slake the thirst of a public hungry for an alternative.

Further and final incursions in apology to the Sun. “Prokokieffs tootling for Stalin” I think that what was meant here was Shostakovich and the jury is still out on his amount of tootling. As for Prokofief, anybody who would only have written his Romeo and Juliet could have tootled for Stalin with no loss in status. So Vaughn Palmer is missed, is he? There are a few others I would miss, too. It is obvious to me that few of you ranters own budgies. Editorials on dog poop in city parks and the papers they come in aren’t substantial enough to line the bottoms of bird cages.

I quite agree that the Sun is best used when birds poop on it. Birds do it by instinct. The rest of us do it because that's what toilets are made for.

Nor was Prokofief's status or talent the issue, simply his support of Stalin for which it appears he was amply rewarded by the deaths of everyone he loved.

Blame the consumer? As VCW points out, you can blame the circulation problem of the Sun on the 130,000+ who can't stand reading it anymore or you can put the blame where it should be, with the staff of the Sun itself.

But unlike Mihlar and Campbell, I'm probably just ranting :)

Here's a sample of editorial splendour from T'Nashunnul Post:

Mavahick MP Carolyn Parrish turfed fum Liberal caucus Kinadian Press November 18, 2004 OTTAWA --

Carolyn Parrish, th' mavahick MP who gained noto'iety fo' her outspoken anti-Murracananism, has been turfed fum th' Liberal party caucus. Prime Minister Pawall Mahtin made th' decishun Thursday af'er Parrish's latess outbust, which took direck aim at th' Liberal leader an' his closess advizzus. "ah cannot, as leader of our party an' th' govment caucus, tolerate behaviour thet demeans an' disrespecks others," Martin said, cuss it all t' tarnation. "It is unacceppable."

Parrish's cardinal sin appears t'have less t'do wif her repeated, undiplomatic outbusts aginst th' Geooawrge W. Bush White House than her comments on th' prime minister hisse'f. "Eff'n he loses th' next eleckshun an' he has t'resign, ah w'dn't shed a tear on over it," Parrish said Wednesday in an interview wif Th' Kinadian Press. "ah have absolutely no loyalty t'this team -- none."

Her ejeckshun fum Liberal ranks redooces Martin's tenuous mino'ity in th' House of Commons t'134 Liberal seats. Th' Conservatives hold 99 seats, th' Bloc Quebecois 54 an' Noo Democrats 19. Parrish becomes th' second Independent in th' Commons. Parrish's ejeckshun was precipitated by t'other roun' of public Bush bashin'. Wif th' president preparin' t'make his fust state viset to Ottawa at th' end of th' month, Parrish taped a piece wif th' CBC comedy show This hyar Hour Has 22 Minutes. In th' skit -- which is t'air Friday but has already appeared on CBC noos programs an' been requested by some U.S. netwawks -- Parrish stomps a Bush doll unner her booted heal, ah reckon.

When feller parliamentarians, includin' some Liberals, criticized her behaviour, th' veteran MP fo' Mississauga, Ont., let loose Wednesday. Parrish said she won't be silenced an' thet effo'ts by Martin t'do so will backfire. "Af'er whut they've put me through an' lotsa mah colleagues, they kin all hoof it to hell," she said, cuss it all t' tarnation. "But he's not a-gonna corntrol me, so all he's a-gonna does is ind up lookin' weak. Shet mah mouth!" Last year in th' run-up t'th' U.S.-led invashun of Iraq, Parrish was caught on tape expressin' her frestrashun t'repo'ters: "Dawgone Murricans, ah hate th' bastards." She apologized fo' th' remark an' avoided public censure by then prime minister Jean Chretien, as enny fool kin plainly see. But unner Martin, Parrish has been repriman'ed at least twice previously. In Augest, she dexcribed suppo'ters of th' Bush plan fo' corntinental missile defence as a "coalishun of th' idiots" at a rally on Parliament Hill, ah reckon. An' follerin' Bush's re-eleckshun earlier this hyar month, Parrish called him a "war-like" president an' said Murrican voters is "completely outta step wif most of th' free wo'ld, cuss it all t' tarnation. "ah guess it's a refleckshun of th' profoun' psychological damage of 9-11." Both times, Martin repriman'ed Parrish but igno'ed Opposishun calls t'ejeck her fum Liberal caucus.

On account o' her initial "bastards" comment, Parrish has expressed no corntrishun fo' her outspokenness an' was re-elecked wif a healthy majo'ity in her To'onto ridin' of Mississauga-Erindale ridin'. "ah have opinions. They're strongly held an' colourfully expressed," Parrish said this hyar week. Shet mah mouth! "They allus haf been . . . ah's not a-gonna change th' way ah funckshun. Eff'n ah do thet then (critics) haf won, they've shet me down an' . . . thar is thousan's of varmints who agree wif me."

The Sun is a perfect example of what happens when you turn a newspaper into a propaganda machine. You can push your views for awhile, but at the end of the day you've eroded your credibility so far that readers no longer trust your basic commodity - facts. Your readers disappear, and what good is propaganda that nobody reads?

Then you gotta phone me up around dinner time trying to push free trial subscriptions. Really, the Vancouver Sun has reached a point where it has negative value - you could probably start a reverse subscription business, charging people to come around to their house and take the paper away before they have a chance to read it. Budgie cage liner, indeed. All the news that's fit to shit upon.

I nominate Ms. Parrish for the first elected female PM as she is the only politician who calls it as she sees it. Other than that, I see a sadder state of propoganda trying to brainwash any commonality of sense of Canadians - how resilient will we be against 1) the FOX news (sorry barking canine - but I prefer you fenced on the other side of the border) and 2) the joyful acquisition of Asper and Co. of the Jerusalem post to give an accurate account of the "affairs of the Middle East to Fundamentalist Christians" (as spoken by Asper and his high aspirations to thoroughly wipe sense off the face of this planet and replace it with intolerance with a hint of militant domination of anything that jingles once and inflates twice and possibly warm the earth a degree or two). Are my tears worth their salt (wait.. let me check the markets - nope, they are too common nowadays).?

Aww, shirin, but I'm the REAL one. The other's just a whiff of fairydust, an undigested bit of pickle from lunch, a boogeyman phantasm to scare the kiddies with. whooo-ooooooh.

So let me get this straight. The Sun used to have a circulation of 300,000 and is now down to 172,000. Note to Alex Waterhouse-Hayward: Seems like more than 125,000 or more citizens of Vancouver have abandoned your "sinking ship" in recent years. Worse, one would have anticipated the Lower Mainland's dramatic population surge in recent years would have helped plug some of the leaks, but apparently not. Alex, grab a life jacket, it's every man for himself in the Canwest fleet.

By now some of you must suspect that my Apology for The Sun is a good way of keeping the ranters ranting. You cannot have a healthy rant without some opposition. On the other hand the argument that the readership at the Sun has plummeted from 300,000 to 172,000 should persuade me to put on my life jacket uses faulty logic. This is like telling me that this time around since more voted for Bush then ……… Or since fewer people read novels now then novels are bad for you…..

I don`t buy the Sun or Province, occasionally look at them if there is one at work- like one of our former premiers says- they should print on lighter paper, double ply.

Alex W-H. No I was only trying to acccomodate by sticking with your analogy of the Sun as a sinking ship. Faulty logic? Hardly. That stuff's been cornered by Canwest. BTW, I think you are a closet ranter, but like Stockwell Day, who once instisted he wasn't one of those "politicians", you're in denial. Actually, Stockwell went on to prove himself right, didn't he?

I fail to see any rants here, just people saying why they don't spend their on a particular product. Ignoring the consumer is not a good strategy.

Maybe the next paper in this town will listen to what people want and be more reflective of the community instead of telling us we're wrong for only buying what we like.

Hey, Alex W-H, I appreciate your spirited contrarianism here. Fellow Tyeenas, I can't believe we're all really piling on the *Sun* just for being a right-wing paper. Good heavens, someone's got to do that, right? No, the problem with the paper as presently constituted is simply its abominable thinness, and the fact that it has very few readable writers. I *love* to sit down and read my ideological opponents - but please Christ give me a Colby Cosh or a Mark Steyn at least. Boring little echo-chamber sticks like Fazil Mihlar aren't doing anyone any favours. Let's not even speak of the ghastly, ghastly Shelly Fralic. More puzzling, and more distressing I think, is the huge volume of wire copy, and mostly US wire copy at that, they're using. "Guest Editorial from the Hartford Courant," my ass. Add in the 8 or 10 recycled US arts pieces they throw in *every day,* and you are left with a paper that (a) doesn't care enough about its readers to even entertain them (b) is too tight-fisted to even produce original copy (I happen to know freelance payment rates there were also recently slashed as much as 40%) and (c) is entirely the author of its own boring irrelevance. I do read it from time to time -- never mind Michael Campbell, David Baines is the best business writer in BC -- but largely for the reasons AWH cites, that's it's Van's paper of record by default...

Do you really want another paper as such, Frank? The Internet is improving by leaps and bounds. Some sites, like Utne, are pay-per-article. The Guardian/Observer, Torstar and Mercury Times are free. Others, like the NY Times, the Globe and Mail, Harpers and The Atlantic Unbound are subscriber based. If you don't want to pay for subscriptions to Salon.com, you can watch an ad. Straight.com is free online, and so's the Tyee. Why go back to newsprint?

One of the biggest pleasures is to read tomorrow today. My Sunday NY Times arrives at my door at around 9:30 on Saturday. I get into bed and read it all (or mostly all). On line? It simply is not the same.

For those who read Spanish here are some excellent left-leaning web magazines in Spanish that give the Tyee good company. Página 12 is based in Argentina and they also have a book/CD section called Kiosco12 from which I order my books in Spanish at extremely reasonable prices. Libertad Digital is based in Spain. http://www.pagina12web.com.ar/ http://www.libertaddigital. com There is also an independent and excellent (in my opinion it is the best)photo web page (based in Mexico) that covers through photo essays many of the issues discussed in the Tyee. What is incredible about www.zonezero.com is that they have a version (click at the appropriate symbol) in Spanish and one in English. At one time the Washington Post was linked to this web magazine.

I find it interesting how virtually every thread here accuses the Sun/Province of being biased. Virtually every thing I have read lately in these publications has been anti-Campbell. Gordo was slagged for his views on women at his convention. The convention itself was slagged as being glitzy and elitist. Gary Collins was slagged for his attack on the media. A whack of MLA’s were just slagged for pretending that the Lib’s did not hugely expand gambling. The gov. was ripped for the glitzy mail out. Private hospital cleaners were just nuked. Fact is everyday I see Gordo getting the goods form the likes of Smyth and Palmer. Maybe you should all end your boycott and have a more recent read, things have changed.

Laligram, the editorial policies of the Sun and Province are still pro Campbell. I read the Sun and Province for free at work everyday, things have not changed at all lately, they are still the joke rags they have always been. Palmer and Smyth have barely scratched the surface of Liberal incompetence. Have either of them condemmed the decision to hand over our MSP admin. to a company with ties to the Pentagon? Where were they when our welfare admin. was handed over to Accenture? Smyth and Palmer have taken it easy on these guys.

You're right Barking Mad, with the Net available it does sort of make actual papers redundant and even folksy.

Earnest, My problem with the Sun and Province is not that they provide a forum for the Fraser Institute. Its that they only provide one side of the argument. Look at right-wingers exposed to the Tyee. They've never even read the arguments from the left in their papers and therefore think everyone to the left of Michael Walker is a communist.

Just got back from a talk by Dr. Thomas Ambrogi on "The National Security Strategy of the USA; New American Empire." Corporate media's complicity in the Bush Administration's current circumvention of the Constitutional Republic will come as no surprise to Tyee readers, but Ambrogi did make the point that it is our responsibility to abandon the corrupted media, seek out alternative press, support it and keep it honest. He also mentioned that clauses within the security resolution make clear that the American government considers itself the sole arbiter of both outer space and cyberspace. I expect it's only a matter of time before that lawless rogue nation tries to shut down sites like the Tyee.

Cripes, Don Gutstein hasn't changed his tune much since he spoke to my j-school class at Langri-la in '82. OK, so Cayo got a quick look at his heart problem, being a wealthy guy in a big city. Does this mean socialized medicare is working? Never mind the Sun, I'd like to see a bit of healthy discussion up at SFU, instead of the same tedious lefty putdowns of the Fraser Institute's work. As for the Sun, what's with all these guys filling space writing about their own bodies? Besides Cayo, there's Lapointe's 267-part series on getting rubdowns, and let's no forget Pete McMartin's column about how pretty his feet are. Monopoly newspapers, monopoly health care, same outcome: mediocrity.

All doctor's offices are part of a monopoly? We only have one hospital? Or are you confusing single-payer with single-institution?

In the US, employers join with a very large health insurer with which to provide their employees with health insurance. Is that company providing a monopoly over its employees even though they don't have to go to the same doctor or hospital? What's the difference?

The Fraser Institute is rather vocal about its ideology. Discussing whether they're wrong or not is not the same as discussing whether they're putting forward a certain agenda. The latter is clear, the former is open to debate.

Frank, can we get past the blindingly obvious, or is this site just another Left Coast waste of time? Yes, doctors' offices are private. Yes, we have more than one hospital. But if all the car plants were owned by Chevrolet, wouldn't that still be a monopoly? The Canada Health Act makes it illegal to perform surgery that requires an overnight post-op stay. Surgery is the thing that people wait months for, and sometimes die waiting for. There is no competition permitted, which is why we don't even know what a heart operation costs here. That's why competition, within a single-payer system or not, is the issue. Predetermined conclusions from up on Burnaby Mountain don't accomplish anything.

Sorry Tom, didn't realize being left-wing was a thought crime.

Over 30% of the Canadian health care system is private. Privately done surgeries are growing in number. The Canada Health Act has no power. Its like the famous line "How many divisions does the Pope have?". The Health Act is a set of principles, it doesn't have bands of blackshirts patrolling hospital corridors. Health care is not run exactly the same in every province in Canada and so no, its not a monopoly.

If you don't know the cost of a surgery, call one of the private sector surgery people and ask them. They're in the phonebook. Some monopoly.

No, it's not a "thought crime," it's just tiresome. (You'd fit right in at the SFU communications department, however. Say what the prof likes to hear, get a good mark. You want to find thought crimes, go to any university campus.) The federal government has practiced selective non-enforcement of this particular federal law, particularly in Quebec. Yes, private surgery (day surgery only so far) has greatly expanded, because the Cuba-North Korea method of the outlawing "medically necessary" private health care has simply failed. You can play semantic games with the term "monopoly" or read the phone book if you want, but it won't get Aunt Martha her knee replacement surgery any faster.

Tiresome? And people comparing Canada to North Korea isn't? Anyone thinking Canadian health care is like North Korea needs to spend more time at school.

I have a private insurer for dental. It doesn't matter which dentist I go to, the insurer decides what I can get done. Medicare is the same thing. It doesn't own all the doctors, doctors are private businesses who bill the insurer, usually, but not always, the province.

If you think you have a better way to run health care by all means put it forward. But using North Korea as a comparison erodes your credibility.

Hey, I don't make up the news, I just report it. Making private health care illegal is a key part of a Stalinist command-economy model. I heard Fidel was tinkering with private clinics, but I can't confirm that.

Private health care isn't illegal. That's the problem with the state of journalism in this country, nothing but ideology, facts and education be damned.

Many who live in Canada take it for granted. On health care and Korea: My father had a heart attack on a Buenos Aires sidewalk and was pronounced dead when taken by a policeman to the hospital across the street. The policeman(an honest one at that)emptied his pockets. He called me and did not accept any compensation for the money returned to me which was enough to pay for my father’s funeral. In Mexico (as in Argentina) emergency patients taken to hospital are often robbed blind in the ambulances. So when you call an ambulance you make sure no valuables are present (even wedding rings). Such was the fear of the cost of a doctor that when I lived in Mexico with my family we rarely went to the doctor and opted for the dangerous practice of self-prescription or asking pharmacists for advice. When I went to visit an uncle who was in a hospital of the Mexican social security system, he was sharing a room with several other patients. An ill-trained nurse came up to me and told me to lower my voice as the man next to my uncle, she said (loudly), “Is dying.” Had I been that man I would have died that moment. Whatever criticism may be directed to the current Canadian health system my suggestion is: go and live elsewhere for a while and you will see how good it is here.

too bad we can't send him the same size bill as florida did.any cost comparison between florida and bc for this procedure?were would it be cheaper to get sick? thank god for free enterprise

All this talk of hearts, healthcare and corporate conservatism is reminding me of how disappointed I was in hearing that Dick Cheney was "doing fine" after some heart palpitations a couple of weeks ago. This may not be true, of course - the Dickster today may have been reduced to a hologram of his former self, sitting on some desk somewhere, created by light and computer chips. Rumsy is likely in the same category.

Real world...if realtively better off Canadians want to they go to the States and have whatever operation is needed. Two tier, you bet.

Private surgery is occuring right now in Vancouver for people who are not citizens of Canada, are on WCB, are members of the RCMP or in federal custody. If you really want to get that hip replacement rob a bank, get caught, go to jail, get Dr.Day to fix you up at the Cambie Clinic, seek early parole.

And people keep voting for rightwing governments like the Conserviliberalliaform and wonder why healthcare is deteriorating! We need more doctors. NO! We shouldn't be importing them -- we should be training our own doctor-wannabes who have no money to get that training. Post secondary education and trades training should be FREE. Then you'd get people who want to be doctors get to be doctors, instead of just rich men's sons who just want to get richer than God and retire at 55, instead of..what is it nowadays..Freedom 75? Or when they cart you out in a pine box. Or ashes (think that's cheapest). I've boycotted the Provinch, The Scum and all Black-ASPer, CanWaste and Global BS. The Mop and Pail, for you devotees here, preaches Deep Penetration with the USA. I don't like rape. Been raped enough by American LaPointe Partners here at Doman's departed "enterprise" pulp mill in Port Alas. So I boycott the Glob and Bail, too. The Hill has some good features. The Winnipeg Free Press when Murray Dobbin's in it. The Gold River Record. The Columbia. The Lower Island News. Bill Tieleman in the Strait. Monday Magazine before they fired Russ. As for Vaughn and Smythe, they must be corporate sucks, too, for they never rant as wildly over the atrocious Fiberals --most incompetent government we've ever had-- as hard as they did about the NDP and they crucified Glen Clark. Other good sources of info: Our Times, Briarpatch, Canadian Dimension, THIS magazine, AdBusters...the list is long:) But you won't find these mags on many newsstands or in doctors' offices. You'll only find the right wing stuff: Maclone's, The Wreckonomist, BC Retort and other birdcage liners. The Online mags are great--thetyee.ca;) haveyouhadenoughyet.com, StraightGoods.com, AlterNet, The UK Guardian, LaborStart, Indy, The Dominion, etc., etc.

Now, about the topic at hand: Firstly, Mr. Cayo is probably one of the better journalists at the Sun, so he should therefore be writing for the Tyee. Despite the regressive tactics of the Gordon Campbell bunch in all areas of the the 'public's best interests' (vs their own) including the health care system and the suppression of any support for alternative medicine; I would suggest to both the Tyee and Mr. Cayo that some research on chelation therapy would be timely. Many people have had wonderful benefits from chelation, done by the Naturopaths, including my Mom. Many Medical Doctors support this treatment because they have seen their patients improve. My family and I are so grateful for what this therapy has done for our Mom. I wish you well, Mr. Cayo.

Nominated in the "Best Headline Posing as Unwitting Explanation for a Major Daily's Demise" - goes to - The Vancouver Sun which led with "Back Pain causes Loss of Gray Matter" recently. Must be all that shovelling that's causing the ache...

Mr. Gutstein, you are my idol. I have taken three of your classes and will take more. Keep up the great research. Thank you.