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Health

B.C. government sends patients to U.S. while fighting private options in B.C.

Published

11 months ago

5 minute read

From the Fraser Institute

By Mackenzie Moir and Bacchus Barua

Among universal health-care countries, after adjusting for age, Canada ranked highest for health-care spending as a percentage of the economy in 2021 (the latest year of available comparable data). The problem is how we do universal health care

The recent ordeal of Allison Ducluzeau, a wife and mother from Victoria who spent more than $200,000 out of pocket to seek life-saving cancer treatment in the United States, has been widely shared on social media. Unfortunately, Ducluzeau’s story is not unique.

According to Second Street, a Canadian research organization, Canadians made approximately 217,500 trips abroad to seek health care in 2017, long before the pandemic (and related health-care backlogs and delays). To understand why this happens within our universal system, simply look at the data. In 2023, Canadians could expect a median wait of 27.7 weeks between referral to treatment across 12 medically-necessary specialities. In B.C., patients had to wait four weeks to see an oncologist, and another 5.9 weeks for treatment. In fact, the total wait between referral to treatment for oncology in B.C. (9.9 weeks) is now about twice as long as the Canadian average (4.8 weeks).

Moreover, the Canadian Institute for Health Information reported last year that, among provinces, B.C. was the second-worst performer in the country in meeting the national benchmark for radiation therapy (that is, receiving treatment within four weeks after seeing a specialist).

Why is this happening? Why do B.C. patients face such daunting wait times for potentially life-saving treatment?

For starters, compared to its universal health-care peers, Canada has fewer medical resources available. After adjusting for population age differences among high-income universal health-care countries, Canada ranked 28th (out of 30 countries) for the availability of doctors, 23rd (of 29) for hospital beds, 26th (of 30) for CT scanners and 19th (of 26) for PET scanner availability.

In response to B.C.’s long delays for cancer care, the Eby government recently instituted a cross-border initiative that sends patients to Washington State for treatment. Although this is good news for some patients, it’s not a long-term solution to our health-care woes. And this selective and short-term initiative is cold comfort to patients suffering from other medical conditions and who remain without local options as they endure long delays for medically-necessary care. Indeed, Allison Ducluzeau needed chemotherapy and could not take advantage of this initiative.

To be clear, Canada’s relative dearth of resources and long wait times are not due to inadequate funding. Among universal health-care countries, after adjusting for age, Canada ranked highest for health-care spending as a percentage of the economy in 2021 (the latest year of available comparable data). The problem is how we do universal health care. Unlike Canada, most other universal health-care countries fund their hospitals according to activity levels to incentivize treatment. And they understand that the private sector is a valuable partner in their universal health-care frameworks.

For defenders of the status quo, private involvement in the financing and delivery of health care within our borders remains out of the question. In fact, the same Eby government that sends B.C. patients across the border for care has fought against private options in B.C. And you can be sure that PeaceHealth St. Joseph Cancer Center and the North Cascade Cancer Center in Washington State—where the Eby government is sending cancer patients—will not be subject to the same limitations the Eby government imposes on private clinics in B.C.

If the provincial government is unable to deliver timely access to care through our publicly-funded health-care system, it should allow patients to pay privately for alternatives within our borders. By forcing patients such as Allison Ducluzeau to leave their loved ones and travel abroad to receive life-saving treatment, our policymakers yet again cling to a stubborn and failed approach to universal health care.

Authors:

Mackenzie Moir
Policy Analyst, Fraser Institute
Bacchus Barua
Director, Health Policy Studies, Fraser Institute
Related Topics:

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Health

Canadian Health Organizations Unite to Demand Truth on Vaccine Safety

Published on November 1, 2024

By

News release from the World Council of Health Canada

Canadian Health Authorities Served Over Childhood Vaccine Information

Children’s Health Defense, Canada Health Alliance, Vaccine Choice Canada, and WCH Canada joined this week to serve health officers and ministers of health across the country.

The Canada Health Alliance, Children’s Health Defense Canada, Vaccine Choice Canada, and the World Council For Health Canada united this week to put Fraser Health and other health authorities across Canada on notice regarding dangerous information being provided to parents and families about vaccinations. Fraser Health, one of five regional health authorities in British Columbia, Canada, is responsible for delivering health care services to a population of over 2 million people in Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley. Fraser Health is currently promoting COVID-19 genetic “vaccines”  and various traditional vaccines for children and youth. The information that Fraser Health is providing is inaccurate and dangerous. Like many governmental agencies in Canada and elsewhere, Fraser Health is promoting misleading claims of safety and efficacy for DNA-contaminated, modified-RNA, genetic “vaccines” for COVID-19, as well as various traditional vaccines for other infections. Children’s health and lives are at risk.

On October 28, 2024, four major Canadian health organizations together sent a registered open letter to all medical health officers in Fraser Health, as well as mailed copies to all other district medical health officers in BC; all provincial, territorial, and federal chief medical officers of health; and all provincial, territorial, and federal health ministers. Appropriate cover letters were included for each recipient.

The intent of these letters is to reach the heart of the recipients, inspiring them to take corrective action on dangerous misinformation regarding childhood vaccines.
October 25, 2024

Re: Open Letter to Fraser Health Authority

We are writing in response to the information currently being disseminated by various public health officers at the request of Fraser Health Authority utilizing the ‘Healthy Schools Communications Toolkit’. (Source)

The broader medical community, the public, and especially parents look to health authorities such as Fraser Health Authority to provide accurate, up-to-date information to assist in making informed decisions regarding the health and safety of children.

Statements in the ‘Healthy Schools Communication Toolkit’ issued by Fraser Health Authority in recent weeks claim, with no conditions or qualifiers, that vaccines are ‘safe, effective and necessary’ for the health and safety of children.

These statements are inaccurate and misleading.

Of particular note for being misleading and outright dishonest are the following:

  • Tdap-IPV: protects against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough) and polio.
  • “Vaccines are safe and are your child’s best protection.”
  • Repeatedly misrepresenting “vaccination” as “immunization” (Source)
  • “The COVID-19 vaccines . . . are safe, effective and will save lives.”
  • “Vaccines do more than protect the people getting vaccinated, they also protect everyone around them. The more people in a community who are immunized and protected from COVID-19, the harder it is for COVID-19 to spread.”
  • “The best way to protect others and reduce the risk of getting sick with the flu and COVID-19 is to get immunized. The flu and COVID-19 vaccines are safe, effective and available for free to anyone aged six months and older. It is much safer to get the vaccines than to get the illnesses.” (Source)

These statements are especially disconcerting given recent disclosures related to the lack of evidence of the safety of childhood vaccines and the COVID ‘vaccine’ in particular.

The COVID ‘Vaccine’

The claim of safety of the COVID ‘vaccine’ cannot be made in the face of the May 29, 2024 admission by the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) in response to an order paper question from Conservative MP Cathay Wagantall. (Source) The Public Health Agency of Canada acknowledged that booster recipients have higher death numbers than the unvaccinated. The report states: “Across all weeks in the time period of interest, the number of deaths were highest among those with a primary series and 1 additional dose.”

Despite PHAC urging caution in interpreting the data, they fail to address their own misleading definitions when they identify vaccine recipients as “unvaccinated” during the first 14 days following vaccination, the period of high lethality after the injections. The misleading use of the term “unvaccinated” renders all information from the PHAC and Health Canada unreliable and validates the safety and efficacy concerns surrounding these products.

Researchers investigating the safety and effectiveness of Pfizer’s vaccine in fully vaccinated, partially vaccinated, and unvaccinated children and teens found cases of myocarditis and pericarditis only in vaccinated children. (Source) The study also found that initial protection by BNT162b2 vaccination against positive SARS-CoV-2 tests in adolescents aged 12-15 had waned by 14 weeks after vaccination. Brian Hooker, Ph.D., chief scientific officer of Children’s Health Defense states: “This study clearly shows that Pfizer’s COVID vaccine provides almost no benefit to children and adolescents but does increase their risk of myocarditis and pericarditis. It begs the question: Why does the CDC continue to recommend these unlicensed shots for kids? Where is the data they use to support their statement that the benefits of these vaccines outweigh the risks?”

On October 7,2024, Florida State Surgeon General Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo announced new guidance regarding mRNA vaccines. (Source) The Florida Department of Health conducted an analysis to evaluate vaccine safety. This analysis found that there is an 84% increase in the relative incidence of cardiac-related death among males 18-39 years old within 28 days following mRNA vaccination. Non-mRNA vaccines were not found to have these increased risks. As such, the State Surgeon General recommends against males aged 18 to 39 from receiving mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.

The Department continues to stand by its Guidance for Pediatric COVID-19 Vaccines, issued March 2022, which recommends against use in healthy children and adolescents 5 years old to 17 years old. This now includes recommendations against COVID-19 vaccination among infants and children under 5 years old.

The following is beyond medical debate and considered accepted medical knowledge:

  • The COVID injections do not stop COVID infection or transmission.
  • Healthy young people have essentially zero risk of serious illness and death from COVID.
  • • Since the COVID mRNA “vaccines” were given to the public, over 1.6 million adverse events and over 38,000 deaths related to these injections have been reported to the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) in the US. Among these toxicities, increased rates of myocarditis—sometimes fatal—in young people, especially boys, have been demonstrated in recipients of the mRNA injections.
  • Additionally laboratory analysis has found high levels of DNA adulteration, and multiple undeclared genetic sequences in both Moderna and Pfizer Covid-19 genetic “vaccines”.
  • The Pfizer and Moderna COVID mRNA injections, while commonly called vaccines, are not true vaccines, but a type of mRNA-based gene therapy. In effect, they are ‘vaccines-in-name-only’.

There is no legitimate medical justification for healthy children or young adults to receive the COVID mRNA injections. Any institution continuing to refer to these injections as ‘vaccines’ and declaring them to be “safe and effective” is intentionally misinforming the public and health practitioners alike. This demonstrates a blatant disregard for scientific evidence and the health of our children and youth.

Lack of Proven Safety of Childhood Vaccines

In August 2024 Vaccine Choice Canada sent personalized letters (Source) to all provincial Health Ministers and chief public health officers, including Dr. Bonnie Henry, on the lack of proper safety testing of childhood vaccines. In that letter VCC stated:

“In the July 6, 2024 publication of the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Stanley Plotkin et al. (Source) admitted “the need for more rigorous science” pertaining to the safety of vaccines. They noted that “In 234 reviews of various vaccines and health outcomes conducted from 1991 to 2012, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) found inadequate evidence to prove or disprove causation in 179 (76%) of the relationships it explored.”

What Plotkin and his fellow authors acknowledged is that the science to conclude vaccine safety is inadequate. (Source) Additionally, in 2023 the Informed Consent Action Network confirmed that “none of the vaccine doses the CDC recommends for routine injection into children were licensed based on a long-term placebo-controlled trial.” (Source) This is also true for Health Canada.

Further, five studies comparing unvaccinated children with vaccinated children provide compelling evidence that the current vaccination schedule is harming our children and a significant contributor to the epidemic of chronic disease in children today. (A New Parents Guide to Understanding Vaccination)

There is no substantive evidence to claim that the following vaccines prevent infection or transmission:

  • Pertussis
  • Polio
  • Tetanus
  • COVID
  • Influenza
  • Diphtheria

These vaccine products are designed to minimize symptoms, and do not prevent infection or transmission. Referring to these products as “immunizations” is misleading and dishonest. With these critical disclosures, it is no longer honest, responsible, or ethical for Public Health authorities to claim that “vaccines have been proven to be safe and effective”.

Fraser Health has no scientific basis to assure parents that giving their children vaccines is “your child’s best protection” when none of the vaccines on the childhood schedule have been tested for safety and effectiveness against a true placebo. That claim is scientifically unsupported and contradicts what is medically known.

It is time to cease the unqualified claim that “vaccines are safe, effective and necessary”.

Canada has consumer protection laws which prohibits engaging in any act or practice that is otherwise misleading, false, or deceptive to the consumer. Because parents rely on Health Canada and our Public Health Officers when they make health care decisions, children are harmed by the misleading and deceptive claims of health agencies such as Fraser Health Authority. These consumer protection laws need to be enforced.

Conclusion

  • Public Health agencies such as Fraser Health Authority continue to mislead and deceive the public by maintaining the unsubstantiated claim that vaccines are safe, effective and necessary. That claim requires immediate retraction and correction.
  • Public Health undermines their credibility in making such unsubstantiated statements and puts the credibility of the entire health care system at risk.
  • We appeal to your moral and legal responsibility to be fully transparent regarding the limitations on the evidence of vaccine safety, effectiveness and necessity.

We expect you will address this matter with the same seriousness that we are and we look forward to receiving your response.

Sincerely,

Ted Kuntz, President, Vaccine Choice Canada

Dr. Bill Code, President, Canada Health Alliance

Dr. Mark Trozzi, President, World Council for Health Canada

Christine Colebeck, President, Children’s Health Defence Canada

Organizations

The Canada Health Alliance, Children’s Health Defense Canada, Vaccine Choice Canada, World Council For Health Canada, and the World Council For Health International.

Related Material

  • Here is honest, concise information about vaccines and genetic injections in the form of a 6-minute video. Please share this liberally with parents, teachers, and families (Click Here)
  • Vaccine Choice Canada’s New Parents’ Guide to Understanding Vaccinations (Click Here)
  • Children’s Health Defense Canada. A Parents’ Guide to Healthy Children. (Click Here)
  • World Council For Health International 2022 Alert to Parents Regarding Children and Covid-19 Genetic “Vaccines”. English, Spanish, and German. (Click Here)
  • Children Should Be Freed Now and Never COVID-Injected. Children are by nature very resistant to coronavirus infection for multiple reasons that we will concisely discuss below. (Click Here)
  • COVID Injections: Unveiling the Mechanisms of Harm. New pathology, a new wave of disease, and 44 common examples of injection-induced illnesses supported by over 930 scientific publications linking these diseases with the injections. (Click Here)
  • Canada Health Alliance. Why Do Vaccines Continually Fail to Live Up to Their Promises? (Click Here)
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Addictions

‘Our Liberal Government Is Acting Like A Drug Lord’: A Mother’s Testimony

Published on November 1, 2024

By

By Adam Zivo

“As soon as [my son] was put on safe supply, he started diverting his safe supply” Mom tells Parliament safer supply isn’t working

“The whole purpose of the safer supply program was to divert addicts from using harmful street drugs, but that’s not happening,” testified Masha Krupp, an Ottawa-based mother, at the House of Commons Health Committee last week. Exhausted and blunt, she described how her son has, in the past, diverted his “safer supply” drugs to the black market and how she has personally witnessed widespread diversion, by other patients, outside the clinic her son attends.

Safer supply programs distribute free addictive drugs – typically hydromorphone, a heroin-strength opioid – under the belief that this stabilizes addicts and dissuades them from consuming riskier street substances. Addiction experts and police leaders across Canada, however, say that recipients regularly divert these taxpayer-funded drugs to the black market, fueling new addictions and gang profits.

The Liberals and NDP have denied that widespread safer supply diversion is occurring, despite ample evidence to the contrary – but Krupp’s lived experiences underline the folly of their willful blindness.

“As soon as he was put on safe supply, he started diverting his safe supply,” she testified. “You’ve got drug dealers – I know this for a fact through my son; I’ve seen it – they will come to your home, 24/7, you can call two in the morning. They take your hydromorphone pills.”

According to Krupp, her son’s addiction issues have not improved despite him being enrolled in a safer supply program for more than two years. He still uses fentanyl and crack cocaine, which led to yet another overdose just last month, she said, adding that diversion and a lack of recovery-oriented services contribute to his instability.

“The Dilaudid (brand name hydromorphone) is a means of currency for my son to continue using crack cocaine – so it’s not safe, because he’s still using unsafe street drugs,” she said in parliament.

Krupp further explained that, on multiple occasions, she witnessed and photographed patients selling their safer supply in front of the clinic where her son has been a patient since June 2021. The transactions were not subtle: she could see them counting and exchanging white pills.

Over time, Krupp corroborated these observations by acquainting herself with some of these patients, who would admit to selling their safer supply: “I get to know all these people that are diverting and using right in front of the clinic, in front of all the tourists, parents walking by with kids.”

She believes that safer supply could have a role in addiction care if it were better regulated, but feels that the current model, where supervised consumption of these drugs is rarely required, is only “flooding the market, using taxpayers’ dollars, with lethal opiates…”

“It’s unsafe supply, in my view, as a mother with lived experience,” said Krupp. “Our Liberal government, right now, is acting like a drug lord.”

Her testimony was consistent with what was described in a CBC investigative report published last February, wherein Ottawa’s police officers confirmed that safer supply diversion is rampant.

One constable quoted in the story, Paul Stam, said that virtually anytime police would pull up to Rideau and Nelson street, where the clinic Krupp’s son attends is located, “they would observe people openly trafficking in diverted hydromorphone.” The officer further told the CBC that the “street is flooded with this pharmaceutical grade hydromorphone” and that there has been a dramatic, province-wide reduction in the drug’s blackmarket price – from $8-9 per 8-mg pill to just $1-2 today.

Although Krupp gave her parliamentary testimony last week, I interviewed her in July and kept her story private at her request – at the time, she worried that going public could interfere with her son’s attempts at recovery.

In the July interview, Krupp explained that, not only had her son told her that safer supply diversion is ubiquitous, she had also heard this from two acquaintances of his, who were also on the program: “The information that I’ve received is that the drug dealers have operations set up 24/7 across the city, buying legal dillies (the slang term for hydromorphone).”

She explained that she had been able to witness and document safer supply diversion because, on most Friday mornings, she would take her son to his clinic appointments and wait for him outside in her car. As she was often parked just two or three metres away from where many drug deals occurred, she had a line of sight into what was going on: clearly-identifiable dillies being handed over for other drugs.

She estimated that, by that point, she had cumulatively witnessed at least 25 safer supply patients engage in diversion.

“[Safer supply patients] would trade their dillies for fentanyl and/or crack cocaine and smoke or inject it right in front of me. They would just huddle in a corner. It’s all done very openly,” she said. “What I witness, to me, is a human tragedy on the sidewalks of the nation’s capital, with Parliament Hill eight or nine blocks away, and all the politicians sitting there singing praises to safer supply.”

She pushed back on the narrative, popular among Liberal and NDP politicians, that criticism of safer supply is conservative fear mongering and said that she had voted NDP in the past, and had even voted for Trudeau in 2015. Her disgust with safer supply was simply her “speaking from the heart as a mother.”

While harm reduction activists claim that safer supply is a form of compassionate care, Krupp vehemently disagreed: “How is it compassionate to fuel somebody’s addiction? How is it humane to keep a perpetual cycle of drug abuse and dependence?”

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