I came across this article from the Toronto Star this morning.

Toronto does not need another WalMart. Last year, I spent a few days in Nova Scotia. It’s a beautiful place, which only added to the horror when I was taken to a new development of box stores in Dartmouth. Box after box after box, and all I could do was look around and wonder how a pedestrian could ever penetrate the compound (let alone actually shop there, wandering through massive parking lots with bags in hand). Dartmouth doesn’t need this, but on some level it’s understandable: the East Coast is all about car culture.

Toronto, however, is another story. We have pedestrians and the TTC! Well, for now, anyway. We also have a significant, if fragile, film industry. We need that. We need the culture, the jobs. We don’t need box stores and more minimum wage jobs.

What do we do when confronted by slippery slopes?

We fall down, which, I’m guessing, is precisely the reason why many people will need the 500+ minor orthopedic surgeries that will soon be offered in a private clinic in Nova Scotia (story here). Granted, these are publicly-funded procedures, but this is also a pilot project.

Living without a family doctor in Toronto, I’ve experienced these sorts of public-private partnerships at walk-in clinics in the city. It hasn’t been fun. Sure, they accept my health card, but there are other ways to bleed money from patients (a few years ago, I paid abut $12 for a hastily-scrated note to excuse me from class). The fact is, if there’s a need to generate profit, profit will be generated, likely at the expense of proper patient care. If we need more operating rooms, let’s build some! I bet those couple of cents we’re saving on our grocery bills (thanks to Harper’s GST-cuts) would have gone a long way to help this cause.