Canada's Supreme Court last month delivered a devastating blow to the country's most precious public service - the taxfunded Medicare health care system.
The Court found that the Quebec and Canadian government legislation, which prevents private sector insurance covering health services already provided by government programmes, was unlawful.
The ruling means that U.S. Health Management Organisations (HMOs) could bring their private insurance schemes, which are linked to services in their own private hospitals, to Canada.
The Court used examples from Germany, the United Kingdom and Sweden to conclude that private insurance can coexist with a public system. However, the situation is very different in Canada, which is sublect to the controversial North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Canadian health care is publicly funded, but largely provided by private, not for profit organizations. But under Chapter 11 of NAFTA, Canada cannot give preference to Canadian companies over US ones, even for the provision of health care services.
Therefore, if the principle of private insurance is established, US for-profit health care companies can get the same funding for their services from the federal government as is allocated to the Canadian public system.
A few years ago the federalfunded Romanow Commission found that an overwhelming majority of Canadians we want a fully-funded, properly resourced and staffed, public health care system.
The Supreme Court ruling reaffirms that adequate and timely health care is a fundamental right of all Canadians.
But by underfunding health care for so long, both the Canadian and the Quebec governments have effectively forced this issue into the courts.
Legal observers hava pointed out that the Quebec government argued its case so poorly that it seemed eager to lose, and open the door to privatisation, which they could not The Quebec government argued its case so poorly that it seemed eager to lose, and open the door to privatisation Implement directly through legislation. The federal and provincial governments have an obligation to provide these services within the public system, not have this right undermined by for-profit
The Canadian system, like the British NHS, is based on need and not on ability to pay. The court ruling would open the door for those with more money to jump to the front of the queue.
Canadians have consistently opposed a two-tier system. If the Supreme Court is not to herald a massive influx of profit-seeking US health corporations, the federal and provincial governments must be forced to implement the Romanow Report, with a massive reinvestment in public health care to prevent the rise of the private system. disguising social problems and behaviour that cut across ace.
The civil rights agenda of the early 21st century targets practices such as "driving while black" (police stop black drivers at higher rates than whites), and demands affirmative action.
It also calls for reparations as mechanisms for challenging the institutional and widespread practices that allow racism space to flourish. Institutionalised racism is challenged too by the growth of workers centres and unions that seek to organise low-paid workers.
The US government's "war on terrorism" is one more place where activists challenge 21st century racial profiling. • Dianne Feeley is an editor of the bi-monthly magazine Against the Current.
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soiler Mexico The Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) in Mexico recently concluded a 'consulta' - a fullscale congress of the movement, to discuss a major political turn. The outcome was a huge majority in favour of the Sixth Declaration of the Selva Lacondona', which sets the movement on a new Zapatistas
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march in Mexico City themselves, in theory and practice, as being of the left, in accordance with the following conditions: Not to make agreements from above to be imposed below, but to make accords to go together to listen and to organise outrage.
"Not to raise movements which are later negotiated behind the backs of those who made them, but to always take into account the opinions of those participating.
"Not to seek gifts, positions, advantages, public positions, from the Power or those who aspire to it, but to go beyond the election calendar.
"Not to try to resolve from above the problems of our Nation, but to build FROM