For an excellent review of healthcare systems in Canada and Europe see "Is Canada odd? A comparison of European and Canadian approaches to choice and regulation of the public/private divide in health care," by  Colleen M. Flood, and Amanda Haugan published in Health Economics, Policy and Law 01 July 2010 5 : pp 319-34. You can pay for a copy or find it free here.

It is an invaluable review of healthcare options in light of the Supreme Court's decision in its Chaoulli decision.

Kai Nagata and the evils of Corporate News

At the end of the day Kai Nagata quit his job because he wanted his voice back, he wanted the freedom to express his opinions - and I stress the word opinion - without contractual, professional or, as he makes clear, factual restraints. Fair enough. Have fun. The adults will make do without your input. No doubt there's a blog in his future.

Nagata may be articulate but it's clear he doesn't have the courage of his convictions, giving up after only a year on the job. If Canadian journalism is worth saving - if indeed it's possible to save it - we will need more people like Nagata but ones willing to stay the course for more than a few months.

Unfortunately, this essay is little more than a rant about  the state of Canadian journalism, something that could easily be deduced by picking up a newspaper or watching the evening news, where Ken and Barbie dolls abound. Ironically, Nagata's lament is simply a longer, less concise version of Howard Beale's "I'm mad as hell and I"m not going to take it any more!" rant.

The truth is that news has always been a business first and a public good second and this fact belies Nagata's assertion that he took the job with his eyes wide open.

Newspapers, magazines, and broadcast television are in the business of information collection and distribution and the current, albeit dying, business models they operate under require a constant stream of new readers and viewers. The battle for readers and viewer is a source of great pressure on all newsrooms and this has always been true where there is competition for those same readers and viewers. In short, the race to the bottom in journalism has been going on for a long time.

To quote Thomas Jefferson,, "the man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing, but newspapers." Or if you prefer, consider the term "yellow journalism", which was coined to describe the antics of newspapers in New York during the great circulation wars in the late 19th Century. It is a term long-associated with Joesph Pulitzer and I'm sure you know who he is and what he stands for. Rupert Murdoch and murdochism isn't new, it's just a variant on existing trends practiced with ruthless efficiency and determination along with the odd bribe or two or three.

The alternatives, however,  to private news or news-as-a-business are worse, news by government or news by blogosphere, which really isn't news.
----------------------
Once a newspaper touches a story the facts are lost forever, even to the protagonists. Norman Mailer

Cory Doctorow and Copyright

I've been reading a lot of Cory Doctorow lately (see www.boingboing.com). His genre is nominally science fiction but only generally so. Doctorow's books (Down and out in the Magic Kingdom, For the Win, Makers) channel the late Michael Crichton in that Doctorow is able to illuminate important social and scientific questions through characterization and situation. Where Crichton took an almost overly broad view of a subject/issue, Doctorow isn't afraid to get mired in the details. That said, Doctorow (who's Canadian by the way) still needs a better editor as his books tend to be repetitive - that is, he makes his point over and over again without need.


I've also read Doctorow's book Content which is ostensibly about copyright in the digital age. It's an informative book by a Canadian intellect working at the cutting edge of tech.  If there's a flaw in the book it's that while Doctorow is not shy about pointing out what's bad about current copyright law (including Canada's)  he never fully articulates his vision of what good copyright should be in the aftermath of the Naspster wars.

If I understand Doctorow's point, copyright laws need to be focused more on giving artists control over their own work rather than embedding the current, and by necessity, outdated business models of the sellers of artistic content. The technology shouldn't matter because the tech is only a means by which art reaches its audience. The restrictions  imposed by proprietary software and technology such as digital locks are therefore an anathema to artistic endeavour.  The Internet, like radio and TV before, has challenged the business models of the current art market by further democratizing art and art forms.

Where does this leave copyright, which attempts to balance property law, fair use and compensation for art? How should be Bill C-32 be changed?

good questions...not sure I know just yet

Another excellent source is Michael Geist's website.l Geist is a law professor at University of Ottawa and the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law. See http://www.michaelgeist.


good blogs on Bill C-32..

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/

Rae's About Face - Support's Continued role for Canada in Afghanistan

So Bob Rae now supports a continued role for Canada in Afghanistan, specifically training the police and security forces for corrupt government that routinely tortures its own people?

What a difference four years makes. Wasn't it Bob Rae complaining about Bush's War and that Canada has no business in Afghanistan just a few years ago?

The only way I would support any continued Canadian presence in Afghanistan, be it military, diplomatic or otherwise is IF the Karzai regime is abolished, an interim leadership group elected from among elected members of the Afghan assembly and the planning of fresh presidential elections.

Canada should not agree to provide one more soldier, or one more dime in support of a failed foreign policy or in support of Karzai's government.

I get that the Taliban are evil, killers, rapists and cutthroats to a man. But placing Canadians between the Taliban and one of the most corrupt regimes in the world and asking those same Canadians to improve the situation is futile.

Either Karzai goes or we go.

Simple.

www.politicalcanadian@blogspot.com

Vicious circles and committees

Is the federal Conservative government defying Parliament again or does it have a valid point about ministerial responsibility in regards to the political staffers appearing before partisan committees?

The Opposition parties should stop whining and put the question to Speaker Peter Milliken and ask him rule whether the government can shield its political staff (or anyone) at its own discretion.

However, it seems relatively clear to me, after reading the House Rules and Procedures, that standing committees can call and/or summons whom they like with two exceptions. If I've read the R&P right, the only group that can say no to a summons absolutely are Senators (MPs can't compel a member of the opposing chamber to appear before a committee). MPs also have the right to refuse a request and/or summons but then, if the committee so decides, the MP must answer to the House why they refused (a little used tactic).

Even the most hardcore Conservative supporter must admit that this mess is the government's own making. A political staffer recalled a response to a FOIA request on how the government is managing Crown real estate. There would've been much less furor had the government simply released the information than they created by recalling it.

But there's a deeper issue here.

Had the Conservatives actually believed in ministerial responsibility and appeared at committees to defend the decisions of their ministries with regularity then the committees would not have been forced to call on political staffers, an ironic and vicious circle that goes around and around in today's Parliament.

But the Conservatives don't deserve all of the blame here.

Currently, the Opposition-controlled committees are more interested in scoring political points then revealing significant truths about government policy. This poisoned and partisan atmosphere help explain why many Conservative MPs and ministers are unwilling to appear before committees. Well that and the current governments shocking disdain for parliamentary rules and procedures.

But politics abhors a vacuum. When ministers refused to be held accountable for their subordinate's decisions, the committees went hunting for fresh game.

And the vicious circle of political life continues.

More on Graves and Xenophobic Tories

I reviewed data from the 2008 Canada Election Survey to substantiate Frank Graves' assertion that the Conservative Party of Canada attracts xenophobes and homophobes. Or to be more accurate, that xenophobes and homophobes are attracted to the CPC.

Using two variables - the first measuring respondent attitudes on various political parties and the second their attitudes toward racial minorities - I constructed the following tables for the CPC, LPC, NDP and Bloc as well as a final table showing general attitudes toward political parties. I also variables involving self-identification with political parties and attitudes toward gays and lesbians.*

According to data, 3% of the respondents that indicated they liked the Conservative Party of Canada also stated a dislike of racial minorities. This is a clear sign, a proverbial smoking gun, that the CPC harbours devout racists and xenophobes within their ranks!

But wait, there's more. Using the same variables and scale, 5% of those respondents who said they liked the Liberal Party also said they disliked racial minorities. Ditto for the NDP (see tables 1A to 1E below). The differences between the three main political parties is negligible and certainly within the statistical error rate for the survey. (The statistical correlation between these variables is 0.08).

Where there is a significant difference is among respondents who gave a preference for the Bloc Quebecois: 10% of respondents who like the party also disliked racial minorities.

The results are similar when the question is changed from asking respondents to rate political parties to which party they identify with.. In table 2.0 below, 12% of respondents who self-identified as Conservatives dislike minorities while 9% of who said they were Liberals dislike minorities. Respondents who self-identified as NDP had the lowest score at 6% while 15% of those identifying as Bloc stated they disliked minorities.

The results are more varied when the question is changed from how do you feel about racial minorities to gays and lesbians. As Table 3 shows, approximately 25% of those respondents identifying as Conservatives also stated a dislike of gays and lesbians while 14% of respondents self-identifying as Liberals said the same thing. The scores for the NDP and Bloc were 14% and 10.9% respectively. Clearly all parties have significant numbers of supporters that dislike gays and lesbians; the Tories simply have more of them. (The statistical correlation between party self-identification and attitudes towards gays and lesbians is 0.001).

Are the results surprising?

No, because, generally speaking, the institutions and conventions of federal politics force all political parties to excise or silence their wing nuts and wackos as they compete for votes at the national level. The vast majority of Canadian voters cluster around the center of the political spectrum and have moderate attitude toward most issues. This forces political parties to jettison extreme views in order to brighten their appeal. This is why a former Reform Party die hard like Stephen Harper can woo Quebec with money and distinct society motions and run huge deficit after he earlier vehemently claimed he would never do such things.

It's also not surprising that a higher percentage of respondents that like the Bloc Quebecois disliked racial minorities. The Bloc is not a national political party and only has to tailor it's message and platform to suit the separatist vote in Quebec and separatist voters in Quebec have historically had a low opinion of immigrants and refugees. Jacques Parizeau's condemnation of immigrants and minorities as being the proximate cause of the failure of the 1995 referendum is a testament to separatist thinking on racial minorities.

So what can be said about Graves' Xenophobic & Homophobic Tories? Pretty much the exact same thing as Xenophobic & Homophobic  Liberals and Dippers. All parties have their wingnuts and wackos.What matters is how parties neutralize the influence of such extreme views.

Source 2008 Canada Election Survey.
The tables are based on attitude assessments using a range of 0-100. I have excluded responses that fell along the median of 50 as neutral positions. Therefore, 0-49 are considered a response of "dislike" and 51-100 are considered "like".

Tables 1A-5A

		Racial Minorities
		Dislike	Like
CPC	Dislike	3%	27%	30%
	Like	4%	37%	41%
		7%	64%	71%
		Racial Minorities
		Dislike	Like
LPC	Dislike	18%	5%	22%
	Like	5%	73%	78%
		22%	78%	100%
		Racial Minorities
		Dislike	Like
NDP	Dislike	11%	43%	54%
	Like	3%	43%	46%
		14%	86%	100%
		Racial Minorities
		Dislike	Like
Bloc	Dislike	13%	42%	55%
	Like	10%	35%	45%
		23%	77%	100%
		Racial Minorities
		Dislike	Like
All	Dislike	7%	21%	27%
	Like	5%	68%	73%
		11%	89%	100%

Table 2.0
In federal politics, do you think of yourself as Liberal, Conservative, ect vs. How do you feel about racial minorities?

	Strongly Dislike	Dislike	Neutral	Like	Strongly Like
Other	0%	8%	8%	15%	69%
LPC	5%	4%	9%	27%	55%
CPC	7%	5%	13%	33%	42%
NDP	4%	2%	11%	24%	60%
Bloc	7%	8%	15%	36%	35%
Green	3%	2%	3%	26%	65%

Source: 2008 Canada Election Survey (http://www.queensu.ca/cora/ces.html)


Table 3.0 Party self-identification and attitudes towards gays and lesbians.

	Strongly Dislike			Dislike			Neutral			Like			Strongly Like
Other		3.2%			3.2%			9.7%			22.6%			51.6%
LPC		10.1%			4.3%			10%			21.5%			47.7%
CPC		18.5%			6.8%			12.6%			23.9%			31.3%
NDP		9.8%			3.1%			9.3%			16.7%			56.1%
Bloc		7.2%			3.7%			14.7%			26%			43.1%
Green		2%			3%			12%			15%			61%

Source: 2008 Canada Election Survey (http://www.queensu.ca/cora/ces.html)

The Coming Culture War?

 Ekos pollster Frank Graves told a Liberal gathering that it ought to impose a culture war on the Conservatives. According to Lawrence Martin of the Globe&Mail, Graves

..... has told the Grits that the wedge politics of the Conservatives provide them with an opportunity to stake out a stark alternative. Stop worrying about the West, he’s told them. No need to fear polarizing the debate. It’s what worked for Mr. Chrétien against Preston Manning and Stockwell Day.

In his advice, Mr. Graves could hardly have been more blunt. “I told them that they should invoke a culture war. Cosmopolitanism versus parochialism, secularism versus moralism, Obama versus Palin, tolerance versus racism and homophobia, democracy versus autocracy. If the cranky old men in Alberta don’t like it, too bad. Go south and vote for Palin.”

Graves, who is the CBC's go to guy for opinion polling, later apologized and tried to explain what he meant. Well sort of. According to another G&M article, Graves said, 'polling data shows the Conservative Party “does seem to provide a haven” for people with xenophobic or homophobic views.'

This, of course, dove tails nicely with people's ideological views of the Conservatives and previous scare tactics used by the Liberals. But Graves'assertions raise some important questions that Grave ought to answer.

First, xenophobia and homophobia are traits that defy political ideology. The Bloc and the Parti Quebec, for examples, are hardly sources for immigration friendly policies. And liberalized and secularized Quebec's tolerance and accommodation commission was little more than a podium for French-Canadian racist attitudes. The current Quebec Liberal governments pandering to anti-Islamic attitudes over the niqab is just a new incarnation of the same old attitudes.

Second, what does Graves mean precisely by homophobes and xenophobes? How is he measuring these attitudes and what is the statistical significance of his measure? Is Graves declaring people "homophobic" if they oppose teaching about homosexuality in grade 3 or does he mean something else. If you have legitimate concerns about immigration and refugee policy, are counted as xenophobic?

Second, what does Graves mean by "more" and by "empirically accurate"? Give us the numbers.

Third, where exactly do the Liberals, Bloc and NDP sit on Grave's scale of xenophobia and homophobia. What's the comparison?

Without numbers and data it's impossible to understand what Graves actually means. It would be possible to say, accurately and fairly, that the Conservatives attract more wackos than the Liberals or NDP even if it were only 1% more in comparative terms (although we all seriously doubt it's 1%).

Unless we have the hard numbers to review, it's impossible to know what Graves means and to evaluate its importance.

The accusation of xenophobia and homophobia originates in the Reform family values platforms of the 1990s. Preston Manning and the Reform Party used the social conservative trend as a wedge issue, working to divide support for the Progressive Conservatives, and expand beyond Alberta into rural Ontario. A political party will always vacuum up wing-nuts and extremists when it mines discontent and disenfranchisement for electoral gain.

Although Stephen Harper has successfully killed off or quarantined much of the wing of the party, so-cons still exert some influence and are therefore the soft underbelly of the Conservative Party. Conservative opponents love to poke the aging so-con lions through bars of their cage because the resulting roar makes excellent headlines.

ps: Chris Shelly of the National Post reports that G&M reporter Lawrence Martin stands by his claim that Frank Graves said that he told the Liberal Party about his strategy directly, which contradicts Graves' line that it was really "unsolicited advice" given to a newspaper reporter.

Self-flaggelation masquerading as journalism

The Hill Times, usually a source of sober political writing, is now reporting on the reporters covering the Helena Guergis/Rahim Jaffer story.

You know reporters are flogging a dead horse when they begin writing stories about their colleagues writing about the story and asking political commentators to comment on the story of the story. Since it's far too early for the summer silly season, this is just tepid journalism to fill space until something more interesting comes along to write about.

Call it the CNN effect, a habit the news network developed during the first Gulf War when they were forced to run interviews with reporters to fill time between bomb runs and Wolf Blitzer's bathroom breaks. There's nothing worse than watching one bubble-headed-bleach blond turning to another bubble-headed-bleach-blond or a Ken doll news anchor for insight just to fill time on a 24 hour news cycle.

On a related note, one of my pet peeves is "I" journalism, where reporters insert personal pronouns and their own perspective into a news story. A Calgary Herald reporter once did a first-person account of life as a prostitute (journalist = prostitute is hardly a stretch) where she spent an hour walking the mean streets with a couple of neighbourhood sisters. She also had two police cruisers, an undercover cop and a photographer sent to document the event a few feet away as cars rolled up and asked if she was a party girl or just waiting for the bus. In other words, she had far more protection for the two hours she spent in fish nets than most women walking the streets see in a year. Her "undercover work" did a serious disservice to the women she interviewed about life on the street, women who spend years at risk on the street from pimps and johns. These women were the the story, not the reporter's experience slumming for good copy.

Reporters should save the "I" stories and the "reporter on reporter" news copy for their association newsletters and stick to the facts.

Guns and Politics

Liberal leader Michael "Iggy" Ignatieff has vowed to crack the whip and force his MPs to toe the party line on an upcoming vote on the firearms registry. The G&M reports that Iggy told a gathering of Canadian police,

".. the Liberal Party opposes the Conservatives’ effort to scrap the gun registry altogether and we will vote against the Hoeppner bill at third reading in the House of Commons...”

So, essentially, Iggy wants the Liberal Party to focus on vote-rich, genteel urban ridings in Quebec and Ontario and to hell with the needs, wants and traditions of those living outside those areas? This approach will only serve to further Balkanize Canadian politics and, in all likelihood, the Liberal Party.

Convention dictates that political parties allow MPs to vote freely on private members bills. The minority Parliament has turned this, and other conventions, on its head. It's unlikely, but not impossible, that Harper will attach confidence to this bill, therefore there's no downside to the Ignatieff allowing MPs to a free vote.The vote will not make or break the Liberal caucus but Ignatieff's heavy handedness just might.

The gun registry was a Liberal invention but this fact does not dictate that Liberal MPs should always vote for the status quo. The NEP was a Liberal idea and there's not one Liberal in the land that would vote to get it back.

By whipping his caucus brethren, Ignatieff opens himself to the same criticisms many level at Harper, that he's  intolerant of dissent and a growing control issues. As Jane Taber of the G&M points out, Iggy is still suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous voting by his own MPs over the party's abortion motion two weeks ago.

Let's assume the Conservatives get their way and the bill passes third reading. The Liberals will have an opportunity to reinstate the full registry in the near future, about six weeks after Harper falls on his sword and puts is government out of our collective misery. Whipping his MPs on a relatively minor piece of legislation is overkill.

Quebec and the brave new world of fee-based Health Care

 Quebec has chose to implement a series of user fees in its health care system, contrary to the Canada Health Act which forbids such practice. During the last serious recession, Alberta was penalized by the federal government for allowing user fees. We should be under no illusions that the same treatment will be meted out upon Quebec. In fact, the move by Quebec is coming soon to a province where you live.

That said, what matters most when establishing a user fee for medical services is not the amount of money it will raise for cash-strapped provinces like Quebec but how such a fee will affect consumer decisions. In other words, a user fee is a price signal and price is king when it comes to managing consumer behaviour.

The common misdiagnosis in Canada is that we have a supply problem in our health care systems. In fact, we have a consumer behaviour problem. Any highly regarded service - and no one argues that health care isn't highly regarded by Canadians - that is priced well below its market value will result in a serious demand problem. Demand will out strip supply every time whether it's medical services or the world's greatest brownie.

The answer, however, is not more supply. Adding more supply - in this case doctors, nurses, technicians, hospitals, surgeries, MRIs and other scanners - only makes the demand problem worse since it increases the value of the service and therefore demand for that service. (Obviously, population health and demographics also play an important role).In fact, since the health accords signed between the provinces and the federal government after the Romanov Commission, the supply of medical services has increased but wait times have stubbornly remained near constant. Why? The more we offer something valuable for free the more people will want of it. To put it concisely, free is good and people like free.

The answer is to place a premium, in this case a user fee, on the service. A price signal will force consumers to evaluate their consumption of medical services and make decisions accordingly.  Do I really want to spend $25 to see the doctor for 5 minutes (which equates to $300/hour? Am I really $25 sick or do I just want a day off? Do I have an extra $25? Perhaps I should wait and use the $25 for when my kids are sick?

The price solution to a demand-side problem however is never as clean and precise as the economic theorists describe.

In fact, it's messy and particularly so when it comes to pricing medical care.

For example, applying a price signal to reduce the high demand for medical services can have the paradoxical affect of lowering overall demand while still increasing costs of provincially funded health care. Patients who delay seeking medical help because they wish to avoid paying a high user fee or because they are unable to pay it may require more invasive and higher cost solutions if their condition worsens while they wait. Early intervention saves lives and money in the long run.

It should also be noted that the effect of adding a user fee will be largely lost if it becomes part of employer health benefit and/or employer group insurance programs. This is no doubt one reason why the Quebec government has implemented the fee as a annual levy or tax rather than a straight up user fee.

The better question is how do we change consumer expectations in regards to health care? The answers are no less messy than introducing a price signal/user fee.

When you go to the doctor, there is an expectation he or she will provide a solution and it frequently comes in the form of a prescription, therapy, referral or additional diagnostic testing.

Having to spend 30 minutes or more waiting to see an over-burdened doctor for five minutes and being told to go home, rest and drink plenty of fluids is not what most Canadians want from their doctors. Having to pay $25 for the same thing will only make it worse.

And there's not a doctor or a patient in Canada that doesn't want the latest pill, surgery technique, or technology. Doctors cure us, the government pays for it. Free is good. More for free is better. That's our health-care mantra.

Adding a price signal will affect consumer behaviour toward health care but will leave consumer expectations unchanged. Do doctors - and by extension governments - have to cure every affliction? Which is really just another way of asking if governments have to pay for every cure? Where's the line between social and individual responsibility and is it possible to redraw the boundaries?

The Hypocrisy of Secret Meetings and Opposition Politics

In a comment to a Don Martin column in the National Post,  frege99 wrote,  “MPs on a committee can be sworn to secrecy if necessary to protect information the committee determines should not be released. There is no reason to believe that MPs sitting in opposition are less willing to act in the national interest than are those in government.”

Similarly, the G&M reported that the  “…opposition is not asking for a full public release of the documents, but rather for the government to let a parliamentary committee study them in private.”

They're kidding, right?

In a perfect world, swearing members of parliament (MPs) to secrecy and then revealing documents would be a no brainer.

However, the plan derails at the point where you actually need to swear highly partisan MPs to secrecy. Why would the Opposition want their members muzzled when there are political games to be played and voters to be wooed by making damaging documents public?

It's foolish to think, and for the Opposition to suggest, that MPs would agree to secrecy when they desperately want the information contained in the documents to be made public. The more damaging the revelations are to the government, the more valuable they are to the Opposition and more likely they will be released.

More importantly, at least from the Opposition's perspective, the detainee abuse issue has become intolerable because of excess secrecy and it is ludicrous to think it might be solved by more of the same. In fact, it's disingenuous for Opposition to even suggest it.

The undeclared and unexamined assumption is that the Opposition is acting out of some altruistic national interest. They aren't. Full Stop.

The government would never agree to this for similar reasons. There is an adage in the security business that if you have one lock and one key, you have security, but if you have one lock and two keys, you have chaos.

Having MPs pinky-swear to never reveal what goes on in a meeting regarding politically sensitive documents is a sure-fire way to ensure that the content of those documents and/or the documents themselves become public. The government is having a hard enough time managing its own bureaucracy on this issue, it doesn't need the added headache of politically motivated MPs running around with state secrets.

According to the  Toronto Star,

    ...(p)olitical scientist Ned Franks, a parliamentary procedure expert, said the government is right to be concerned about releasing sensitive information to MPs, even if they promise to keep it secret.

    “The House of Commons at present is so virulently partisan that I think the pressures on the members of a committee like that would be immense to reveal the naughty bits,” Franks said in an interview.

    "Parliament’s a leaky sieve and I don’t trust its ability to hold confidences.”

There is zero incentive here for either the government or the Opposition to create an ad hoc intelligence committee to review files on the detainee issue. That said, it's obvious that the Tories thought long and hard (an oxymoron I know) about this issue during prorogation, and came up with a alternative involving former Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobbuci.. This is a reasonable alternative. Although it falls far short of a public inquiry, it's better than nothing at all. (A reasonable alternative provided the Conservatives follow through, which they haven't).

Harper and Condoms for Africa

According to the G&M, Harper said "...the government is seeking to get the G8 countries to act to save lives, mothers and children, throughout the world….We are not closing doors against any options including contraception. But we do not want a debate here or elsewhere on abortion.”
G&M link

----------

There's no questioning the positive link between maternal health, contraceptives, access to obstetrics and other medical care, including abortion.. However, if we take Hippo at his word - commence shock, horror and guffaws - and the plan is to engage the G8 in an international effort to improve the lives of African mothers, then not including contraceptives in Canada's proposal does make some tactical sense (queue more shock, horror and guffaws).

Here's why.

International agreements typically involved agreeing on the lowest common denominators between states, that is, agreement on those issues that politicians can sell to voters and legislators back home. If including controversial proposals lessens the likelihood of the overall proposal being adopted by the G8, and no one argues that contraception, family planning and abortion are not controversial, then eliminating such issues makes sense if it gets a deal done. In other words, if a deal involves 10 proposals for Africa, two of which are controversial and threaten to scuttle the deal, then it is better diplomatically and politically to get a deal for the remaining eight proposals than none at all.

It does not matter how liberal or open minded Barrack Obama and Hilary Clinton are; it matters much more how liberal and open minded the US Congress is since that body must ratify any international deal Obama signs. Any international proposal that includes abortion is considerably less likely to pass the US Congress then proposals that do not. This issue plays out the same way with different outcomes in all of the G8 states. (Earlier this week, the UK foreign minister agreed with Clinton that abortion should be on the table for any proposal aimed at improving maternal health in Africa.)

In simple terms, this is what occurred with the much ballyhooed Millennium Goals adopted by the UN. The Millennium Goals identify maternal health as a key component but are silent on contraception, family planning and abortion. The Millennium Goals would never have been adopted by the Security Council and the UN Assembly had the deal included abortion.

The corollary is also true; any G8 agreement to provided maternal aid in Africa would be self-limiting insofar as not all African states accept programs where contraception is included. African states are as divided over these types of programs as Western states are, perhaps more so. If the goal is aid as many mothers and children as possible in Africa, does it make sense to include clauses that many African states would reject outright?

The science on contraception and maternal health is crystal clear. There is a positive relationship between contraception choices and maternal health. Even more simply, as goes the health of African mothers, so goes the health of their children.

It is illogical, however, to presume that every international aid programme for Africa must automatically include options for contraception. Maternal health is improved by contraception but it is also improved by a myriad of other factors, access to health care and obstetrics, neo-natal and peri-natal care, food, vitamins, clean water, safety, education and more. It should also be kept in mind that Canada and many other states already provide funding for contraception, family planning, abortion, condoms and safe sex education through CIDA and NGOs

Does this particular proposal for the G8 need it as well if it would impair getting the deal done and reduce its appeal in Africa?