THE BIG STORY: Prime Minister Mark Carney has made history in Europe. On Sept. 16, he became the first foreign world leader to ever attend the State of the European Union (EU) address. https://t.co/l2CsatgFqi
Irish Ambassador: "In the chamber today, when you watched it, was that sustained round of applause, a standing ovation for Prime Minister Carney, but really it was a standing ovation for Canada."
Thanks Premier Kenney. I am impressed by your unwavering patriotism and collaboration with Premier Notley. Allow me to correct you on some much-debunked fallacies. 👇👇👇
1) You can't queue jump to see me if you're wealthy. That's essentially what Alberta Conservatives have enacted. If you're homeless, intoxicated and with unstable vital signs I attend to you before a housed patient, with stable vitals and abdominal pain. That's the Canadian way. We put acuity and medical need over ability to pay. That's what we consider fair. That's what most Canadians want. That's the opposite direction of the Smith Conservative government.
Would you tell a farm hand they are less important than an oil executive, Premier Kenney?
2) Profiteering is different than profit.
I apologize for nothing that I work and I profit.
Profiteering is taking undue advantage of people in need, and gouging them for additional fees. That's not what I do. You can't bribe me $500 extra in the ER to be seen faster when the waiting room is packed. That would be unprofessional, immoral and stupid. That's what the Smith Conservative government is doing.
3) Queue-jumping solves zero. Doctors are a fixed resource in Canada, as you know Premier. If you pull us doctors out of the public system for people willing to slip in extra money, you reduce the capability of the public system. That's not how I operate but that's what Alberta Conservatives are doing.
You're right that profit (also called a job) is fine. You do it, I do it, anyone with a mortgage or pays rent does it.
The difference is profiteering, queue-jumping and prioritizing those who can essentially bribe the doctors. I would hope you would agree those are fundamentally un-Canadian values.
Let me explain a medical corporation to you. It's legal. It was put in place by your Conservative Premier colleague Mike Harris in 2000. The government put this in place in lieu of increasing physician compensation. It violates no Canadian or provincial laws. Most doctors in Ontario do it. It defers taxes to when you are earning nothing. I'm not apologizing for it because it's how most Ontario doctors are compensated for their services.
Unlike you Premier Kenney, I'm not getting a federal government generous pension when I grow old. My savings are all I have for my family and I. A medical corporation doesn't violate in any way the Canada Health Act which is what the Alberta Conservative government is doing.
Let's now shift to Europe which I'm glad you raised. I agree with you, let's be more like Europe. Europe invests far, far more than we do in publicly funded healthcare and related social services. That's why multi-payer systems there is fine. Because they take care of the basics first, better than us. You negate to mention this crucial difference. I'm not against white-glove profiteering healthcare if we take care of the basics first.
I hope this clears this up. There's no hypocrisy. It's one thing to attend to patients based on need, not gouge them at their time of need, not pick favourites based on essentially a bribe, knee-cap the publicly funded system and bill the government for services rendered through a law-abiding corporation.
I'm ashamed of nothing Premier Kenney. Alberta Conservatives, on the other hand, have enacted policies that are frankly disgraceful to the average Albertan who make about $52,000/year after taxes. @jkenney
One year ago, around this time, I was speeding across Texas, fighting back tears and streaming live news coverage on my phone, trying to get to my sons at Camp La Junta in Hunt, TX.
There had been a massive amount of rain overnight, and I woke up to a text saying they were without power and cell service.
Little did I know that just hours earlier, 119 people in that small county (139 total) had lost their lives in an unfathomable flood.
My 7-year-old, Brock, fresh out of Kindergarten, had one full day at camp. My 9 yr old, Braeden, was in a different cabin. Around 3 AM, Brock woke up on a soaked mattress. The Guadalupe River had already risen nearly level with his bottom bunk. His teenage counselors lifted the little boys to the top bunks.
Within minutes, that still wasn’t high enough.
In the pitch black, freezing water filled with debris, gasoline, branches, snakes—everything you can imagine—kept rising. The boys were moved higher, into the rafters and onto the tops of the shower stalls, just trying to stay ahead of the water.
Little did they know those bunk beds and vaulted ceilings would be a key reason they survived—while 27 girls at Camp Mystic, just minutes away, did not. They had followed orders to “shelter in place,” but the girls simply ran out of room.
Back at Camp La Junta, about 60 boys were trapped in a triplex of three cabins. The oldest counselor was maybe 18. There was no prior camp safety training, barely any cell service, and no clear plan. Their 911 calls were answered occasionally, but help wasn’t coming.
By then, the whole area was overwhelmed, and Kerr County was wholly unprepared. Some 911 calls weren’t just being routed to other counties - they were even forwarded to the local library. At 4 AM on July 4th, no one was there. It was kids saving kids.
The cabins started breaking apart. Windows, doors, and even a wall crumbled as the water ripped through. One teenage counselor couldn’t handle the terrified screams of the little boys anymore and took his chances in the flood. He survived—but it was a choice no kid should ever have to make.
A small cabin with young staffers inside tore off its foundation and slammed into the triplex where Brock was, like a bowling ball hitting the bumpers, before miraculously being stopped by a tree.
Their security guard, brand new to the job, had taken refuge in the Dining Hall. As the building fell apart, she was pulled into the river. She grabbed a Gatorade cooler and held on for dear life, colliding with vehicles and barbed wire as the thick, freezing water tore off her clothes and broke her finger in a surreal, incomprehensible ride downstream. When she finally managed to grab onto a tree more than a mile away, she stumbled through the dark and the storm until she found a home. Nearly naked, she rang the doorbell of a stranger who took her in.
The worst of the terror lasted only a couple of hours. The nightmares have lasted much longer.
Now, my sons fear the sound of heavy rain. They instinctively scan rooms for higher ground or emergency exits. And that’s just their piece of the trauma. So many others lost lives, homes, their entire sense of safety.
As a family, the boys & I will never forget the July 4th Floods. We’ve advocated for help and change - not just because of what my kids went through, but because of what that entire community endured: a natural disaster full of manmade failures.
I hope you will never forget either.
Dear Fathers,
Please bring your daughters into the women's washroom.
The only people upset are men who want them to go into the men's washroom, and that's why you need to keep bringing them into ours.
Love,
Women.