
The following article by Evan Solomon is from a recent issue of Maclean’s magazine:
Put out an alert. Send out a search party. Print a face on the side of a milk carton. Something has to happen to locate the missing campaign debate about health care. It has simply vanished.
In its place, pails of pixels are being filled trying to find out why Nigel Wright cut that $90,000 cheque to Mike Duffy. There is endless talk about a recession redux. Child care, pipelines and security issues are all eliciting Kardashian levels of political scrutiny. That’s not a bad thing. But health care has gone as silent as a Chaplin film.
“It’s a major missed opportunity for the opposition parties,†Kevin Page told me. The former parliamentary budget officer knows how fundamental this matter is to all levels of government. “Rarely do you have this much public support around an issue, and yet you don’t see it prominently displayed in any party platform,†Page says.
He’s right about public support. A recent Abacus poll found 56 per cent of voters aged 45 and over said health care is their top concern. Even 43 per cent of Millennials—those aged 18 to 29—put health care as their No. 1 issue. That’s higher than job creation, taxes, middle-class incomes and the environment. Abacus found issues such as crime and security poll no higher than 11 per cent for all ages. So why the political silence?
The answer goes back to the Lunch of 2011. In December of that year,
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