There was a wonderful editorial cartoon that appeared in a sister publication of this newspaper on Thursday.

It mocked Prime Minister Harper’s grounds for an election by portraying him as a man tossing wrenches into the working gears of Parliament. The point being that his rationale for election is bogus i.e. that Parliament is not working, that Parliamentary Committees are not working. The cartoon message was clear; he and his ministers are the problem. They are obstructing parliamentary procedure, not the opposition.

The reality is that he can’t have his way in Parliament, that Committees are exposing things that he doesn’t want exposed (the Schreiber-Mulroney relationship, the Cadman affair, the in-and-out election financing scheme, etc.) and more importantly that he has nothing more to say.

A new tell-all book by Julie Couillard, former girlfriend of Maxime Bernier, once Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, is due out in October, another reason why Mr. Harper might want an early election. Ms. Couillard allegedly has ties to organized crime.

Mr. Harper claims that Parliament cannot proceed because of a disagreement over the Liberal Opposition’s platform, a platform that is diametrically opposed to everything his government stands for, particularly as relates to climate change and the Liberal’s proposed carbon tax. A difference of opinion over a policy alternative that is not on the legislative floor and subject to parliamentary debate is hardly a compelling reason for a government to throw in the towel and refuse to govern without a new election mandate.

Coincidently, a former mentor and advisor to the Prime Minister, a political scientist from the University of Calgary, Tom Flanagan issued a statement this week suggesting that Harper’s purpose in calling an election is to “destroy the Liberals”.

In his view, Harper doesn’t need to be concerned with gaining a majority, only with regaining minority status and perhaps increasing his seat count. In Flanagan’s view, re-election of a minority Conservative government would throw the Liberals into a long-term tailspin; force them to dump Stéphane Dion.

In that event, according to Flanagan the Liberal party would have to embark on another costly leadership contest, even as some of its 2006 leadership candidates struggle to pay off their past leadership expenses. Moreover, a reduction in popular vote would mean the Liberal Party would receive less money in election-expense rebate, making it difficult to finance future elections. The Flanagan theory is that such turmoil would give Harper a free hand in Parliament, even with a minority.

Shortly after he took office, Stephen Harper introduced legislation to fix election dates. The legislation was passed by Parliament and fixed the next election for October 2009. It would appear that the Prime Minister will over-ride his own legislation by appealing to a loophole in the legislation (enabled by the avoidance of Constitutional change) that only permits the Governor General to dissolve Parliament. Harper will probably ask the GG to dissolve Parliament in the next week or two and it’s unlikely she would refuse, given the likelihood that no other party or combination of parties would be able to form a government.

The Conservatives have booked television time to run (and they are already running) pre-campaign ads before the election call, taking advantage of their money-chest before election-spending limits kick in. In American style, they will attack Stéphane Dion as a risky choice for prime minister and offer little or nothing in the way of new policy initiatives.

If Mr. Harper calls an election before October 2009, he would technically break his own law – proof that we can’t trust him. If Mr. Harper calls an election before the upcoming (four) bye-elections are concluded, he would be telling us that he is afraid of the results and that the bye-elections were called in bad faith, another trust issue.

All of this comes against the background of the U.S. presidential conventions and their pending election campaign. I listened to half a dozen speeches this week from the Democratic convention. They were excellent. All of them better than anything that I have heard in this country for years.

The U.S. election is scheduled for November 4th. A Canadian election running simultaneously but concluding before November 4th would be distracted by the U.S. election and the charismatic Barack Obama, giving Harper and his policies cover from the media and public scrutiny that would ordinarily accrue to a Canadian election.

I have to agree with Mr. Harper.

The time has come for an election in Canada as well. There are matters of trust to be resolved. There are matters of health and safety that need to be dealt with and there are matters of fiscal and environmental policy that need to be addressed.

Let’s get on with it.

W.E. (Bill) Belliveau is a Shediac resident and Moncton business consultant. He can be contacted at bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com Atlantic Insight is a published Blog inventory of opinion articles published weekly in New Brunswick's print media as written by W.E. (Bill) Belliveau, who is a resident of Shediac, New Brunswick, and small business owner, operating his Moncton-based marketing consultancy, Bell Strategic. He can be reached by e-mail at mailto:bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com

Canada uses a mix of public and private organizations to deliver health care but is financed with public tax dollars.

Historically, doctors have billed the provinces on a fee for service basis. This differs from the United Kingdom where most medical services are provided privately but paid for by government.

In Canada, health care is a provincial responsibility so the provision and standards of healthcare are not pan-Canadian although the Government of Canada sets the rules of delivery via various funding formulas.

Publicly-funded insurance is organized at the level of province/territory; each manages its own insurance system and issues its own healthcare identification cards. Once care moves beyond the services required by the Canada Health Act, for which universal comprehensive coverage applies, there is some inconsistency in the service delivery for such items as outpatient drug coverage and rehabilitation, vision care, mental health, and long-term care.

The Canada Health Act requires coverage for all medically necessary care provided in hospitals and/or by physicians including: diagnostic, treatment and preventive services. Coverage is universal for Canadian residents, regardless of income level.

Election of the new president of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA), Dr. Robert Oulette has sparked concern among some groups of Canadians because the doctor advocates more private delivery of healthcare services. Canadians have long clung to the notion that health service delivery is and should remain “universal”.

Universality implies that healthcare is provided without limit or exception and is available equitably to all members of society. Oulette claims that Canada’s healthcare system is not universal, that it is only half universal because it does not include prescription drugs.

At least 600,000 Canadians, a majority of them live in Atlantic Canada, have no drug coverage. Another six million people have inadequate coverage. According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, Canadians spent $20.6 billion on prescription drugs in 2007 – it’s big business.

Prescription drug plans differ across the country. Some provinces cover prescribed drugs for specific age groups (usually, seniors) and/or those on social assistance. Quebec is the only province with a universal prescription drug plan. Dental care is not covered by government insurance plans so Canadians have to rely on their employers, private insurers or personal cash payments to fund their dental care.

The non-debate in Canada confuses universality and the delivery of government-funded services by private sector providers. Dr. Oulette defends universality but would expand private delivery of medical care. The Canadian Nurses Association advocates a not-for-profit health-care system and rejects Oulette’s notion that some form of privatization would improve efficiency, effectiveness of service or access to the system.

Dr. Oulette suggests that surgeons should be able to work in private, for-profit clinics while at the same time working in publicly funded hospitals. In the current day, surgeons who want to set up private practices (funded by patients as distinct from government funded health insurance) must opt out of Medicare.

I have argued before that doctors would be compromised by a two track delivery system. On the one hand, they would have access to fixed rate, volume funding from government and on the other hand they would be offering services on a “what the market would bare” basis. These raise two issues: (i) if the private service proved to be more lucrative, services to the public would/could be reduced and (ii) people of means would have greater access to medical services because they could afford to pay the premiums demanded by private sector practitioners.

I have no issue with healthcare services being provided privately so long as they are funded by the public sector and so long as they are available to everybody on an equitable basis and without prejudice of income. Increased delivery of healthcare services by the private sector could bring new efficiencies to the system, maybe even reduce wait-times

To provide context, it’s useful to know that Canada has more than a million patients waiting for care and five million people without a family doctor. The United States has 46 million people with no healthcare insurance and little access to the healthcare system.

Dr. Oulette suggests that competition; consumer choice and market principles should rule the delivery of healthcare services in Canada.

In my opinion, that is code for two-tiered service delivery – those who can afford to pay have a choice of services and service-providers, those who cannot afford to pay only have access to a queue of publicly funded healthcare services and publicly funded healthcare providers.

There is a role for competition, user choice and market principles in the delivery of healthcare services but somehow they have to combine under the principle of universality. The person who finds the formula could become a wealthy human being.

W.E. (Bill) Belliveau is a Shediac resident and Moncton business consultant. He can be contacted at bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com Atlantic Insight is a published Blog inventory of opinion articles published weekly in New Brunswick's print media as written by W.E. (Bill) Belliveau, who is a resident of Shediac, New Brunswick, and small business owner, operating his Moncton-based marketing consultancy, Bell Strategic. He can be reached by e-mail at mailto:bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com

Aides to U.S. President George W. Bush routinely decline to testify before Congressional Committees in Washington, citing “executive privilege” the power to resist interventions by the legislative and judicial branches of the U.S. Government.

The President says his aides are immune from Congressional subpoenas. A U.S. District Court Judge disagrees. On July 31, 2008 he ruled that there is no legal basis for the President’s argument that presidential aides are immune from congressional process and said further they are legally required to testify “pursuant to a duly issued congressional subpoena”.

As in so many things, our Prime Minister, models his behavior on the U.S. President and American circumstance, in this case by refusing to have his aides and political associates testify before an all party, Parliamentary Ethics Committee on matters relating to election financing. Mr. Harper does not cite “executive privilege” in his contempt for the Ethics Committee; instead he characterizes it as a "kangaroo court" in an attempt to discredit its legitimacy.

A panel of 11 senior Conservatives skipped the Committee hearings this week, with two people failing to respond to a summons and others eluding bailiffs' efforts to serve them. Three witnesses who were official campaign agents for sitting Conservative Members of Parliament failed to appear despite having been summoned. Conservative witness Marc Duval told a Commons clerk that the Party told summoned witnesses to decline all invitations to appear before the Committee.

On Wednesday, the witness table was empty when Conservative witnesses failed to appear, including Prime Minister Harper's deputy chief of staff, Patrick Muttart, and the Prime Minister’s campaign manager, Doug Finley.

Three witnesses, including Mr. Muttart sent letters, released by Party lawyers, saying they would not attend. Another eight failed to show without excuse or notice.

The Ethics Committee is looking into the Conservatives’ in-and-out financing scheme used in the 2006 election to transfer money to local ridings that supposedly used the funds to pay for national advertising. Elections Canada alleges the scheme was a tactic, involving 67 ridings in a plot to (a) claim national campaign expenses as local expenses and (b) enable the Conservative Party to spend $1.3 million more in the national election than permitted by election-spending limits.

On Monday, Mr. Finley, the Tory campaign manager, showed up two days before his scheduled appearance, demanding to be heard by the Committee. He eventually was escorted out of the room. On Wednesday, Findley failed to appear for his scheduled appearance.

Mr. Harper’s response to these shenanigans’ is to fuel speculation that his Conservative government will engineer its own demise and trigger a fall election. He says that the parliamentary process has “stopped working” in the past few months. He claims legislation is stalled in the Senate and the Commons. Putting on his best George Bush face,

Mr. Harper says the committee system is “in chaos”. Yes sir, the committee system is in chaos and it is your party and your members of parliament who have created much of the chaos as a result of your disrespect for the Parliamentary process.

The prospect of a fall election is interesting when you consider the most recent Canadian Press-Harris-Decima poll which shows the Conservatives and the Liberals tied across the country. Significantly, the Liberals are pulling ahead in both Ontario and Quebec.

Returning to Mr. Bush, on Wednesday in a most cynical and hypocritical move, the President announced that the United States would launch a “humanitarian aid mission” in Georgia (a former state in the Soviet Union) and would send Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the region to negotiate a settlement of the conflict between Russia and Georgia.

The Russia-Georgia conflict stemmed from Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s decision to send troops to the Russian-friendly breakaway enclave of South Ossetia to encourage people to remain part of Georgia. Russia had other thoughts and sent troops to Georgia, allegedly to protect Russian citizens.

Mr. Bush says the United States "stands with the democratically elected government of Georgia and insists that its sovereignty and territorial integrity be respected." Hypocrisy lies in the fact that the United States chooses to lecture Russia on sovereignty and territorial integrity, having invaded Afghanistan, invaded and killed tens of thousands of Iraqis, threatened to invade Iran and more recently, is suspected of firing missiles along the border of Pakistan.

In lockstep with President Bush, Mr. Harper says that Russia should reconsider its military offensive against Georgia and suggests further that the Russian move against that country indicates a return to a “Soviet era mentality” whatever that means.

This much is certain; the world cannot afford a Russia-U.S. conflict. Mr. Harper would do well to put some distance between himself and the president on this and many other issues.

W.E. (Bill) Belliveau is a Shediac resident and Moncton business consultant. He can be contacted at bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com Atlantic Insight is a published Blog inventory of opinion articles published weekly in New Brunswick's print media as written by W.E. (Bill) Belliveau, who is a resident of Shediac, New Brunswick, and small business owner, operating his Moncton-based marketing consultancy, Bell Strategic. He can be reached by e-mail at mailto:bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com

My nephew and his daughter were visiting New Brunswick this week.

He works for “Doctors without Borders” and they live in Amsterdam. His daughter is three and a half years old. She is fluent in three languages – English, German and Dutch. Her mother is bilingual (German and English).

Her father is unilingual English with a working utility in French and German. In my opinion, they are all proof of the value of Early French Immersion.

Each child is a unique individual. Within any group of children there exists a range of differences in the rates and ways of learning, in their experiences and in their interests. Children develop strategies to solve complex problems. They learn to reason and communicate in a second or third language and to take responsibility for their own learning. From everything I know the primary years are critical years for learning.

French immersion is based on the principle that a language and the material taught in that language are learned simultaneously. In Early French Immersion, students learn French in all the discipline areas. In Early Immersion, students must understand French and use it to communicate. It is therefore essential that French be the language of communication in the class-room.

Students need to communicate in a variety of authentic, meaningful situations. Language and thought are interrelated. As students’ thought processes become more complex, they require more appropriate ways to express their thoughts. Language acquisition is a gradual process. For this reason, students need a wide variety of opportunities for interaction in which they negotiate meaning and form to refine their communications.

The development of linguistic proficiency requires the use of higher mental processes. In order to achieve greater linguistic proficiency, students must draw upon the mental processes associated with reasoning, thought formulation and manipulation, problem solving and so on. The use of higher mental processes (analysis, synthesis, and evaluation) should not be reserved exclusively for older students and they should not be considered the property of language elitists.

The teacher’s role is fundamental to a French Immersion program. Students absorb language as they hear it or read it. If the classroom is the only place where a student is exposed to French, it is essential that teachers demonstrate a superior level of spoken and written language. Ironically, it would appear that New Brunswick, an “officially” bilingual province has a shortage of qualified French language teachers.

During the early years of learning, a strong emphasis should be placed on literacy and numeracy skills to support the curriculum. Teaching strategies must be varied and aimed at individual needs to bring children to their highest level of achievement.

French immersion programs are designed for English-speaking students. Their aim is to enable students to learn French by studying in French. In most provinces, Newfoundland, for example, Early French Immersion begins in Kindergarten and continues to Grade Twelve. Why should New Brunswick want to be so different?

After much controversy and a Court directive to consult the public, Kelly Lamrock, New Brunswick’s Minister of Education announced this week that French Immersion will be consigned to a Grade III start, a compromise from an earlier decision to delay implementation of the program to Grade IV. Early reaction from parents appears to be qualified acceptance. I’m not sure if there is a practical reason for the change, other than compromise but it’s certainly a move in the right direction.

All students entering kindergarten will now be exposed to a “universal English” program until the end of Grade II, although some French instruction and sensitivity exposure will be incorporated in drama, music, history and literacy lessons.

Implicit in the current change and the previous proposal is an obsession with streaming which apparently has caused students with special education needs to be streamed out of Early Immersion and into the mainstream Core French program. I’m not sure I understand the relevance of this problem but I assume it has something to do with making all people equal, regardless of their competency.

I support the notion of equal opportunity but I reject the notion that all students are equal. We need to nourish elite students, not stifle them with lowest common denominators.

I congratulate the Minister for checking his ego at the door and delivering this new offering. I would have preferred it if he had found a way to make “earliest” immersion a priority but I respect the fact that he has moved the starting block back to a point of “early impression”.

I also commend him for announcing that he will deliver an additional $6.2 million over the next five years to design new programs, train teachers and fund research into French second-language excellence.

W.E. (Bill) Belliveau is a Shediac resident and Moncton business consultant. He can be contacted at bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com Atlantic Insight is a published Blog inventory of opinion articles published weekly in New Brunswick's print media as written by W.E. (Bill) Belliveau, who is a resident of Shediac, New Brunswick, and small business owner, operating his Moncton-based marketing consultancy, Bell Strategic. He can be reached by e-mail at mailto:bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com

On a January afternoon in 1969, six miles off the coast of Santa Barbara, California, a "blowout" exploded below a Union Oil Company drilling platform, spewing crude oil from cracks in the Santa Barbara Channel floor.

It took almost two weeks to cap the leak and, before it was plugged, the oil spill had grown to more than 3 million gallons, spreading across 800 square miles of ocean and spoiling more than 35 miles of Southern California's coast.

Dead and injured sea animals and birds washed up along the beaches, covered in black goo. Images of the devastation, transmitted around the world, helped galvanize environmentalists and triggered establishment of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the U.S. Clean Air Act.

In the wake of this calamity, then U.S. President, Richard Nixon, a Republican and a California native, proffered his concern “for preserving the beauty and the natural resources that are so important to any kind of society that we want for the future. The Santa Barbara incident has touched the conscience of the American people." Offshore oil drilling was suspended off the coast of California for nearly 40 years.

In 2008, with rising oil and gas prices, unprecedented government deficits, two wars and increasing distress in the U.S. economy, another Republican President, George W. Bush announced he was lifting the presidential moratorium on offshore drilling. He also called on the U.S. Congress to lift its ban on offshore oil drilling.

This has surfaced as a hot-button issue in the presidential campaign as John McCain adopts the Bush position while Barack Obama opposes offshore drilling.

McCain had opposed offshore drilling in his unsuccessful run for the presidency in 2000. He continued in opposition until the Bush announcement. His switch in position has angered environmental groups he'd been wooing for years and annoyed Republican Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger, who had endorsed McCain, but roundly criticizes the Arizona senator's newly adopted position on offshore drilling. This is an issue that divides voters as well as the two presidential candidates.

One has to wonder why McCain would reverse himself by calling for the lifting of offshore drilling restrictions. By remaining green McCain could have put some distance between himself and Bush. By going black, he puts himself shoulder to shoulder with the unpopular president. It would appear that McCain has concluded that voter anger about high fuel prices will trump the environment in today's economy.

He may be right. U.S. polls reveal that voters might be ready to endorse lifting the ban on offshore drilling. A Gallup poll in May showed that 57 percent of respondents now favor allowing oil drilling in U.S. coastal and wilderness areas now off-limits to oil exploration but significantly, there were partisan differences in support. Only 38 percent of Democrats agreed with lifting the ban while 80 percent of Republicans and 56 percent of independent voters agreed with lifting the ban.

Here in New Brunswick, our local newspapers have taken similar positions on the environment. Carbon reduction is considered less important than preservation of the economy. One attempts to frighten us by suggesting that higher electricity prices will scare industry out of the province.

They fail to mention the offsetting reduction in income tax rates could make carbon taxes more affordable in a rising price market.

Our prime minister continues to batter the Liberal plan for carbon taxes. He sees it as too complicated and calls the plan “incomprehensible”. This week, he dared the Liberal opposition to defeat his government and precipitate an election in which the proposed carbon tax would be the defining issue.

A friend of mine, who happens to be a tax accountant, supports the survey’s conclusion by saying “bring on carbon taxes and help people find carbon-free energy alternatives.” He’s a big advocate of heat pumps, geothermal energy and electric cars. He says higher prices are the only thing that will cause people to change their behaviour and points to the changes that are already occurring in consumer behaviour as a result of higher energy prices – smaller, more fuel-efficient car purchases, improved weather-proofing of homes, increased use of bicycles and public transit.

He’s convinced that if we don’t change the way we do things, we’ll end up like Beijing with air that is nearly unbreathable and an environment that will increasingly become intolerable.

If the carbon tax is indeed the ballot question in Canada, it will force Canadians to weigh their concern for the environment against the counter-claim of slowing economic growth, corporate layoffs and rising prices.

If Barak Obama continues to champion the environment and continues to grow in personal popularity, Mr. Dion may find it easier to sell his carbon-tax plan to Canadians. Stay tuned.

W.E. (Bill) Belliveau is a Shediac resident and Moncton business consultant. He can be contacted at bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com Atlantic Insight is a published Blog inventory of opinion articles published weekly in New Brunswick's print media as written by W.E. (Bill) Belliveau, who is a resident of Shediac, New Brunswick, and small business owner, operating his Moncton-based marketing consultancy, Bell Strategic. He can be reached by e-mail at mailto:bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com