Tom Brodbeck is known in some circles as the man who taught Rochelle Squires everything she knows. Certainly that was ten minutes of his life he'll never get back, but not nearly as wasted an effort as his current "gotcha" campaign against Premier Gary Doer.The bee in Bunk-beck's bonnet this week? Doer "lied" in the legislature about the number of patients in Winnipeg hospital ERs. This is the quote in contention, from Tuesday's question period: "The average patients in the hallways in the emergency rooms in 1999 were 28 patients, Mr. Speaker. Today, there is zero."
OK, there you go. When the Tories left office the average number in the hallways was 28. On Tuesday the count was zero. Pretty straight-forward.
But not for Bunk-beck's heightened sense of moral outrage. Clearly Doer was saying the average was zero, right? No patients were in the hallways under the NDP. (Release the balloons and streamers. Roll credits.)
Yes, yes. We know. Hallway medicine was not completely eliminated in a few weeks back in 1999. Give it a rest. It was an ambitious promise that the NDP ONLY GOT 80% OF THE WAY THERE. (A fact Doer also said in the same exchange, conveniently ignored by Bunk-beck.)
Set the bar high and achieve 80% of the goal. Not perfect, but it seems pretty darn good to us.
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This morning CBC Radio apologized to the Health Sciences Centre for saying yesterday that racism led to poor treatment of an Aboriginal woman. They backed this up with no facts, mererly the hearsay of the woman. The CBC apologizes for nearly nothing. This one really fell between the cracks.
Again, the once mighty Mother Corp shows signs of decline.