CFAX show on Vic area hospital food (privatised)

[CanuckAmok]

The individual kitchens of the Capital Region hospitals have all been closed, the HEU union staff fired, and food/housekeeping has been outsourced to a private company who are now being investigated for numerous health and WCB violations. And, they have centralsised the food prep area which now makes meals for all the region's hospitals. So now if you're in a hospital, your rubbery scrambled eggs ad your watery coffee are going to be prepared miles away the night before, delivered to your hospital, and microwaved before serving. There have been so many complaints about this company's service that a second company has been hired to investigate their practices.

The projected savings of this privatisation are an annula $10 million, $2 million of which is now going to be pissed away on this investigation

So, all these elderly callers were phoning in and complaining about this, and I just wanted to grab my radio and shout into it:

"LISTEN, YOU BLUE-HAIRED OLD CLAM... WHEN YOU'RE LIFTING OFF THE TURQUOISE PLASTIC COVER AND DIGGING INTO YOUR THREE OUNCE PORTION OF RECONSTITUTED EGG WHITES AND YOUR SINGLE RIGID SCOOP OF WHITE RICE, REMEMBER THAT THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT YOU VOTED FOR! IF YOU VOTED CONSERVITIVE OR LIBERAL, YOU VOTED FOR PRIVATISATION, UNION-BUSTING, OUTSOURCING, AND RADICAL CUTS TO HEALTH CARE. BON APPETIT!"

[HEyHEY]

1. How, I say HOW? did we ever get public anything with this generation?

I mean all this came when they were running things...now they all hate it

[iverglas]

2. "they"?

I (and my partner, and soon my siblings) am in my 50s, my mother is (and my father was) in her 70s. We vote(d) NDP. Every one of us. Well, the Mtl brother voted PQ once or twice, but now I think he probably doesn't vote in that respect.

Yup, a lot of my mum's neighbours in the senior cits' apt building north of Toronto (approximately Stronach territory) will vote Tory til the day they die, even though there are no Tories left to vote for. And I suspect even some of the blue- and pink-collar workers in my old subdivision in East London Ont. (like my mum's best friend's husband, a retired auto worker) don't vote NDP -- although they've elected NDPers in that area a few times.

But let's not forget -- when they were your age, there weren't any nasty loony right-wing parties really, either. They could vote for Bill Davis, or Diefenbaker, and not exactly be voting for the destruction of all things Canadian and the trampling of the downtrodden. The Liberals (for whatever reason) brought us universal health care; Diefenbaker made the first efforts toward establishing the CPP. Uncle Bill was running the show here in Ontario when I was a footloose undergraduate, and I had student loans, and summer job projects -- and health care -- and prospects. I mean, I never actually voted for him, but life wasn't that bad.

The life-long Conservatives and Liberals mostly didn't vote against anybody else having anything, back when they themselves had more than they have now, and then turn around and whine when they are the ones in need.

Or, as I think you're saying, deliberately turn around and try to take away from everyone else what they had when they needed it. It's the parties that have changed, not the old people, for the most part, I'd say. And sometimes it's just difficult to learn new tricks at an age when you really shouldn't have to be worrying about politics. ;)

[CHIMO]

4. Well

Were is the rebellion of the young ones?

Looks like maybe they have bought into the corporate ideals?

[HEyHEY]

5. I think the problem is...

nowadays most of the youth grew up comfortably... and so they think, "I'm on my own and doing well ... why can't others?"
But they don't realize they had advantages... advantages they had because of old time lefties.

[CHIMO]

3. If I Were

A bean counter, I would question the savings. Who guarantees that these numbers are correct? How have they been established? Have they included any reduction in income taxes or has that part even been examined. Has it only looked at the expense side?

Accepting statements like this is the first error. The politicians that sprout them should be nailed to the wall to support them.