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NDP: Biggest Donors to Health Minister Were Private Health-services Companies |
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Written by NDP
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Thursday, 12 January 2006 |
Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh has pledged his support for public health care and claimed he's doing everything he can to defend the Canada Health Act.
Yet, the Minister has remained virtually silent on the question of the Copeman Health Centre, a for-profit health provider, opening in Vancouver and planning a rapid expansion across the country.
Just another case of Liberal deeds not matching Liberal words?
Vancouver's top on-line magazine thetyee.ca reports today that the biggest donors to Ujjal Dosanjh's election bid in 2004 were two Ontario-based for-profit health services companies:
"Ujjal Dosanjh received $16,000 in campaign donations from two Ontario families involved in health-service companies when he was seeking election to the House of Commons in 2004. Six weeks later, he was named health minister in Paul Martin's Liberal government.
One of those companies advertises itself as being able to "fast track" care for injured people, providing a service to employers by returning their workers to the job more quickly than would the standard care offered by the public health system. An executive from the firm told The Tyee the chain of clinics has arrived at a way 'to do business at a new level.'
A Tyee review of donor records reveals that on May 31, 2004, Dr. Artaj Singh and Dr. Judith Singh, a husband-wife physician couple from Burlington, Ontario, gave Dosanjh two contributions of $1,750 apiece - a total of $7,000. Four days later, Artaj Singh sent an additional $1000 to Dosanjh through Fort Erie Urgent Care Inc., and on June 7, he added a further $1000 through a private company, 2009221 Ontario Inc."
(SOURCE: Dosanjh's Biggest Donors Run Medical Firms, thetyee.ca, January 12, 2006, Link Address: http://thetyee.ca/News/2006/01/12/DonorsRunMedicalFirms ). |
