End Public Health Care Now!
Not only has Canada’s single-payer health care system failed, but it has also been used to oppress and terrorize the population. We were told repeatedly that we “must protect the health-care system!” What nonsense! The health care system was allegedly designed to care for the people, but we’ve seen firsthand in the past two years that the opposite is true. Thousands of delayed or cancelled surgeries, missed diagnoses, and separation from medical care all to protect the system. Many hundreds died, or will die, due to lack of urgent treatment (unless you are the Toronto Chief Medical Officer of Health and can get cancer treatment in about a week).
Field hospitals were built for the surge of Covid patients that never came, then quietly dismantled, all at the cost of millions.
Long-term care centres became death-camps, with the added cruelty of isolation and despair, courtesy of the Ford government and co.
Medical apartheid is now the norm, with the unvaccinated receiving substandard care or no care at all.
Hospital patients were left to die alone because of bureaucratic decrees that had nothing to do with health or disease prevention.
Our system is based upon the lie that civil government can manage health care better than families and individuals can.
In Ontario, OHIP has been in serious trouble for about two decades, when politicians discovered that they could feather their own nests with windmills, solar, and other deals that paid them handsomely, while many suffered. Money was diverted for green energy that will have a long-term detrimental effect on health. You can’t stay healthy if you have to choose between heat and food, which is rapidly becoming the monthly choice for thousands.
Tax funds that could be used in real healthcare has turned palliative and hospice care into euthanasia centres and hospitals welcome children into the world on one floor while children are aborted on another. The faux science of gender reassignment and hormone therapy is fully taxpayer funded, while real illnesses and conditions are only managed. “Managed” when there are actual cures and treatments that are not funded. OHIP physical therapy is more about keeping a child content in a wheelchair than addressing their problem in the first place.
The average citizen cannot go to other countries for treatment, but the bureaucrats and wealthy politicians can. The unvaccinated cannot even leave Canada, even if they found affordable treatment elsewhere.
It is obvious that the only way forward for Canadians is to demand a private component to healthcare, to provide a real choice and an opportunity to stop paying for a dysfunctional, fascist regime of health.
The vision of Tommy Douglas has failed. We can and must do better. The security of the person and the agency of the individual are bedrock rights that are surrendered to social medicine. In our ongoing effort to take rights and freedoms away from the tyrants who usurped them (almost 100% of those in our legislatures and in Ottawa) we must not ask, but demand control over our health.
This will not come easily or without struggle. Universal health-care is something of an idol. It is supposed to be a human right, but that notion was created by people who have no real understand of the difference between a Right and an Entitlement.
Many thousands are at this moment creating a parallel society, including primary health care, that will not ask permission or funding from the government. Be nice to them, you may find that your condition has been de-listed or you are deemed not worthy of treatment.
Universal health care in Canada is a sacred cow. Thing is, sacred cows make good hamburgers.
Why I Use a Lectionary
I h
ave been asked by several people which lectionary I use for our Sunday Scriptures. Some are less aware of the concept of a Lectionary, especially in more informal churches. When I began following a set of readings each Sunday, I had written an article for The Christian Standard Magazine entitled, “Let’s Read the Bible in Church.” This seems to be stating the obvious, but in many evangelical churches there is no set plan for reading Scripture as a part of worship, even though it is clearly commanded:
“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” (Acts 2:42, ESV)
“Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching.” (1 Timothy 4:13, ESV)
I have heard objections that following a Lectionary is something formal (liturgical) churches do, liberal churches do, or Roman Catholic churches do. All I can answer to these sorts of objections is that, apparently then, formal, liberal, and Catholic churches have more Bible in them than the average evangelical church!
A lectionary is simply a list of Bible readings on a schedule. Some lectionaries included Scripture for each day of the week, others for Sundays only.
I follow the Revised Common Lectionary which is available on Logos Bible Software and is also available here. There are several things to note:
- There are three years of readings, and each year is identified as year “A” “B” or “C”. We are currently in year C.
- Each lectionary year begins with the first Sunday in Advent. So year “A” will begin the new year on November 27th, 2022.
- Each lectionary reading for a week includes an Old Testament Reading, a Psalm, a New Testament reading and a reading from a Gospel. After the Resurrection is celebrated, the Old Testament reading is substituted with another New Testament reading. This continues until Pentecost, eight weeks after Easter.
- The lectionaries are used by Anglican and Roman Catholic denominations, so it includes the Apocrypha. But the Apocrypha is not Scripture and should not be given the same respect, honour, and heed as Scripture, so I never use it. Whenever a book from the Apocrypha is listed, there is always a reading from the Bible suggested too.
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Some lectionary readings omit a few verses to either shorten the reading, or to remove readings that are too controversial or difficult.
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For example, the Old Testament reading for January 26th, 2022 was Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10. Why were verses 4 and 7 omitted? Here they are:
“And Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden platform that they had made for the purpose. And beside him stood Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Maaseiah on his right hand, and Pedaiah, Mishael, Malchijah, Hashum, Hashbaddanah, Zechariah, and Meshullam on his left hand.” (Nehemiah 8:4, ESV)
“Also Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, the Levites, helped the people to understand the Law, while the people remained in their places.” (Nehemiah 8:7, ESV)
These are admittedly difficult to read, but it is the responsibility of the reader to learn their pronunciations, practise them, and read them.
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A second reason some passages are left out is more troubling to me—modern lectionaries tend to avoid “hard sayings” and passages of judgement. On Sunday, March 13th, 2022 the reading is listed as, Genesis 15:1-12 and 17-18, but the complete reading should be Genesis 15:1-21. What is left out?
“Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”” (Genesis 15:13–16, ESV)
“the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.”” (Genesis 15:19–21, ESV)
These are clearly passages that speak of God’s judgement upon the nations, which although is historical fact and God’s right to do so, is troubling in modern times.
It is my policy to always read the full reading so as not to diminish or lessen the impact of God’s Word.
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- I make some adjustments for holidays throughout the year. The most notable one is Thanksgiving, which is celebrated in November in the US and October in Canada. The Revised Common Lectionary follows the US pattern.
- It should be remembered that God’s Word, the Bible, is Scripture: it is inerrant, infallible, authoritative, and sufficient. The reading schedule is human, and can be adjusted without guilt.
One of the greatest advantages of following a lectionary is it forces the preacher to read texts that they might otherwise never read in public. I am also well-aware that for many Christians, these Bible passages will be the only Bible heard or read in their week.