Media Exposure Notice!

Jorge Barrera at the Times Transcript ran an excellent piece today, some of which is quoted below.

A major Liberal health-care announcement made yesterday met with a lukewarm reception from health-care professionals and triggered calls for Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe Liberal candidate Brian Murphy to state his position on private health care.

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In the Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe riding, NDP candidate Dave Hackett used the health-care issue to take aim at what he believes to be Murphy's Achilles heel: the privatization of public services.

While Moncton's mayor, Murphy supported a sole-sourced contract with firm US Filter to privatize part of the city's water system.

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Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe NDP candidate Dave Hackett said his party is clear no public dollars should fund private health care and demanded Liberal candidate Murphy come clean about his views on the issue.

"We are concerned with Mr. Murphy's track-record of using privatization for things in the public realm. He has favoured the privatization of the water system, is he going to commit the same mistakes with health care?" said Hackett.

The riding's Conservative candidate Charles Doucet said he believes Murphy shares his view public dollars should fund the private delivery of health services if it makes the system more efficient.

"I am definitely in agreement with Murphy's history of espousing public-private partnerships with municipalities," said Doucet. "If (Murphy's) history and his background is any indication, I suspect he would be more in line with the Conservative party on this issue."

Murphy did not return phone calls made late yesterday afternoon.

Of course, Mr. Doucet is wrong in his belief that the private sector improves healthcare efficiency. There is no evidence to support this and in fact most pundits claim the opposite is true.

What he may be right on is Mr. Murphy (and by extention his party) being more and more in line with the Conservative way of thinking every day.