Canada’s Rowdy Parliament Could Keep Talent Away, Warns Legislator
By Matthew Little
Epoch Times Staff

PARLIAMENT HILL, Ottawa—“Parliament is sick.”

That is the diagnosis of Dr. Keith Martin, Liberal MP for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca who sat for the Reform and Canadian Alliance parties before crossing the floor to join the Liberals.

He’s not the first to come down hard on the behaviour of MPs representing Canadians in the House of Commons—and he likely won’t be the last if nothing changes. As it is now, Parliament’s most popular hour, question period (QP), looks like a schoolyard shouting match where there is as much insultest debate.

It’s a level of decorum far below that of any comparable Legislature and an embarrassment to all Canadians, Martin says.

“It desperately needs to be changed because if it doesn’t, serious problems in our country will not be dealt with,” Martin told the Epoch Times on Tuesday. (more…)

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by Jane Taber

Stephen Harper signed on to the G8 leaders’ document in Italy last year calling for improvements to maternal health that specifically included contraception and reproductive health services.

And although he has chosen maternal health as his signature initiative for the upcoming G8 summit in Muskoka, he is not including contraception reproductive health issues.

Two of his senior ministers have said that contraception isn’t part of the initiative as the policy is aimed at saving lives. International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda said today the government is not “re-opening the abortion debate.”

Keith Martin, Liberal MP and MD, is angry.

“Harper signed on to an agreement of all the G8 leaders to invest in family planning so he has backtracked on that …,” says Mr. Martin. (more…)

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Helping women abroad doesn’t include support for family planning
Toronto Star
Susan Delacourt – Ottawa Bureau

OTTAWA – Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government appears to have decided that birth control is not part of its plan to help improve the lives of women and children in developing countries.
Opposition critics are accusing Harper of caving to his social-conservative political base at home, at the expense of foreign aid that makes a real difference in the well-being of women and their families. (more…)

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Let’s end unhealthy finger-pointing
The Province
March 15, 2010

One of the problems with the debate about our financially troubled health-care system is that we spend too much time comparing it with the U.S. system . . . and not enough with those that work better than either.

As Dr. Keith Martin, the Liberal MP for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, makes clear, neither Canadian nor American health care is the best in the world. Far from it.

Martin says that, relative to its population, the U.S. spends more on health care than any other nation, or $7,439 per person. Canada ranks fifth, with per-capita spending of $3,895.

Yet, he points out that, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Canada and the U.S. rank 22nd and 28th respectively in infant-mortality rates, and 8th and 24th respectively in overall life-expectancy. (more…)

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VICTORIA – Dr. Keith Martin, MP for Esquimalt – Juan de Fuca commented today on the announcement of a new national park reserve on the East Coast. The governments of Canada and Newfoundland and Labrador have announced the establishment of a new National Park Reserve. The new reserve will protect more than 10,000 square kilometres in Labrador.

“If Newfoundland and Labrador can get this done, then certainly the Province of British Columbia should also be able to protect our west coast,” said Dr. Keith Martin. “Time is of the essence. If we are going to protect these lands we must act now before they are sold to the highest bidder.” (more…)

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G8 Summit Needs International Action Plan To Reduce Childhood, Maternal Mortality

In a National Post opinion piece, Canadian Member of Parliament Keith Martin, “who chaired the drafting committee at the 2009 G8 International Parliamentarians’ Conference in Rome, which put together a plan of action to reduce maternal and infant mortality,” welcomes the recent announcement by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper that maternal and child mortality will be a focus of the G8 summit this summer. Martin asserts that “the summit cannot be just another milquetoast, feel-good document. The leaders must announce a comprehensive International Action Plan to reduce childhood and maternal mortality.”

Martin outlines the plan to reduce maternal mortality that he and other parliamentarians crafted last summer, that included, as he writes, calls “for strategic investments in access to primary care: basic surgical facilities, medications, a full array of family planning options, diagnostics, adequate nutrition, clean water, power, and most importantly, trained health-care workers.” Martin suggests, G8 leaders “can use this as a template to mobilize the world’s most powerful nations when they meet in Ontario this summer to end this global tragedy” (2/4).

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As Printed in the National Post February 4, 2010

Every minute of every day, a woman dies giving birth. The toll is staggering: 530,000 pregnant women a year perish, 95% of them in developing countries. Remarkably, 80% of these maternal deaths are from five entirely preventable or treatable causes: sepsis, hemorrhage, eclampsia, obstructed labour, or as a consequence of a septic abortion.

For every death, dozens of women sustain life-altering and irreversible injuries. Many develop obstetric fistulae that leave them incontinent of urine and feces, and pariahs within their own developing-world communities. (more…)

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The world needs a central command-and-control centre to respond to disasters quickly and orderly.

Five days after the massive earthquake hit Haiti, little aid was reaching the beleaguered people on the ground. Access to crucial medical care, food, and water was scant. Extractive efforts beyond what the people were doing with shovels and their bare hands were largely non-existent. Haitians, starving, dangerously dehydrated, and exposed to a withering sun, were dying by the thousands. This, despite the fact that large quantities of donated emergency supplies were sitting on the tarmac of the country’s main airport in Port-au-Prince.

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