Rick Mercer told me to go batshit crazy over this

But even though Rick is a national treasure who should be subsidized and definitely is not one of the elite, I believe that I will think for myself and take a pass on going batshit crazy over this soon to be over-hyped story.

I was going to write up a long post going into why this is not as big of a deal as some are trying to spin it but it is late so I will just bring up a couple of the more critical points.

First off this mans file (the access to information filing produced 14,000 pages of docs!) was never made public until he decided to show it to the CP. Parts of it were accessed by various bureaucrats at various times over the years, but as everyone now screaming about this did when they were screaming about the census, our bureaucrats are professionals who are sworn to uphold our privacy making this is a non issue. I highlighted the access to parts of his file earlier for good reason; I doubt that any 'VA 'crat with a computer could access Ministerial briefing notes on a whim and it is those notes, with the quote from his shrink, just a quote not the entire medical file, that seems to be the biggest issue here

Next up the Ministerial notes.

Would some one like to explain to me why a Minister of the Crown should not be allowed to see EVERYTHING that their department has regarding its payments/legal battles/history/contacts etc etc of the people the dept are dealing with?

Seriously, a Minister who didn't read his briefing notes, which btw were prepared for him by others, would not be doing their job as best as they could.



So you still think that a Minister of the Crown should not be able to see everything his dept has do you? Please read the following if you do.

Lets go back just a few months ago where once again the screamers who now feign outrage over this were talking about something else, the Afghan detainee docs.

To put that into context for you:

If opposition MPs are allowed to see secret military documents in a time of war, because Parliament is supreme yada yada, than surely a Minister of the Crown must be allowed to see all of the documents/info from within his own department.


Parliament is supreme said Iggy, Jack and Gilles, and if secret military docs are not considered taboo you can bet your last dollar that neither would medical, financial, or any other document that you can possibly think of be of limits.

Unless this fellows info was leaked to the public (which BTW our media seems to never have a problem doing itself 'confidential' or not) there was no privacy breach, there was no scandal and there certainly isn't justification to tell people to go batshit crazy over it.




It is going to be fun watching people twist themselves up over this today.

Quick update: People are already going nuts.

The so called medical information consists of a letter from a psychiatrist TO Veterans Affairs ( yes it was to veterans affairs and not from a confidential report) as well as references to Mr. B's chronic fatigue syndrome, tension headaches as well as other medical complaints, and the number of doctors appointments he has had. I take it that few of these people complaining have ever dealt with government (think WCB) before. If veterans affairs are paying for his treatment of course they will have this info with my guess much of it being supplied by Mr. B himself as he filed claims over the years.

Here is a shocker: if you go to a doctor in Canada your provincial health care insurance keeps a record of that visit! Imagine what your insurance company knows about your dental treatments! Quick call your lawyer!

A couple of quick points on so called patient confidentiality. It is in no way absolute.

See what happens if you get diagnosed with one of these. In fact with TB they can and do still lock you up in some provinces.

If someone threatens harm to themselves or others, or even confess to their shrink that they committed a violent crime, confidentiality is out the window as Doctors are well within their rights to report such things and perhaps are even obligated to do so. Don't believe me, ask Carolyn Bennett or Keith Martin about the "duty to warn".