Reasons Ralph _MUST_ Go

I must be getting cranky in my old age or something. It seems that there is less and less in the current crop of politicians that makes me want to keep any of them in power.

This morning, I listened to the news only to hear with absolute horror the comments of Premier Klein about the AISH program.

Says Ralph:

"And they were yipping about AISH payments," Klein said, adding the women were receiving the assistance. "They didn't look severely handicapped to me. I'll tell you that for sure. Both had cigarettes dangling from their mouths, and cowboy hats."

So, infers Ralph:

"We will look at potential and absolute abuse of the system and cut those people off," Klein said.

Now, don't get me wrong, fraud is fraud - wrong no matter how you look at it. If there is in fact fraudulent abuse of the AISH program, let's clamp down on it.

Having said that, Ralph doesn't know what reason these two women were on AISH - the reasons could be invisible injuries, or psychiatric issues that render them unable to work. (I really don't know, nor is that relevant). Unless Ralph's been going to Medical School in his spare time, I don't imagine he's qualified to determine if these women were handicapped or not.

What really bothers me about this is the change in Ralph Klein that these statements reflect. Long gone is the "Bumbling Ralph" that used to be Calgary's mayor - a man whose missteps could often be laughed off. What has replaced him is "Dark Ralph" who has become a nasty piece of work.

Why do I say nasty? Consider the leap of logic he's made - because these two women were apparently "able-bodied", they must be able to work. Therefore, in Ralph's world, they shouldn't be on AISH. Remember, this is the same brain surgeon that has restructured health care so that physical therapy is purely user pay, yet needed vitally for many injuries after medical intervention. For that matter, under his watch, classes for special needs students were merged with regular classrooms and then the assistants that help the special needs students were cut out.

Does anybody else see a pattern? Here's a man, under whose governance, anyone who is not "able bodied, healthy and self sustaining" has no place in his idea of society. What's next? We start deciding whether a patient should be treated based on their anticipated future economic contribution to society? (I certainly hope not!)