When will it arrive? How bad will it be? How widespread will it become? How will/can the provinces respond? And is there much risk for those on the front lines?

With the election of Shawn Atleo this summer as the new national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, is it too much to expect renewed energy to be poured into aboriginal health issues?

Governments, of course, have sweeping powers they can call upon when crises arise that make the future look uncertain: wars of conquest that threaten the home nation, high-mortality pandemics, civil unrest that could destabilize elected governments and economic collapse that risks unraveling a nation.

If this were TV, a leader possessing the wisdom of Solomon would come up with a solution to the intractable problem of the fairness of amendments to Ontario’s Regulated Health Professions Act that both sides of the debate could accept.

We’d like to take this opportunity to heartily endorse an initiative by the Alberta Medical Association to determine the business costs of its members. We hope to encourage them to participate in the online study. It’s really too bad doctors in other areas of the country can’t participate, as well.