An unhealthy situation

This week, we look at media comment on the federal election campaign in Canada as well as at the need for tax cuts to encourage consumer spending in Britain. Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic need to be more responsive to the concerns of ordinary people, according to The Globe and Mail in Toronto and The Daily Telegraph in London.

Heads in the sand

Canadians will be going to the polls on 2 May. Health care is a big issue for voters, but you wouldn’t know it from listening to the leaders of the four major political parties, writes The Globe and Mail.

… The parties could be talking about how to promote innovation — but then they would have to mention the p-word (for private, stand-alone clinics, publicly paid for). They could be talking about efficiency and the use of electronic records, of home care, of reforms to primary care. … Canada needs to do its best in so many ways even to have a merely poor prognosis for its health-care system. Talking about it would be a start.

More for consumers

Unless more is done to increase consumer demand, Britain’s economic recovery will be slow, according to The Daily Telegraph.

… Coalition ministers, when they address economic issues at all, talk almost exclusively in the language of cuts, retrenchment and austerity. … If confidence is to return to the high street, it would help if they played some more upbeat tunes. … That means cutting not just spending, but taxes too.