Things They Should Invent: use the TTC surplus to give everyone free rides

It seems the TTC has a $60 million surplus.

If they aren't allowed to keep and reinvest the surplus (I've heard that it isn't, but haven't been able to verify from an official source), they should be allowed to use it to give us free rides.

This idea was inspired by a comment on Torontoist by W. K. Lis. In response to the fact that the TTC is giving free rides on New Year's Eve at their own expense because they didn't get a sponsor this year, W. K. Lis said:

The TTC has a $60 million surplus this year. They would have to hand that surplus over to the city and then fight for it back next year. Better to use it up this year by giving it back to those who actually helped get the surplus, the riders. Even though it is only for one night.

That got me thinking: what if they did the same thing for more nights to use up the rest of the surplus?

According to this press release, it cost about $90,000 to provide free TTC between midnight and 4 a.m. on New Year's Eve. There are a few variables we're not seeing here (overtime pay, free fare increasing ridership and increased ridership increasing cost of free fare), but let's use that as a starting point to get the idea across.

If it costs $90,000 to provide 4 hours of free transit, then it costs 6*90,000=$540,000 to provide 24 hours' worth.

60,000,000/540,000 = 111.111111...

Therefore $60 million could buy 111 days (or just under 4 months) of free transit.

They might not want to use all of it, to leave some leeway in case of unforeseen circumstances or something, but maybe they could offer 2 or 3 months of free transit. Just announce "From January 1 to February 28, everyone rides free!" All Metropass subscriptions are suspended for these two months, and then the March Metropass is sent out as usual.

There would be a number of benefits. First and foremost, it would save Torontonians money! The poorest among us wouldn't have to wonder whether they should spend $3 on a bus ride or save money and walk during the coldest months of the year. There would be a bit more motivation for car people to walk rather than drive in bad winter weather, and every car that gets off the road will make life easier for the cars that are still on the road. Customer service might improve because TTC workers no longer have to worry about enforcing fare collection (my theory is that the need to enforce fare collection is at the root of most poor customer service). It would also get more people in the habit of taking transit, and some of them might stay in the habit. It's also possible the TTC could save money simply by not having to deal with fare media for a couple of months (don't have to print passes and transfers and tickets.)

Obviously the ideal is to reinvest the surplus, but if that isn't allowed they could certainly do worse than to give it back to Torontonians in kind.

Temporary workarounds for when your computer enters power save during boot up

Yesterday, my computer froze completely and I had to do a hard reboot. During the reboot, it entered power save (just after the Windows XP screen) and couldn't be woken up. When I did another hard reboot, there were minor flaws with the graphics, which suggests that the problem is related to the video card somehow.

Restarting in Last Known Good configuration didn't help. A System Restore didn't help. Cleaning out the inside and reseating the RAM and video cards (because the internet suggested it) didn't help. I did manage to boot up in Safe Mode (press F8 at the BIOS screen, before the Windows screen shows up) and tried to update my video drivers, and it blue-screened on reboot (the error message was Driver IRQL Not Less Or Equal). So I tried rolling back the video drivers and it blue-screened and crashed before I could even see the error.

So currently the temporary workarounds I know are: boot up in Safe Mode with Networking and you can get on the internet and access some stuff. It will get you through the day and help you google through your troubleshooting. You can also choose Enable VGA on boot-up (through the same F8 method as to get into Safe Mode) and you'll have access to everything, but ridiculously low resolution (640x480) and graphics quality. When you boot up, you get an alert saying that your graphics settings are very low and offering to raise them, but doing so causes it to enter power save again.

I do not have a permanent solution to this problem. Since my googling was finding stuff about motherboards that's way over my head, and since my computer is 6 years old and a desktop, I've just bought a new laptop. So don't hold your breath watching this space for a permanent solution (although if you have one, please post in the comments for anyone who's googling!)

The computer is a 6 year old Dell Dimension 4700 and the video card is an Nvidia GEforce 6800.

Gratitude immunity

Lately there's been an uptick in the number of people writing into advice columns to complain about having given a gift to someone or another but not receiving a thank-you note.

I was thinking about this, and it made me realize that I don't have the emotional need to be thanked. And I don't just mean I don't need a thank-you note. I mean I get no emotional reward whatsoever from being thanked. Whether I'm thanked or not makes no emotional difference. In fact, I often find being thanked embarrassing, and sometimes find myself in an emotional place where I'm hesitant to do things that others would likely appreciate because they might make a fuss out of it. When I get a very noble attempt at a thoughtful thank-you note for a present that was just picked off the registry on the basis of being in the right price range, I feel cringey for everyone involved.

At least part of this is coming from a self-centred place. When I buy a gift for someone, it's either to fulfill an obligation, or because I take pleasure in choosing/finding/giving that particular gift. If it's for obligation purposes only, it's a checkmark on my list and it makes no difference to me emotionally if they like it. If it's because I get pleasure in getting that particular gift, the pleasure is not diminished if they don't like it. I once gave someone a robot as a wedding present (for reasons related to an inside joke), and was greatly amused that I'd given a robot as a wedding present. Did they actually IRL like it? No idea. But who cares? It's a robot! As a wedding present!

Usually when there's any discussion of thank-you notes, someone says "They should be giving presents because they want to give presents, not because they want thank-you notes!" This view is often dismissed as childish, but maybe it's coming from other people who, like me, don't actually have this need to be thanked. I've been reading Miss Manners for a decade now so I'm more aware of the underlying sociological theory, but when I was a kid it really did feel like arbitrary hoops you have to jump through (especially since I'd never once in my life seen an adult write a thank-you note for anything - I'd quite reasonably concluded that it's something the grownups made me do because they were jealous that I got more presents than them.) For someone to say that they only enjoy giving gifts if they get thanked feels, to me, analogous to saying they can only enjoy their restaurant meal if the server says "Enjoy your meal!"

While I don't need to be thanked, I do need a big please. When something is being requested of me, I need mitigation that's proportionate to the size of the request. And I do need people to acknowledge the fact that I've done whatever I've done when it comes up (e.g. If I helped you with something, don't act like I never help you with anything.) But an actual "thank you" gives me nothing.

It would be interesting to see if there are other people like this, and, if so, what the correlating factors are.

Reindeer games, like monopoly

When I was in elementary school, we'd have xmas carol singalongs. Whenever we sang Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, we'd always sing the callbacks that weren't on the lyrics sheet.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (Reindeer!)
Had a very shiny nose (shiny nose!)
And if you ever saw it (saw it!)
You would even say it glows (like a lightbulb!)

And the teachers would always scold us for singing the callbacks and try to get us to sing it without them.

In retrospect, looking at it as an adult, I find myself wondering: Why on earth did they care if we were singing the callbacks? They weren't by any stretch of the imagination naughty, they just weren't on the lyrics sheet. WTF?

Your Federation Station

I was saddened to hear of the passing of CityTV's Mark Dailey at the too-young age of 57. Like everyone, I know him as The Voice from the CityTV announcements. But what is strongest is my memory is is the "Your Federation Station" tagline.

It was the early 90s, I was a shy, awkward, dorky preteen, and a consummate Trekkie. Star Trek was my first fandom (although I didn't know the word yet), and the Enterprise was my happy place. I mentally wrote fanfic (although I didn't know the word yet) starring a curly-haired ensign Mary Sue (although I didn't know the word yet) who maybe sometimes got to kiss Welsey Crusher. It made me very happy.

However, the rest of the world had a problem with it. My classmates mocked me endlessly for being a Trekkie, and whenever I got too excited about something fannish, my parents would give me a lecture on how it isn't real.

On CityTV, Star Trek often aired right after Fashion Television. We'd see the last couple minutes of FT with models walking on the runways and Jeanne Becker talking to us like we know who Karl Langerfeld is. Then we'd get a quick shot of something mildly interesting happening on the streets of Toronto, Mark Dailey would say "You're watching CityTV: Your Federation Station." Then it was Star Trek time.

I found that all mildly validating. The TV station was acknowledging that Star Trek was appointment programming, and people cool enough to work for a TV station knew enough about Star Trek to namedrop the Federation. They segued smoothly from runway fashion to the bridge of the Enterprise via a brief shot of Toronto street life, without making a great big fuss over the fact that they're going from something cooler than I'll ever be to something that gets me mocked. As though it's completely unremarkable to have these two things next to each other. Familiarity with Star Trek juxtaposed with city life and fashion - two things that my bullies aspired to, that I didn't dare even think about aspiring to because I wasn't cool enough. It gave me a glimmer of hope that maybe what I was doing wasn't so bizarre after all.

Now that I've escaped to a bigger and better world where watching Star Trek, wearing fashion, and living in the city are all utterly unremarkable, I can see that it was just marketing. They're the channel with Star Trek, there is an audience for Star Trek, so they market that fact. Most people (including, actually, my bullies) do have enough of a passing familiarity with Star Trek that for a marketing team to come up with "Federation Station" is unsurprising. But even though it was marketing, it was the only validation I was receiving. In a world of mockery and lectures, the positioning of Star Trek as a good thing, as appointment TV, as something with which people on TV were familiar, as of interest to people for whom urban life is relevant, as not incompatible with fashion, all made me think that maybe there's nothing wrong with curling up on the couch to escape to the bridge of the Enterprise for an hour. And maybe, just maybe, the problem was with the people who gave me shit for it. It's a small thing, but small things can be important when you live in a small world and deal with small people.

And so, I mourn the loss of the man whose voice gave my child-self that flicker of reassurance.

More information please: how does Rob Ford's transit plan help the Pan Am Games?

Conventional wisdom is that Rob Ford's transit plan is focusing on Scarborough because of the Pan Am Games. But I just looked at a map and I don't think it makes sense to me.

Here are the things I know:

1. Rob Ford's transit plan (PDF) extends a subway along Sheppard to Scarborough Town Centre. Right beneath the subway map is a caption saying that it will be "in time for the Pan Am Games".

2. The major Pan Am Games facility in Scarborough will be the aquatic centre at U of T Scarborough.

3. Scarborough Town Centre is a 28 minutes bus ride from U of T Scarborough.

So how does this help for the Pan Am Games? I'm not super familiar with that part of Toronto, so it may be something that's obvious to people who spend more time there. What I'm seeing is a second route to a transit hub that's 28 minutes away from the Pan Am Games site, but nothing to help people get to the Pan Am Games site itself. What am I missing?

A clarification of the that/which rule

When I have to explain when to use "that" and when to use "which" to people who don't grok the rule, I've been using the "Use 'which' when you can take the clause out without changing the meaning" guideline.

I just realize that this could be stated more clearly:

Use "which" when you can take the clause out without changing the meaning or scope of the word that comes before "that" or "which".


Example 1: "Dogs _____ have been spayed or neutered are welcome."

If you take the "have been spayed or neutered" out, the sentence would be "Dogs are welcome". Which isn't entirely true. Not all dogs are welcome, just dogs that have been fixed. Therefore, the sentence requires "that". "Dogs that have been spayed or neutered are welcome."

Example 2: "Dogs _____ are a common pet among Canadian households are welcome".

If you take out "are a common pet among Canadian households", you get "Dogs are welcome". Which is true in this case. All dogs are welcome, and, by the way, they're a common pet. Therefore, the sentence requires "which". "Dogs, which are a common pet among Canadian households, are welcome."

Clauses starting with "which" should be offset by commas. Some sources will argue that this is not necessary, but if you want me to be happy with your work you should use the commas. Your mnemonic for this is if the clause is not strictly necessary to the meaning, you can pick it up by the commas and throw it away.

The commas surrounding the "which" clauses also tend to reflect how we would say the clause out loud. So if you find yourself pausing where the commas would go, consider carefully whether "which" is required.

If you can't remember that "which" goes with disposable clauses, your mnemonic is that "which" has a silent H, which could be removed without affecting the pronunciation (just as the clause could be removed without affecting the meaning.

Things I Don't Understand

1. What exactly is an "Alice in Wonderland" attitude towards terrorism?

One of the Wikileaks memos said Canada has an "Alice in Wonderland" attitude towards terrorism. I've read the article several times, and I still don't understand what exactly that expression means. Alice in Wonderland = falling down rabbit holes? Eating magic mushrooms that changes your size? I don't see what they're trying to say here. Can anyone enlighten me?

2. What's Rob Ford's angle in building a subway only in Scarborough?

Rob Ford wants to kill all the Transit City work currently underway and instead build a little bit of subway in Scarborough.

What's his angle on choosing Scarborough?

Two of the current Transit City projects - the Finch West line and the Eglinton Crosstown line - connect Etobicoke to the existing subway lines. Etobicoke is where Ford's old ward and the core of his support is located, and yet he makes a decision that very deliberately takes away any hope of transit improvement from this entire half of the city. He could have proposed Finch for his little subway (linking the top of the U along the way to make a more resilient loop). He could have let them keep building the underground part of the Eglinton Crosstown with a platform of working towards extending the rest of it underground, which would, again, make the system more resilient and make Torontonians feel their government is working towards a subway to the airport (which benefits everyone who ever needs to go to the airport.)

But instead he chose an option that completely ignores his core constituency. What's his angle?

Grinch?

There's a rumour flying around that Rob Ford is going to completely kill Transit City. Like tomorrow. Despite the fact that $137 million has already been spent investing in it. That's right, before we even look at the costs of breaking the contracts with Bombardier and the other companies, not to mention the wasted time and lost productivity to the city as a whole resulting from failure to build the promised lines (for me alone, using the classic time = money calculation, that will add up to more than I pay in municipal taxes a year), he wants to take the equivalent of $54 from the pocket of every man, woman and child in the city and just flush it down the toilet, producing nothing and hurting many Torontonians.

When thinking about money, I find it useful to think of it in terms of what it will buy. So when I started composing this blog post, I started thinking about what $54 would buy in terms that we can all identify with. And sitting here on the cusp of December, with all the lights on people's balconies and carols being played in stores and even my fricking Tim Hortons cup being decorated, what came to mind was xmas gifts. $54 each sounds about right for a present under the tree for everyone (plus one from Santa if you're a kid and you've been good), and a stocking full of candy and tchotchkes. Everyone gets something that's a little bit nice and a little bit useful and makes life a little bit more pleasant.

So picture this: you come downstairs all xmas morning, all anticipation, to see Santa came! There are presents under the tree, there are candy canes poking out the top of the stockings, and there's even a bite out of the cookies you left out for him! Then your dad grabs a green garbage bag, throws all the presents in it, and throws it away.

As you all scream some variation of OMG WTF, he announces "We don't want toys and candy and sweaters, we want a Mercedes!"

Except that not all of you want a Mercedes. And some of you do actually need the warm cozy mittens that were in your xmas presents. And throwing out the presents isn't going to get you any closer to having a Mercedes, because the money has already been spent on it. And the price of a Mercedes would take up that entire new contract Mum just got at work, except that much of it has already been earmarked for various other household expenses. And a Mercedes doesn't even have enough seats for everyone in your large family.

If this rumour about killing Transit City is true, that's exactly what Rob Ford will be doing tomorrow.

Prove us wrong, Mr. Ford.

Either I'm getting old or Kids Today are geniuses

Several times this past week, I've seen small children doing that thing where you only step on certain coloured tiles or otherwise have to follow certain patterns in tiles or sidewalk cracks, which sometimes involve jumping around or walking in a way that may appear erratic.

I know what these kids are trying to do. I did it myself as a kid (and still do it sometimes as an adult). I totally respect their game, and I understand that if they step on the wrong tiles the alligators will get them.

But here's the weird part: every time I've seen this, I've been unable to recognize the pattern they were following! This is relevant because I kept walking across their paths, causing them to step on the wrong tiles and get eaten by alligators, and perhaps get scolded by their parents for fooling around and getting in the nice lady's way.

I don't mean to ruin their game or get them scolded, but for some reason the patterns followed in this game have been impenetrable to me lately. I don't know what this means.

Teach me about sunrise times

Look at this chart of sunrise and sunset times in Toronto in December 2010.

The solstice is December 21, with 8h 55m 34s of daylight. Sunrise is at 7:48 AM and sunset is at 4:43 PM.

But then sunrise time keeps getting later. It's 7:49 on December 23, 7:50 on December 25, and 7:51 on December 29. In fact, it takes until January 17 for sunrise time to get back to being earlier than it was on the solstice.

And I just noticed the same goes for the sunset. It's 4:43 on the solstice, but it's earlier than that on the days leading up to the solstice, going as early as 4:40 between December 7 and 11.

Why is this?

Things They Should Invent: accept paper in the organic waste stream

Before I bought a paper shredder, I'd dispose of important documents by ripping them up by hand and then putting some (but not all) of the pieces in my kitchen garbage. On top of the fact that the document was a) ripped up and b) not all in the same garbage bag, I then had the additional layer of security of it being really gross to retrieve the pieces, because they were in with egg shells and coffee grinds and apples cores and rotten lettuce.

As an added service to the public, the City should let everyone put any important papers that need to be disposed of in with their organic waste. Paper does biodegrade so it shouldn't hurt anything, and it will make pilfering personal documents out of the garbage at least more unpleasant, if not more difficult.

Things They Should Invent: chose the healthiest cans possible for food bank donation packages

Metro has this thing where you give a small amount of money at the cash register to purchase a "food bank package" - a few cans and other nonperishable food items in a little bag, to go in the food bank donation box.

I noticed that all the items in the food bank package are store brand items, which has me wondering how healthy they are.

In the past few years, my body's been reacting negatively when my sodium intake is too high. Unfortunately, I still crave the taste of salt, so I've been looking for ways to cut back the amount of sodium I consume in foods that don't address my salt craving. So I started reading nutritional information on the non-salty processed foods that I do eat, and I noticed that cheaper brands systematically have more sodium. And the store brand is nearly always the cheapest one. For things like soup and tomato sauce, they'd often have 30%-40% of your recommended daily intake in just one serving! (And we know that the servings based on which nutritional information is calculated tend to be smaller than what one person would normally eat in one sitting.)

I haven't examined every single product in the food bank package, and I haven't done compared any nutritional information other than sodium content (although high sodium content is certainly a risk factor for heart disease in and of itself), but this makes me worried that we might be giving the unhealthiest food to food banks, when we could be making our food bank donations significantly less unhealthy by just going a couple of items over on the same shelf.

At this point, someone is likely to argue "But they shouldn't be eating processed foods anyway, they should be eating wholesome fresh foods!" I'll do you one better: we shouldn't need food banks at all - our social safety net should be strong enough that people should buy their own groceries. But the fact remains that there are people who are hungry, and they're hungry right this minute and can't wait until we revamp the whole infrastructure. The existing system for getting food to needy people is food banks, and the nature of existing food banks requires large-scale donations canned and other nonperishable (and therefore processed) foods. And human nature is such that you'll get more donations by asking people to pay a harmless amount for a preselected package of goods than by requiring them to take the initiative and choose items to donate on their own.

What we can do right now, without interrupting the flow of food to needy people, is get someone to read the labels, pick the healthiest items off the supermarket shelf, and put those in the food bank packages. Then people won't have to choose between increasing their risk of heart disease and going to bed hungry.

What I got from my bullies

Before I get into the substance of this post, I want to make one thing clear: my bullies did not make me stronger. There are a number of (rather loud) people who want my narrative to go that way. If I mention my bullying, if I point out that I was constantly told "just ignore them" and that didn't work at all (unless you count the fact that after years of ignoring them I ended up in a different physical location so they were never in the same room as me), the happy ending contingent says "But ultimately it made you a stronger person, right?"

No, it didn't. It seriously fucked me up. It made me (and I still am) skittish, paranoid, and defensive, entirely unable to predict how people would react and what was expected in real-life social situations. I'm about 10 years behind in my people skills and had to work hella hard to catch up that far. I still get cringey and hidey when I hear people whispering and giggling in a cube near mine, even though I know intellectually that it's just my co-workers talking about their weekends. I still look at the floor and avoid eye contact when I see cool teenagers.

But, that said, there have been a few odd positive outcomes:

1. I don't expect people to like or respect me. If someone doesn't want to be my friend or doesn't invite me to the thing, it doesn't hurt my feelings at all. That's to be expected. And if someone does want to be my friend or does invite me to the thing, that's a pleasant surprise. One of the things that really surprised me about cop behaviour at the G20 is that they were so sensitive to the most minor of slights, as though it actually hurt their feelings. That sort of thing would never bother me, because I consider it baseline. When people over whom I have authority (insofar as I have any authority) respect what authority I have, it's always a bit of a pleasant surprise. When stores that are cooler than me give me good customer service (which they always do), it makes my day. If they didn't, it would be an everyday annoyance, on par with missing the subway and having to wait another 4 minutes.

2. My self-concept is unattractive. When paint and spackle and engineering and technology can make me look attractive (which it often can), it always feels like a bit of an added bonus. When I look in the mirror and dislike what I see, that's SOP. I know a few people whose self-concept is attractive, and it's always a massive blow when they gain a few pounds or get hair sprouting where no hair should ever sprout. Such things will never cause me to lose self-esteem, because I'm used to being ugly.

3. I love being alone. All I ever wanted from my bullies was for them to leave me alone. And, in fact, one of the things I was bullied for was being alone at any given time, whether it was on the playground at recess or at home on a Friday night. So now that, as an adult, I can be alone on a daily basis and without social censure, I rejoice in it. It feels like a little victory. Some of the elders in my life find it difficult to leave the house and get depressed about being alone all day. I doubt I would ever get depressed in that sort of situation - on the contrary, I find it peaceful and very nearly liberating.

4. I don't fall for charming. We've all read Gift of Fear or otherwise heard about charming people who turn out to be scam artists or sociopaths. After years of seeing my peers turn up the charm for parents/teachers/cool kids and then turn around and bully me, I don't fall for that. Oh, I use it! I completely take advantage of other people's fake charming as a social lubricant. But I don't fall for it. I don't trust it, so it can't trick me.

Things They Should Study: what would it cost to make critical workers unbribable?

Apparently border guards might soon be authorized to strip search airport and port employees because they think these employees might be involved in smuggling illegal drugs.

This makes me wonder about the economics of the situation from the employees' point of view. How much money do they make? How much bribe money or whatever would they get for helping to smuggle drugs? How much bribe money can drug cartels afford to pay them? How much of a pay increase would it take to make this bribe money negligible to them? What if they offered the workers financial incentive greater than the bribe amounts for fingering known drug smuggling operations?

Has anyone done the numbers on this yet? If not, someone should.

More information please: why does the law care how many cars are in a driveway in the first place?

Recently in the news, someone got a ticket for parking in her own driveway. Apparently there's a by-law that if you have a single garage, you're only allowed to park one car in your driveway.

What I really want to know, but isn't mentioned anywhere in this article: how did such a thing come to be law in the first place?

The only hint in the article:

The restrictions are meant to reduce clutter in residential neighbourhoods, but city officials have said bylaw officers won’t actively seek out offenders.

So it sounds like someone thinks it's a problem when there are numerous cars in people's driveways. And because it's a law, it sounds like either enough people complained loudly enough about similar things or powerful enough people exerted enough influence to make this become a law. In any case, a critical mass of people seem to be looking at their neighbour's driveway and being bothered enough by the sight of multiple cars to take action.

I literally cannot imagine any circumstances under which I might care how many cars are parked in my neighbour's driveway. I cannot fathom any way that it might possibly affect me badly enough to want to get changes made to laws.

So how on earth did this all come about in the first place?

Things they Should Invent: opt-in window washing

Washing windows is hard, and if you're not good at it (like me), it isn't particularly effective because you leave streaks everywhere.

Every building I've lived in has hired professional window-washers to do the non-accessible windows, but has left the tenants to their own devices for windows on balconies (presumably because window-washing is expensive). But I've always had balconies (#FirstWorldProblems), so I've always been stuck making my windows streaky.

what landlords should do is give tenants the option to pay some money and have their balcony windows washed when the professional window washers are there. Then people who want their windows washed professionally can get it done, and people who'd rather do it themselves don't have to pay the money.

Spooky dream

Last night I dreamed that I was going to meet my mother and grandmother somewhere, but first had to pick something up at her house. As I looked through her kitchen for the macguffin, I accidentally hit something on her gas stove (IRL it's an ordinary, old-fashioned gas stove, but in the dream it was a multi-layered, wall-sized, pipe-organ-like affair). It started spurting flames and I couldn't figure out how to turn it off. Everything button I pressed and knob I turned just caused more flame to come out.

Then I noticed my grandfather standing behind me. He walked up to the stove and turned it off for me.

My grandfather has been dead for 10 years.

That was the first time in my life I have ever, to my knowledge, had a dead person turn up in a dream. I don't know what it means.

Why do we talk about health care spending as a percentage of the overall budget?

You often hear health care costs spoken of as a percentage of the provincial budget. The Globe & Mail has been doing a series on this recently, and a number of people have expressed concern that health care represents too high a percentage of the budget.

I have a simple solution to that problem: provide free university tuition for everyone, double all social assistance rates, reimburse housing costs for all households earning under the poverty line, and increase taxes accordingly.

That doesn't address health care at all, does it? The end result would be exactly the same health care we have now at exactly the same cost. But health care would be a smaller percentage of the budget, because the budget as a whole would be bigger.

Looking at health care as a percentage of the budget doesn't address the number of dollars being spent, whether people are getting care we need, whether the aspects of health care not covered by OHIP are affordable, or whether we're getting good value for our money. It is dependent on a wide range of factors that are completely unrelated to health care.

So why do people keep talking about it this way?