Today we’re featuring the new album Thieves Of Joy by The Soviet Influence, to be released on the first of May, otherwise know as May Day or Labour Day in other parts of the world.
What: Kitchener-Waterloo Rally When: 3:00pm – 6:00pm on Sunday, 1 May 2022 iCal Where: Waterloo Region Courthouse Location: 85 Frederick Street, Kitchener, Ontario Map Website: https://ofl.ca/event/may-1-kitchener-waterloo/
It’s time for a $20 minimum wage, decent work, affordable housing, paid sick days, well-funded public services, livable income support for all, climate justice, and an end to racism and oppression. Join us!
Other Resources
Jorts The Cat
Jorts The Cat
Jorts The Cat gets a mention at 17m00s in the podcast.
Local Music is Sexy – Austin Kleon Today we have nothing but KWCon music — music by musicians from Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge, Wilmot, Wellesley, Woolwich, and North Dumfries. All recent releases, too!
If you’re a Waterloo Region musician and want to get your music on the radio check out How To Submit Music and we’ll add it to our library!
Sometimes I wonder why do I worry about those things that you do
And then I see you late on a Saturday and I know that you’re right
If I had a job you could come and live with me and I would see you every night
If I was working you might come and live with me and I would see you every night
“What’s it all about?” they scream and then they shout
Don’t ask me, ’cause I don’t know
“What’s it all about?” they scream and then they shout
Don’t blame me, I told you so
Barbara Schumacher and Jim Stewart of the Waterloo Region Health Coalition join Bob Jonkman on a web conference to talk about the Ontario government’s creeping advances to privatized health care, the diminishing level of health care in Ontario compared to other provinces, ideas to improve public health care, the effects of having private hospitals, and an announcement of the upcoming Waterloo Region Health care Privatization Summit.
We had some technical difficulties during the live broadcast, but the podcast cleaned up nicely, although the web conference created some dropout in the audio at some points.
Introductions: Barbara Schumacher is a retired physician and the former Medical Director of the University of Waterloo Health Service; Jim Stewart is the chair of the Waterloo Region Health Coalition. WRHC is a chapter of the Ontario Health Coalition, a non-partisan public watchdog for health care. Provincial legislation is introducing privatization of health care by stealth; result of insufficient funding for the health care system. Canadian Doctors for Medicare has done studies of the administration of private health care: Canadian public health has half the administrative cost of private health care.
13m37s
Ontario is dead last among the provinces in funding public health care: fewest hospital beds, fewest nurses, and funding hospitals at the lowest rate of any province. We need to look for ways to invest in public health, not take funds out and drive them into profit-driven “Independent Health Facilities”. Federal health care transfer payments have dropped from 50% to 20%. There is a massive reduction in provincial health care spending. Federal government transfer payments are intended to administer a provincial health care system, not deliver health care. In 2019 the Ontario People’s Health Care Act created a super agency with powers to restructure the public health care system, now there is a patchwork across the province, different in Waterloo Region from Windsor, Toronto, Ottawa, Kingston, Sudbury.
17m14s
How to make things better? Focus on public health care, we paid for this over decades, why throw it out? Comparing England, where NHS privatized, but the private company went bankrupt and left. How sustainable are private companies for delivering health care. But Scotland’s NHS rejected privatization and focused on public infrastructure and create a strategy for sustainability for the NHS in Scotland. As a result, Scotland is a world leader in reducing wait times, reduction of hospital acquired infections, and reducing re-admission rates. They used four strategies: 1) Redesign and transform capacity on population-based requirements; 2) Information (linked electronic health records); 3) Planning strategy, including continuous quality improvement; 4) Peformance Management Strategy, holding regional health units accountable when they don’t reach targets. Canadian Doctors for Medicare has a lot of studies on how our Canadian health care system can be reformed. Private health care is not the only alternative. Private clinics primarily focus on profit, that’s what they’re designed to do.
25m00s
On 1 February 2022 the Ontario Health Minister, Christine Elliot, gave a press conference where she said “Let independent health facilities create private hospitals.” This is an alarming announcement, it speaks to the complete coring out of our public hospitals, having them recall diagnostic and surgical services, to be reconstituted in private clinics. In private hospitals the simple procedures and uncomplicated patients get drawn in the private system, then the public hospitals are left with the more expensive cases requiring more intense professional care, so public hospitals have expenses that far exceed those of private hospitals. Private hospitals also pull professional expertise out of the public system, but since there will be no additional doctors it leaves public hospitals with fewer resources. Private hospitals only benefit people who can afford it; poor people will go to underfunded, understaffed public hospitals. Public hospitals have a flat-fee system to compensate doctors; all neurologists or all obstetricians are paid the same. In a private system there can be a differential fee scale according to expertise. The public system doesn’t reinforce holding on to quality, we see physicians with specialized skills move to the US, draining the public care system. But some Canadian physicians find the private system in the US burdensome (health insurance costs, tracking down overdue payments, take orders from health insurance corporations) so their ability to deliver high-quality health care is diminished significantly, and they return to Canada.
30m33s
WRHC is trying to warn the Region of Waterloo what is happening with privatization. They are holding an emergency summit on Tuesday, 5 April 2022, at 7:00pm register with Zoom. Speakers include Natalie Mehra, Executive Director of the Ontario Health Coalition. Find out what’s happening so people can make a decision a the voting booth in June.
31m48s
Discussing the politics of health care. WRHC is non-partisan, but there’s no need to have a political affiliation, almost all parties support the public health care system. It’s not a political position, it’s a social position. Discussing the scope of health care delivery: Eye care, hearing care, dental care, pharmacare, and mental health care. “Health care above the neck.” Pharmacare on a large scale gets better competitive pricing, but the strong Pharma lobby is holding us back.
36m16s
Jim Stewart gives the WRHC contact info and Bob gives the credits as Extended Heatwarning plays out to the end of the podcast.
Hey y’all! Here’s our 3rd episode recorded March 6th. Songs for the end of the world! Sorry for the delay with the upload.
By mistake, we forgot to record our 4th show, which was songs for dancing by yourself (I know, I’m just as disappointed as you are), but we’re working on getting our setlist’s/playlists live so if you missed the show you’ll at least be able to see what was played. We got a good show lined up for next Sunday (1-2PM) so be sure to check that one out, but in the meantime here’s songs for the end of the world. Wam on!
Article in The Record about the Mill Street development where the “worst case scenario” we warned about basically is what happened, with over 100 units lost without preventing displacement of the original homes.
Thanks for checking us out! Here’s our second episode of our show. This was our first episode recorded live at the station! Only a couple technical errors! Wam on!
Thanks for checking us out! Here is our first episode of the show. We’re just beginning to set up our web page so if there are errors, we will try and fix it! Wam on!
James Blacktop on CKMS Community Connections, 18 February 2022Marc ReillyAdom Postma
The Boys & I are back in the studio! Well, on a web conference, because the CKMS studio is still closed to guests until the pandemic subsides. James Blacktop, Marc Reilly and Adom Postma tell us about their experience with the pandemic, their studio session, working with a producer, being a road band, and give us a brief rundown of upcoming gigs. Nathan Bonassin couldn’t be with us today, there’s that day job getting in the way again.
We play some music from their past appearances on CCC (19 August 2019 and 31 August 2020), James plays a love song for his fiancée Stepaniee (they’re getting married this summer — Congratulations!), and we play the brand new single White Hot which was released today.
When: Friday, 11 March 2022 Location: 4057 New St, Burlington, Ontario Website: https://www.slyefox.com/
EP Release Party
When: Saturday, 19 March 2022 Where: Descendants Beer and Beverage Company Location: 319 Victoria Street North, Kitchener, Ontario Website: https://www.descendantsbeer.com/
The Boys & I were in Chalet Studio in Uxbridge from September to November to record an EP, Ignite with 5 tracks. Worked with staff who recorded That Ain’t Me Any More, but learning all about distribution and marketing. On the web conference with James Blacktop (vocals), Marc Reilly (guitarist), Adom Postma (bass). Everyone is excited to be playing live in front of an audience again. The EP includes another track, Book Of Counted Sorrows, written during the pandemic. Marc created the riff, James wrote the lyrics.
Marc says the music in a minor key with an interesting riff sounded sad, fitting with the pandemic. Started as a remote collaboration, passing music and lyrics back and forth before working together. The full EP, remaining four songs will come out together on 18 March 2022, Book Of Counted Sorrows will be the second single off the EP but released on the same day. Introducing Nathan Bonassin (drummer) can’t make it due to work. James working on another song, Old Fashioned Kind Of Love, a summertime love song. We’ve been playing Lay Down Easy at the station.
Why release a song in Winter? We all need a bit of White Hot in the winter. But it builds up an audience for summer concerts. There’s a concert from 8pm to 10pm tonight (Friday, 18 February 2022) at Descendants brewery; James lists other upcoming events. How far do The Boys & I travel? Welland, Oshawa, usually within about an hour and a half. They’ve been approached to join the “Extreme Tour”, with shows throughout the United States. But 2020 and 2021 happened. Maybe this summer. Is streaming worthwhile? Not as a revenue stream. But it helps get gigs. James promised Stephaniee to play a song live on the air, the song they will dance to at their upcoming wedding.
32m25s
Here I Stand Live, On-air
Stephaniee and James Blacktop
36m24s
Discussing James and Stephaniee’s wedding. Looking forward to the honeymoon in Europe. Adom and Marc leave the lovesong writing to James. This studio session was a totally different experience than the one in 2020. The band had a producer that nitpicked technique to get the best out of the band. That has affected the live performance, but they sneak in some of the old-style riffs, the “OG Version”. But no background vocalists! White Hot came out today, eagerly looking forward to streaming hits. James quit smoking and has improved his vocal range, looking to increase his repertoire to take advantage. James tells us the inspiration for White Hot — James didn’t think it was very good, but Adom recognized it as a banger right away. Bob heard White Hot as the theme on Wide World Of Motorsports, but without James’ singing!
Today we’re featuring the new album Thieves Of Joy by The Soviet Influence, to be released on the first of May, otherwise know as May Day or Labour Day in other parts of the world.
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See all CKMS Community Connections shows!
