Toronto Sun reveals problems at eHealth (but misses the point)

The Toronto Sun, in their never-ending hatred of all things Liberal, have run an interesting piece on the government's eHealth initiative, complete with a mocking front page cartoon.

While the emphasis, naturally, is on the negative, the story actually reports some significant progress in this area. The focus of the story, however, is on long delays in one apect of eHealth, the Diabetes Registry.

They record a comical back and forth over who should explain the delays between eHealth and the corporation they contacted the work out to. Not surprisingly, each points their finger at the other, and neither reveal anything about the cause of the delays.

eHealth told the Sun they can't release information unless the corporation agrees. The corporation says it is eHealth's project and there is not much the corporation can say about it.

It is perhaps also not surprising that the Sun does not point out that this is a continuation of the problems with contracting out by eHealth that the Auditor General revealed (which in turn is part of a long series of problems the government has had with privatization and contracting out).

In fact, the lack of accountability (and the passing of the buck) that the Sun details is a classic problem of contracting out.

Transparency is not a strength that comes with privatization.

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