Looks Like Dr. Kellie Leitch of Simcoe-Grey Made Her Choice a Long Time Ago

It appears that hundreds of health professionals are now putting Harpercon MP for Simcoe-Grey, Kellie Leitch on the hot seat in an open letter, basically reminding her of that pesky little hippocratic oath she took when she decided to practise medicine in her previous life, and denounce her own government’s stance on asbestos.

An open letter signed by some 250 medical doctors and public-health professionals was sent Thursday to Dr. Kellie Leitch, a prominent pediatric orthopedic surgeon elected last spring as a Tory.

The letter writers say Leitch has a duty to influence her Conservative colleagues to pull the plug on a sector they say will spread deadly disease in poorer countries.

They’re correct in doing this, but isn’t it a bit late? I mean, shouldn’t they have nabbed her when she was running for the ReformaTory nom in Simcoe-Grey? After all, the Harpercons were staunchly supporting asbestos before the last election; they did vote to keep asbestos off the Rotterdam convention before then, too.  Surely, this did not escape Dr. Kellie Leitch, did it?

Nevertheless, I guess better late than never, as they say.  Anyhoo, here’s what they had to say:

“We understand that doing the right thing may run counter to your political interests,” reads the letter from Canadian and international signatories as well as more than 20 organizations.

“However, your ethical code of conduct as a medical doctor requires that you put the protection of health ahead of personal advantage, no matter what the circumstance.”

The newly elected MP for the central Ontario riding of Simcoe-Grey was a star candidate for the Conservatives in the last federal election.

It’s straight forward, to the point and we’ll see how much ice water is running through minnie mouse sounding doctor she-Harpercon’s veins. 

I wonder if she or her mouth piece will try to pull an old, well, this isn’t so black and white kinda bull-shit?  Well, I’m no doctor, but I’m pretty sure the hippocratic oath wasn’t written in shades of grey.

It appears that the good doctor/MP for Simcoe-Grey’s mouthpieces’ office has said she’s not available for comment and of course, passed the buck on to the office of the minister of natural resources– the minister of being, from Toronto.  Quelle Surprise! Oh Kellie! This ain’t a good start for you, now is it?

Here’s Dr. Gilles Paradis, a professor of medicine at McGill University and the science editor for the Canadian Journal of Public Health and one of the signatories of the letter to Kellie Leitch.

“As a physician, we’re sure that she knows the incontrovertible evidence about the harm that chrysotile asbestos produces,” Paradis said.

“We just want to remind her that she has a professional duty to live by the principles of the Hippocratic oath that as physicians we all are supposed to adhere to.”

The very fact that her office has passed the buck to Eglinton-Lawrence’s Joe Oliver’s people is pretty much the answer, here, but are we surprised? 

The Huffington Post’s article title basically suggests that Kellie Leitch would have to choose between her political ambitions or the medical ethics she swore to uphold when she became a doctor.   The fact that she chose to run for the ReformaTory nom in Simcoe-Grey, knowing full well (she had to have, unless she’d been hiding under a rock), that Stevie Spiteful had voted in the past to keep asbestos off the Rotterdam Convention before,  the fact that caring for the health and welfare for all Canadians, regardless of socio-economic status is not compattible to Harpercon values, and the reaction from her office to the letter from medical professionals to stand up to her party’s stance on asbestos;  I would say that her choice was made a long time ago and it was and still is, chrystal clear to me, as it should be to others. It’s her allegiance to all things Harper, naturally. Were we expecting anything else?

However, let’s be fair, there is another doctor who is also an active politician who may well be complicit in the asbestos business as well. Dr. Yves Bolduc, a physician,  is our health minister under Johnny Boy Charest.  Remember, there is still the pesky matter of that 58M$ loan guarantee for the Jeffrey mine in oh little town of Asbestos. Right now, as you all know, the Quebec government has agreed to another extension until Balcorp manages to scrape up the necessary 25M$ in scratch to purchase the mine along with other suckers investors.  Should the Charest government continue this ridiculous enabling of the asbestos industry, Dr. Yves Bolduc is just as complicit as Dr. Kellie Leitch is, thus deserving of the same hard questions she is being asked.

In the meantime, don’t give up on either Dr. Leitch or Dr. Bolduc; they both deserve a public bitch slapping.  As doctors, their behavior and/or complicity in their own governments is far worse and as doctors, they must be held to a much higher standard.