Let's get one thing straight. I have no objection to people getting the best treatment they can find, even if it means travelling to the ends of the world. Everyone should be able to invest in their health as they see fit. If I want to spend a fortune on exercise equipment, that is my concern, beyond the range of poking noses. If I want to spend my money on a gold-plated health insurance plan, then no one should stop me.

My objection is to politicians selling us products they don't believe in enough to consume themselves. Bourassa, and to a lesser degree Grossman, upheld a health care system that does not allow Canadians to spend as they see fit on their own health. This is what a one-tier health system means. I get my treatment in one style, off the rack, whether I like it or not. One-tier, universal health systems bully us into being the same. It is typical of bullies to force one standard of behaviour on us, yet to themselves live by another standard. Bourassa and Grossman did not believe in the hospitals they sold us. They went south, over the iron curtain of the health care system they built.

Politicians are not the only government employees who avoid the dishes they serve up for others. In the US, nearly half the public school teachers who are parents send their children to private school. One in ten parents who is not a teacher sends his children to private school. A Chrysler dealer who drove onto his lot in a Rolls Royce would get strange looks from his customers. At Coca-Cola, drinking Pepsi is an offence. How is it that people in government get away with selling products they do not consume?

The problem with some government services such as health care and education is that customers have little contact with the producers. Sometimes it is not even clear who is in charge. This means producers have no need to set an example that they believe in their product.

Our faith in government services would grow if every politician who forces a product on us also forces it on himself. That means that our health ministers and their employees should pledge not to get their illnesses treated in the US. Leaders who preach buying Canadian products should only buy Canadian products. Politicians who uphold our state-run university system should not send their children to study abroad in a private school. My own idealistic view is that we should privatize health care and education, and let everyone choose as he pleases. But while we wait for these miracles to happen, it would be nice to see our leaders swilling at the same trough as everyone else.