Yay! My memory wasn’t faulty!
The CanaDoper Café (2012 edition of The great, ongoing Canadian current events and politics thread.)
Bonne chance.
It could be worse; you could be in just about any other country in the world.
It’s amazing to me that Canada is suddenly the economic darling of the democratic world. And still it sucks trying to find gainful employment.
R.I.P. Sarah Burke. She died doing what she loved - I guess that’s more than a lot of us can hope for.
Such a sad story. I kept hoping it wouldn’t be as bad as it sounded, but, sadly, it is. Good on her for donating her organs, too - it’s such an important decision to make and I’m glad she made it. Her tragedy will help prevent several others.
What a great role model, what great accomplishments. What a tragic loss at such a young age. Yes, she did great things, but I can’t help but think what more was in store for her and what she had to pass on to the next generation.
I’m curious: The family has a trust fund set up to help pay the medical bills in Salt Lake City.
Why doesn’t a Canadian athlete training in a foreign country have medical insurance?
I travel to the US all the time. My company has always covered me on business trips. However, I have purchased personal medical insurance before going skiing in Vermont, for example.
What’s up with that?
I wondered that, too, Leaffan. We never go to the US without extra medical insurance, but we’re not in a high-risk sport, though.
I don’t know, in her specific case, why she didn’t have some arrangement for coverage in the US.
I’d speculate that the Canadian Olympic Committee doesn’t have the budget to cover that expense. Olympic athletes have to pay for much of their training themselves through sponsorships and day jobs.
I’d also speculate that, despite being in a high risk sport, she suffered from that strange sense of immortality that the under 40 sometimes possess. Certainly, I never used to get medical insurance when I went to the US. Then a friend suffered an aneurysm while working in Santa Fe - he came very close to losing his house when the US hospital finally caught up to him. They had registered him as an insured patient, and the difference between what OHIP was prepared to pay and what the hospital was demanding (and would have demanded from any US insurer) was 5 figures, and due immediately. He scraped a payment together, but now our agency insists that every artist have medical coverage when they go to the states.
At any rate, that’s a damn good question for the Canadian Olympic Committee to sort out - I’m sure there are insurance companies who would give a lower rate or cover the athletes outright for the privilege of calling themselves ‘the exclusive insurers of Team Canada.’
On an unrelated note, harkening back to previous discussions, there is a in-depth look at aboriginals in Canada on CBC - 8th Fire. I’ve watched some of it, and while it is terribly one-sided, there is some good information here.
Monster Energy drink posted on their website that they are committed to helping the family financially. I suspect that lawyers have a hand in the somewhat vague promise. http://www.monsterenergy.com/ca/en/news/sarah-burke-ski-in-peace/
How very terrible. A great talent, and a great loss.
“All Sport Insurance” is one of the very few outfits that offers sport insurance in Canada. Yes, they offer insurance for athletes who are training or competing internationally.
Without making any assumptions about Sarah Burke’s situation, I’d note a couple of data points: when I was on the board of Canoe Ontario dealing with insurance, I never came across any athletes looking for sport accident coverage – only organizations looking for liability coverage; when I was on the National Ski Team (Telemark), none of us had sport accident insurance. Also worth noting is that sport accident insurance only covers sanctioned training and events – it does not cover athletes on their own time.
CTV report that addresses the insurance issue: Donations flood in for Burke's family | CTV News
If you happen by the non-flat part of Ontario (the North Shore of Superior), there’s a nice little road just west of Marathon . . .
If I ever make it up there, I can’t decide if I’d rather go in the summer and paddle or go in the winter and ski or toboggan!
I might just have to find a way to visit the area twice!
It may be a little bit far, but if you come to Vancouver Island in April, you can kayak and ski all in the same day. You could do both from December on, but it does get a little chilly for paddling now and then.
Having driven from Port Alberni to Tofino after dark in precipitation which was rain, ice or snow depending entirely on my elevation at any moment, I can attest to the truth of The Flying Dutchman’s comment. I don’t think I’ve ever been so shaken up from a few hours behind the wheel. It was my fault for buying groceries in Victoria, and then getting lost at Nanaimo.
I can see why some people arrive there and then decide it isn’t worth the trouble to leave.
Same goes for the spring overlap here – snowmelt = wild water paddling. Some years the big lake freezes over, other years the bays freeze over but the main body remains open. This year most of the bays are still open (but not all) – we’re about a month late. Here’s a pic from yesterdayonce it warmed up to about twenty below – it was twenty-eight below early in the morning. It’s nice watching the mist rise from the lake when it is cold. As far as paddling goes, I usually pack up the boats once it gets cold in November orearly December– I’ve paddled year 'round on occasion, but somehow splashing about in near-freezing water when the air is below freezing has never been that appealing to me.
In light of the US government’s reversal on SOPA/PIPA, does anyone think the Canadian government will re-visit their stance on Bill C-11 (Canada’s copyright modernization act)?