Progressives often cite Canada as a glorious utopia of good health and freedom.
Those of us who get our news from more reliable sources know that the opposite is the case.
But, personally, I did not have the return of the scourge of 15th-century sailors on my 2024 bingo card either.
Research by a young Canadian doctor working in Hamilton suggests that scurvy, a disease we mostly associate with life on sailing ships centuries ago, may be more prevalent in modern Canada than we might have thought.Scurvy is a caused by vitamin C deficiency, usually due to a poor diet that doesn’t include enough fruits and vegetables. Symptoms include bruising, weakness, anemia, difficulty in wound healing, gum decay and loose teeth. Untreated it can lead to hemorrhage and death.It also takes very little vitamin C to prevent scurvy. A single orange has five times the daily dose of vitamin C necessary to prevent scurvy.
A Canadian public health expert thinks the problem may be larger-in-scope than initially realized.
“Vitamin C comes from lots of different food sources, but if you don’t get those food sources, the body can’t do what it needs to do,” said Dr. Jeff Irvine, a physician researcher with Northern Medical Services in La Ronge, Sask.Irvine was asked to help investigate the prevalence of scurvy in his northern community of La Ronge after his colleague confirmed a single case of the disease.Irvine looked back at the last 51 vitamin C blood tests performed on patients in La Ronge over the last 14 years. Fifty of the tests took place between mid-2023 and spring 2024, with 27 of those results showing low levels of vitamin C. Those blood results paired with physical exam results indicated the 27 patients were positive for scurvy, Irvine said.The patients’ ages ranged from 20 to 80 years old. Nearly eight in 10 were Indigenous.“We have reason to believe that the scope of the problem might be larger than we think at this point,” said Dr. Nnamdi Ndubuka, a medical health officer with the Northern Inter-Tribal Health Authority.
Meanwhile, based on recent polls and political developments, Justin Trudeau’s chances for reelection in 2025 appear to be slim. The Canadian Prime Minister is facing significant challenges and declining popularity.
Only about 25% of Canadians approve of Trudeau’s performance as Prime Minister, while nearly two-thirds disapprove. The Liberal Party is significantly behind the Conservatives, with recent polls showing a gap of 14 to 20 points.
Canada’s Liberal Party–led government and its increasingly unpopular Prime Minister face a growing risk of early elections they appear all but certain to lose. After winning power with a majority of parliamentary seats in 2015, elections in 2019 left Trudeau’s Liberals with a minority government which they retained following a snap election in 2021. Then, on Sept. 16 of this year, the Liberals hit an iceberg when they lost a safe seat in Montreal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, in a by-election. With apologies to Frank Sinatra, if Trudeau’s Liberals can’t make it there, they can’t make it anywhere. The winner instead: the Bloc Québécois.Pollster Angus Reid found in September that nearly two-thirds of respondents nationwide disapproved of Trudeau’s performance as PM. The latest polls show that Canada’s Conservative Party, now led by Pierre Poilievre, could win nearly four times as many seats as the Liberals. Voters favor the Conservatives on jobs, the cost-of-living crisis, taxes, immigration, and crime.
Here’s hoping for better results in 2025 for the good people of Canada.
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