Who or what report advised Canadian provinces to cap the number of medical admissions in the 90s?

Probably dogma straight out of an economics textbook: supply fuels demand--i.e., if you reduce the number of cardiologists, fewer people will 'decide' to get angioplasty. Don't laugh, as this is the logic behind most of the 'experts.' Similar arguments are used to promote copayments, since, health economists argue, people would just be popping cholesterol medication like candy, and getting colonoscopies and root canals willy-nilly, if they didn't have to pay part of the cost. France is one country where, by law, patients have to pay for some of the cost of their medical care.

This supply=demand thing MAY have been why they imploded the General in Calgary, though a little bird told me it was to cover up problems with post-tensioned floors in parts of the hospital (the cables were rusting and the floors were sagging).

Another example of this is the "if we build it, they will come," which is why certain municipal politicians in Calgary keep pushing for Transit Oriented Developments and the like, along with creating artificial scarcity in parking, even though the condo market has crashed and there are holes and heaps of rebar all over town from abandoned condo and apartment projects, since newcomers largely prefer detatched homes to high-density living, and cars to public transit.

Of course, that dictum is conveniently forgotten, when somebody like Pave Bronconcrete insists that there HAS to be another eight-lane road, in order to ease traffic. At that point, the Mayor and his contractor donors insist, there won't be a traffic problem. Of course, with more lanes to use, all that happens is that you have a gridlocked eight-lane road, instead of a four-lane one. Cornell University recently published a study confirming this, which was greeted with shock in urban planning circles.

The point is, DON'T TRUST 'EXPERTS!' These people have their own agendas, and sugar-coat them in social science gobbledygook to make people buy their BS. Whether it's the 'necessity' of healthcare privatization, the 'logic' of Daylight Savings Time, the 'need' for a quarter million permanent immigrants annually during a recession, the 'superiority' of roundabouts, the 'efficiency' of sales taxes relative to income taxes, the 'safety' of nuclear power and sour gas wells, or utility deregulation, globalized trade and supply-side economics, moneyed interests keep economists, social scientists, urban planners and other 'experts' as their pet shills.

Bob Rae was not responsible for physician shortages nation wide. Blame the CMA/PMAs and the gutting of federal funding for post-secondary ed by 1995.