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Dear Justin,

First, you were totally robbed at the Grammys, dude. I'm no music critic, but if being the biggest star on the planet doesn't warrant Best New Artist, then Lady GaGa doesn't dress funny. But whatever. You're 16. You've got time.

Baby, baby, baby, U.S. health care is no match for Canada's!

What caught my interest, other than your totally buck duet with Usher, were your comments concerning health care reform in the new Rolling Stone.

All I can say is, I wish you'd been around to speak truth to power when President Barack Obama was taking so many shots. But I understand: ninth grade has to come first.

For readers who may not get their financial news from Rolling Stone, you were defending your native Canada and vowing never to become a U.S. citizen because our health insurance here is onerous (I know that sounds dirty. Ask Usher). Here's the money quote:

"Canada's the best country in the world. We go to the doctor and we don't need to worry about paying him, but here, your whole life, you're broke because of medical bills. My bodyguard's baby was premature, and now he has to pay for it. In Canada, if your baby's premature, he stays in the hospital as long as he needs to, and then you go home."

You know what, J-Biebs? You're right. The plain fact is, a lot of us here in southern Canada are broke, or at least struggling, because our leaders have allowed the corporations that pull their strings to perpetuate a wasteful, inefficient free market health insurance system that makes most of us sick financially.

You Canadians have a knack for seeing through our country's propaganda smog. Over the years, I've learned more about America and the human condition from Canadians like Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Cockburn and k.d. lang than from most Grammy Award-winning artists south of the 49th parallel.

Every time someone like Obama tries to enact health care reform, the power brokers start up the boogeyman machine: socialism, death panels, abortion mills, on and on. They even drag Canada into their smear campaign: you'll spend hours in the waiting room with a heart attack, wait months to see your physician, just like the poor Canadians.

Well, I'm not hearing that from Canadians, but I can tell you where you can experience that kind of health care treatment: Right here!

Thanks for your honesty. We're trying to fix it. Never say never, right?

Keep it real, dude.

JM

Catch me on Twitter!

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