Defending Canadian health care ... from Canadians.

I'm going to pull a comment up here since I think it warrants the attention.

Forgive me for being off topic, but I'm looking for some input on an op-ed, in my local daily newspaper (Tennessean) that bashes Canadian Health care.

As usual, it's full of sweeping unsubstantiated generalizations (there are very few first class hospitals in Canada!). What's not usual is it appears to be written by a Canadian.

I'm going to respond (I used to live in Canada and have written on this subject before), but am wondering if you know anything about this particular charge:

"Canadians aren't so lucky when it comes to emergency medical care. A recent mayor of Toronto was forced to wait eight long hours on a stretcher, with a broken leg, before seeing an emergency room physician. And this was in a Toronto hospital! As excruciating as it sounds to us, Canadians are accustomed to it."

Article here.

Appreciate any input or leads you can provide; I'll be posting on this at my blog.

So ... get to work. What's the story here?

UPDATE: I just googled and came up with nothing that even remotely resembles the story above. I'm thinking this might be one of those urban legends. The fact that Google can't find anything makes me mighty suspicious, but I'll wait to hear from others.