How do I show I have it?

Deep down, Your Working Girl’s populist side believes that hospitals, universities and associated government-funded buildings should be called “The People’s Cardiac Centre”  or “The People’s Breast Cancer Laboratory”, “The People’s Law Library” and so on.  She does, however, acknowledge it has the tinge of the Maoist about it and she doesn’t want to throw her custom to that lot.

But somewhere on the donor recognition matrix, she would like an acknowledgement that donors who get stuff named after them are a mere spit in a bucket of money it takes to keep those institutions running.

“No, dear, Joseph and Wolf Lebovic do not own Mount Sinai Hospital,” Your Working Girl can imagine telling an inquisitive child.

“And you don’t have to register with Heather Reisman to get into Emergency.  Peter Munk does not pay for the cardiac centre.  Robert Krembil doesn’t live at the Krembil Discovery Centre.  He gave $30 million to have it named that way,”

“Actually, all of us chip in a little bit through our taxes to make sure these hospitals are there for when you are sick,” she adds in the attempt to improvise a civics lesson.

Yet, Your Working Girl can understand the confusion.  The naming of buildings for donors does lend an air of proprietorship.  To clarify, she would like to see “Funded by the people of Ontario” or “Brought to you with love by the citizens of Canada” somewhere above the fold.

Perhaps it might be an answer to those who say government does nothing for us so let’s turn it over to the private sector.