you get what you pay for:

Great Moments in Socialized Medicine
"A New Brunswick man who told police that a friendly dog scuttled his plan for a bloody shooting rampage was sentenced Wednesday to a three-year prison term after admitting it was all a ploy to get life-saving surgery while in jail," the Canadian Press reports from Toronto:

Ontario Court Justice Brent Knazan described James Stanson as a "manipulative, duplicitous, entitled con-man" who headed to east Toronto last June "to hatch a plan that would lead to his detention (and) the medical treatment he needed."

"It is important that I give a sentence that denounces (Stanson's) conduct and deters anyone else from doing the same," Knazan said, rejecting the defence's request for a sentence of one year, less a day, to be served in the community.

But Stanson's plan worked; he did indeed get the heart operation he needed while he was in custody. Self-righteous Europeans and Canadians love to call America "barbaric" for our private medical system and our refusal to abolish capital punishment--but at least we don't sentence innocent people to death, as Canada's medical system effectively does.