A Call to Service

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Spare a thought for the next group of candidates for Local, Provincial, and Federal political office. They will face the greatest challenges ever facing this country during peacetime.  And they will be replacing incumbents who have used the cover of Covid-19 to build a new society in their personal image.   In the process, Canada’s economy has been trashed in the cause of contrived emergencies; social values upended to create imaginary persecuted groups; and fresh versions of revisionist history been embedded daily in school curricula.

Streets are filled with the victims of a drug abuse epidemic, financial reserves eradicated and replaced with a federal debt level which, per capita, is the highest in the nation’s history. Canadians have been walked back from decades of improvement in living standards, diminishing social problems, and internationally competitive technological achievements.

Despite being in the forefront of world medical science Canada’s Federal and Provincial leaders have managed to surpass each other’s incompetence by building on successive missteps in what should have been an achievable vaccination program. The list of governance disasters in every area, which, in more capable hands would have been foreseeable, grows daily.

If you know people with enough management skill to rein in public sector workers, who see nothing wrong in ever growing deficits and to whom cost control is a filthy phrase, encourage them to step forward – we need them. Their task is simple enough to describe – Reclaim! Recover! Rebuild!

Achieving this task will take not only determination on their part but much cooperation on ours – it is always true that we only get the government we deserve.

The Stink of “WE”

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The “WE” scandal, like a heap of odoriferous cow dung, continues to linger as an acrid smell in Canada.  Whatever feat of deception the Trudeau government employs, the stink wafts up and circles back, engulfing them in the smog once again.

There is a reason the Prime Minister flatly refuses to testify, when ordered by the majority to do so, and it is the same reason he demands that the appropriate Ministers also do not comply with the House order.  The Prime Minister’s Office does not want to accept guilt and is not operating in good faith.  They can claim innocence until proven guilty, thus as long as the office does not engage in the inquiry process of discovery, they can magically claim to have clean hands.  It is obvious the Prime Minister does not want to incriminate himself and his family to Canadians – all those pesky hard-working taxpayers who pay his salary.

Like a child hiding behind the couch devouring contraband cookies before supper, thinking no one will see him as long as he keeps his eyes tightly shut, he continues the infantile charade.  The blatant obfuscation of the PM borders on the cartoonish, and through their disgust and incredulousness at his behavior, Canadians are also laughing at his buffoonery, strategic though his jiggery-pokery may be.

Ah, but maybe a shiny new budget full of pixie dust, sugar, and sunny ways will finally provide a much-needed distraction for the citizenry to look away from this gross egregiousness.

 

Government Debt

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Our governments have a debt problem. The federal deficit for this fiscal year is approaching $400 billion and the total debt is about $1 trillion.  BC is in better shape with a current year deficit of $13.6 billion and a total debt of $88.626 Billion.  

A conference Board of Canada report stated that governments are “spending like never before” producing “massive and permanent” debt levels.  This is not sustainable.   

Our governments believe that a combination of low interest rates and high levels of economic growth will allow them to accommodate this level of debt. It might just be possible if that was all the debt they were going to add but the Federal deficit for the next fiscal year will be about $121.6 billion dollars and continuing in the red for the foreseeable future. BC will also be running deficits for years.   

Our governments have not been transparent as to how they intend to pay for this increased debt, and currently are borrowing just to cover the interest.   The Trudeau administration has not produced a budget in 2 years and Canadians  don’t know what this government‘s detailed taxation and spending plans are.  

With the pandemic not yet over, maintaining support payments to those in need will have to continue. It seems certain that a combination of increased taxes and a reduction in spending will be necessary, and soon. This will reduce economic growth, which in turn will reduce the government’s ability to sustain this level of debt.  

What is the plan Mr. Trudeau? 

Heading Back to an Old System?

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It would be very reassuring if all public sector meetings began with a recognition of the private sector of the economy.  For it is there where the wealth is created that provides the income on which taxes are levied to pay for all our well-paid public servants and their grandiose plans. There is likely no hope for this ever to happen anywhere in the Cowichan Valley, because our Federal and Provincial representatives, together with most of their municipal colleagues, seem to have never been members of this part of the economy. Few, if any, of them appear to have ever had a paycheque that the taxpayer did not sign. It is reminiscent of the time when an educated but unproductive elite needed the feudal system for their survival.

Alistair MacGregor’s private member’s bill to cut off access to the coastline for deep sea vessels awaiting berths at local ports is an example of legislation proposed to meet the convenience of very few people. That his new bill would have the result of providing yet another unneeded obstacle for our stumbling economy seems irrelevant to him.  It shows a complete lack of appreciation that west coast port operations are one of the few bright spots remaining in the national industrial establishment. Excessive taxes and inconsistent regulation have sent capital fleeing to other countries and not enough seems now available to improve the operations of the port in order to reduce or quell the need to moor expensive ships in remote locations.

Mr. MacGregor’s proposal is yet another reminder that once viable Canadian industries are now surviving on reduced revenues and curtailed markets. Our local, Provincial and National governments are very creative in finding ways to consume the wealth provided by taxpayers but seem utterly incapable of understanding what needs to be done to produce it.