In Tommy Douglas’s “Mouseland” story, the mice continually elected cats, contrary to their own needs.
Those cats, he said, made good laws, for cats! Then along came a mouse who had the idea that mice would do better to elect mice.
I really want a government that works for an average Canadian; a government that, perhaps, does not appeal to a Harper supporter, Kevin O’Leary, who said “greed is good”, and unions should be made illegal.
I also believe government should confront serious issues in a principled way, where policies aren’t necessarily black or white, but reflect the nuances of social and economic history, and current needs. Unions, after all, have helped raise everyone’s wages.
The Liberals said they are going to review departmental expenses in order to balance a future budget and I groan. Chrétien’s government downloaded massive social and infrastructure expenditures onto the provinces, precipitating concurrent provincial cuts from which we have still not recovered.
Further, the Liberals completely ignored the Kyoto protocol, which Stephan Dion had negotiated; emissions rose during the Liberal watch. Subsidies to the oil and gas sector remained in place.
After talking with Justin Trudeau, I don’t believe he will implement significant policies to reduce our huge dependence on carbon-based energy. And, by the way, those “supposed” non-Liberal senators are still fundraising for them.
The Conservatives have overseen the creation of new ridings and significantly changed boundaries, including mine.
Changes to BC’s South Okanagan-West Kootenay did not respect historic nor geographic patterns, as they should have done according to electoral commission guidelines.
Further, 23 of the 30 new ridings favour Conservatives. However, most alarmingly, this government has fundamentally undermined a citizen’s ability to know government policy and its effects. Journalists can no longer talk to Conservative MPs without layers of filtering by the party.
They struggle to get technical information in a timely manner.
And many Conservative policies were implemented on questionable pretexts.
For example, they eliminated the long-form census. Its valuable information had been used by municipalities and social scientists in order to understand infrastructure needs, both physical and social. The replacement voluntary survey is both costly to the taxpayer and unreliable statistically.
I don’t want a government run by cats, not white, black nor fat!
Allison Bowles
Fruitvale