Most of my readers will recall my concern as to why our local MP, Randy Hoback, is trying to portray Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh as being nothing more than Siamese twins. This approach is just another example of the rather crude strategy being fomented by the Conservative Party leadership and Pierre Poilievre in trying to separate the “twins”. It assumes the weaker one (supposedly NDP leader Jagmeet Singh) will not survive because voters will “punish” his party for him having kept a Liberal minority in power for the last four years, leaving Canadian voters to finally put Mr. Trudeau on “trial” for his many aggrieved governing atrocities, real or imagined, and his alleged mishandling of affairs with India’s PM, Narendra Modi.
Mr. Hoback’s report recently published in the Herald isn’t telling us what the Conservatives have recently done to allow Canada to be better governed; rather, it’s merely him electioneering at the taxpayers’ expense while postulating the antiquated notions currently racing through Mr. Poilievre’s brain.
I’m not kidding myself; there are hundreds of voters in Prince Albert dying to vote for Poilievre, but blaming the federal NDP isn’t going to “correct” whatever mistakes were made in Parliament over the last four years. Thousands of businesses had to curtail activity due to staff illness, or were handicapped by shipping and supply chain breakdowns. Unsurprisingly, major suppliers used this period to aggressively hike product prices that caused hyper-inflationary pressures upon our cost of living. As well, even though inflation figures are back down to their normal range, prices, especially in the cost of food, remain at their inflationary levels.
Now the government could have implemented price-freezing legislation on all essential services and market goods, but Conservatives seriously object to our tampering with principles they believe govern a free market economy. As well, the Liberal – NDP coalition government could have done nothing, but they didn’t. Instead, they relied upon information provided by the Obama administration on how to limit the effect of a pandemic (drafted by the U.S. government when it began responding to the possible threat of an Ebola virus spreading to North American from African states), by initially issuing mandates to restrict public movement and the spread of the virus through direct human contact.
It is rather an ugly reality that, despite the virus devastating our seniors population and exposing the lack of legislation governing the running of long term care homes, once U.S. President Donald Trump finally asked the pharmaceutical industry to rush development of vaccines, Canada’s younger generations took the self-centred direction of focusing upon their inability to socialize and move freely about in their day-to-day affairs by blaming the Canadian government for such loss, as opposed to the pandemic itself. At the same time a U.S.-based directive that required cross-border delivery drivers to be vaccinated created a so-called “freedom” convoy that would see hundreds of truckers to drive to Ottawa and create social havoc that would eventually cost taxpayers in excess of $2.3 billion, and Pierre Poilievre all-too-eagerly courting their support for the Conservatives.
It’s disgusting that two Canadian premiers were prepared to allow their provincial death by Covid rates to further inflict harm upon our seniors, rather than creating mandates that allowed for monitored socialization by the public to ameliorate increasing concerns regarding depression and an increasing sense of isolation. Thus, as a result of Conservative Party indifference to reality, we now have a nation no longer free of polio, mumps, scarlet fever, smallpox and even measles, conditions that could not possibly exist were it not for a sizeable minority of our population believing disinformation campaigns now regularly raging on social media about so-called “dangers” to immunization especially from m-RNA generated vaccines.
Aggravating this situation even more is a fact better described by an Indigenous friend, who maintains that fully trained psychiatrists and psychologists, especially in Prince Albert, “are rarer in their sightings than white buffalo.” So, having now essentially summarized Parliamentary and legislative actions taken by our various governments to combat Covid, let’s go back to that question I left hanging in my Nov. 2 column: “What meaningful legislation was an original idea posed by a Liberal MP?”
Your possible answers were: (A) Covid relief (B) Dentacare (C) Pharmacare and (D) Day of reconciliation; the correct answer, however, was NONE of the above; ALL were ideas originating within the NDP MP’s ranks.
This reality thus begs the question, “Why rid ourselves of NDP members trying to make a minority Parliament work, when since this province doesn’t elect Liberals we shouldn’t just ask that party from refraining to nominate candidates in the next federal election and unnecessarily split the Conservative opposition vote?”
The public must start to understand that the Conservative bombast exhaled by Mr. Hoback has no relationship to reality. Carbon tax isn’t an “issue”, even with farmers; the environment is. We need to start encouraging “green” entrepreneurship to locate in Saskatchewan BEFORE Ontario snaps up these opportunities. We need AFFORDABLE public transportation across Canada, not a VIA Rail system hobbled by CN Rail and CP indifference or short run air routes (e.g.: Saskatoon to Regina or Prince Albert) where a high-speed train would take up less personal time and cost much less. We also need to stop relying upon clear cutting and bulldozer resource extraction to keep our economy moving, and food sustainability programs to drive down grocery costs.
As well, we also have to recognize that new housing needs will only be met by the formation of massive co-operative projects that leave speculators out of the cost equation and create legislation criminalizing landlords that utilize algorithm-driven software to maximize rent levels.
As for crime, we know that its major form is international in origin requiring senior governmental remediation. Harper showed tinkering with bail reform and imposing harsher sentencing only invites racial profiling and prejudice. I’ll have more to say on this topic come Saturday, but in the meantime our governments, including those coming from reserves, should be collectively sitting down at the table and coming up with policies that work for all concerned.
In the meantime, Mr. Hoback, please stop pretending that your leader’s words are gospel. They aren’t, or we’d still have a Conservative government in New Brunswick and Doug Ford NOT going to the polls just in case your party does form the next federal government.
Ken MacDougall is a retired teacher and former federal NDP candidate in the 2021 election.