Oh Oh! It has happened…

In the midst of turmoil and uncertainty, war has been declared. Alliances are being re-shaped. Canada is in peril. Trust is a commodity hard to find. Friendships are being threatened. Families are perhaps about to be tested.

Who would have thought that this country would ever face again a threat from the south? [Didn’t the war of 1812-14 teach the USA anything?] Who would have imagined having the three of the bigger economies of the world opposed to your country’s existence? Who could have conceived our own political leadership so unprepared for a new but nevertheless real possibility of a third world war?

Is this all an indictment on our educational systems which have avoided for perhaps five decades a solid teaching of the evolution of what makes this country work? Or, is it simply that educators didn’t want to bother with civics as it was too mundane? Or, was there a reluctance to teach about the 1930’s as it was an era we really wanted to forget – so un-Canadian was the rise of Hitler, Mussolini and the Japanese Empire? Or is it all because we are too focused on simply being nice? Or apologetic? Or unaccountable?

As I awoke this morning, I came to the realization that the Axis of World War II has been re-created in an obtuse way: Russia + USA + China. AND, we are smack in the middle, unready to defend any of our borders or the two seaways that are part of our economic lifeblood (the second being in the Arctic). Moreover not one political leader has acknowledged the complete stupidity of arguing for reciprocal tariffs when they also say that the USA are breaking the trade pact signed seven years ago. How do you justify trying to take a country to court for doing something that you are doing yourself? Why not simply maintain your participation in the trade agreements openly reminding everyone and every business in North America that an agreement was openly negotiated with and approved by the American government, and in so doing prevent the hurting of ourselves by slapping new costs on imports? Let people make their own purchase choices: what to eat & drink, where to travel, what stores to frequent (including on-line). Moreover, who really thinks that by putting on self-damaging tariffs, the USA won’t simply escalate the war – and we are then in a perpetual cycle of doom. An intelligent national (or even provincial) leader could easily explain this to the country, even with the less than thoughtful press we seem to be saddled with these days. The economics of a tariff war only work if the sides are relatively equal and we long ago gave up on that – remember how many pipelines have been squashed by the post-nationalist state leader. And not one political leader has made this stand explaining that we haven’t yet come to grips with the fact that supply management has to go – so let’s push them to figure out a compensation package for the dairy and poultry industries and then immediately sign new trade deals with Great Britain and Europe. We don’t need as much someone who is not afraid of POTUS, but rather someone who will rally the economic forces we do have to build a renewed country: rail expansion & pipelines to the Port of Churchill along a military base there (& elsewhere in the Arctic); completely twinning the rail lines to the west coast at Prince Rupert and also to Halifax, and limiting urban sprawl everywhere to save needed farm land for increased agriculture & thus better food security (apple juice is better than orange juice; many more modern greenhouses can provide a great deal of our daily veggies; there is a lot of crab, lobster and other seafood — including farmed salmon than can compliment beef, chicken & pork, and walnuts can replace much of what we use almonds for).

I would suggest you contact your member of Parliament. I have tried but he refuses to take phone calls and doesn’t reply to emails – he is a feckless NDPer and is not running again. So I have taken to talk to potential candidates in this next much-delayed federal election and have found at least one who agrees that we are almost Covid-like in our inability to step back and make some new grand gestures that might just take us into a better place. We need the same kind of civil mentality that we had in the late thirties and into the forties that made Canada a world leader in pushing back against totalitarianism. Make no mistake, this is going to be a costly endeavour – many of our cherished social dreams will need to be set aside. We may need to bring back conscription for unemployed people so we have sufficient labour (both existent & trainable) to build our necessary infrastructure(s). We can build work camps of very high quality. We can build rail-lines and pipelines and power transmission lines in expert & rapid fashion. Let’s get going. We can’t dither any longer. We don’t need nice folk giving us gentle thoughts and obtuse reflections: we need tough leaders who are only interested in getting the job done, not once elected worrying about the next election. The day of rejoicing is over; the day of preparation is here.

I never thought that dictators were possible (except in Canada with a air-tight PMO) because of the balance of power in the major parliaments of the world. But first China, showed me that even though a consensus was emerging, it only took one person to convince their parliament that discussion was out and single focus was in to take that country back. Then Russia did the same. Then in the USA, POTUS annihilated the independence of the Senate and Congress, and behold it was a trifecta of sadness followed by torment… Whether the leaders of those three countries are unhinged or narcissistic or amoral doesn’t matter anymore – if we want to remain Canadian, we need to rise up now. Wearing a nice suit, or sporting a pleasing hair style or pontificating on what might have been will not be helpful. My only concern is that the current federal government has so over-ridden the public service leadership in recent years that there may not be as many helpful brains there as we need, but again if we let them loose, I think many will emerge and give us good stewardship. Moreover there is a plethora of talent in the private and not-for-profit sectors that if challenged will come out of the shadows and give us ideas, programs, possibilities, and successes we aren’t even aware we are capable of at the moment.

Don’t sit on the sidelines any longer – our grandkids are counting on having a country to inherit from us. Let your thoughts and needs be known to any and all in positions of leadership. Remember how often you have sung that you stand on guard for O Canada!!

Reflectively
g.w.