Friday, July 12, 2019

Canadian premiers on a power trip at the expense of the country and the people

The current crop of Conservative premiers here in Canada are so intent on protecting their own little fiefdoms - what they refer to as "jurisdictional issues" -  that they are losing track, or just plain don't care about in the first place, the greater good. 
The federal climate change initiatives and carbon taxes are one such example, with Quebec recently citing those same "jurisdictional issues" as it's main concern, even though it is supposedly in favour of climate change. National pharmacare, which clearly needs to be national in order to be effective, is an even more egregious one, with some provinces willing to throw all the potential benefits of a national pharmacare program under the bus so long as they get their own fix of power and control.
I don't remember a time when such a collection of petty, tin-pot dictators were in power, and showed such disdain for the country as a whole and its people. Hanging onto, and increasing, their own power, and pushing their own narrow little agendas, at the expense of anyone and everyone else, is all they seem to be interested in.
Just as an aside - or maybe it actually goes to the heart of the problem - it was noticeable that, at this year's meeting of Canadian premiers, there were no - zero! - women at the table, this for the first time in many years. As recently as 2013, six out of the ten premiers were women, and now ... none! The premiers made much of the sense of unity they felt this year but, if they are all middle-aged white guys, why would they not? Whether it bodes well for the country is another matter entirely.
Somebody somewhere voted for these premiers, but they probably weren't thinking that things would turn out like this. In fact, they probably weren't thinking much at all.

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