What we do now affects future for allof us
By Letter to the Editor on February 27, 2020.
Re: The recent letter to the editor comment, “The MLA for Lethbridge-East, Nathan Neudorf, is perfectly capable of taking citizens’ concerns to the government caucus, as he is a totally competent member of that body.”
When I read this, I thought “LOL.” I am not a mean person, nor do I try to hurt people or their feelings but, if he is totally a competent member who stands for the people, what people is that? If he cared about what was happening, he would be looking at these letters and replies with dismay.
Does he care about the seniors in Lethbridge who have worked since they were as young as nine to earn the opportunity to have senior rights? Has he looked at the people with disabilities who do more volunteering than others can because they cannot get jobs? In this way, they help the paid people be able to do their jobs on little pay. Has he looked at how children could not finish school in the near past and how now they need help? This is the future of our children as education is being taken away from them.
If he thinks that balancing the budget now by hurting these groups is going to help the future, he needs to look to the past and see what happened then. What we do now affects all of our futures including his family. Is it worth it to him?
Lillian Westling
Lethbridge
8-7
Nobody likes being cutback! I had a battle with AB Health and Premier Klein 20 years ago because the care of my mother was challenged with the cutbacks he had set in play.
Our province was in much better position back then! We are in trouble! People need to wake up and understand this! The NDP government put us further into debt, blowing billions! We were debt free, zero debt not very many years ago and now look where we are!
Greedy US billionaires that have zero concern or respect for Canada or Canadians are quickly moving to gain dominance in the green energy sector the same as they dominated the oil and gas industry. They do not want us to get access to tidewater, so they can get our oil at firesale prices and when we are shipping over a million barrels of crude per day south, it adds up fast.
Canadians have lost hundreds of billions of dollars in revenues and Alberta I would guess, tens of billions in just a few short years that would prevent cutbacks, but US billionaires have stolen that from us, with impunity!
Want some examples . . . AltaLink, supplying 85% of Alberta homes with electricity, owned by US billionaire Warren Buffett, and he has just invested $200 million for a windfarm in SE Alberta that will probably ship all of it’s power to the US. Warren Buffett is a trustee and major donor of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been a major donor for years to the prostesters that are paid to stymie our gas and oil industry, especially pipelines . . . CP Rail and CN Rail ship massive amounts of crude and who has big investment in those companies through foundations and investment groups such as Vanguard and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. . . Warren Buffett and Bill Gates!
Another example . . . in July of 2008, eNGO’s and Canadian indingenous groups met with the Rockefeller Brothers Fund in New York City to kill the oilsands and pipelines. From that meeting the Rockefellers agreed to give them $7 million to begin protests . . . funding from US billionaires had grown dramatically, but in 2012 alone, the warchest was $73 million!
Hundreds of millions have been paid to kill our industry! I have many more examples . . . but do you get it yet!!??
So, Lillian, when you see all the cutbacks, and there will be more federeally, provincially, in even the City . . . think about the hundreds of billions taken from our economy in Canada and the tens of billions stolen from out economy in Alberta. and do not blame a responsible government for trying to get us back into economic certainty!!! Think about the high costs of all the programs and first responders for the SCS for addicts instead of the fraction of the costs that get resolution, effective treatment of addicts!!
The US billionaires have manipulated elections municipally in BC, provincially and federally and in 2015 to put Trudeau into office , , , why . . . they have created havoc across this nation and ruined the economy . . . . at what time do we call this a serious matter of national security??? Our PM fails to protect Canada . . . why is that . . .is there a connection to putting him office in 2015???
I am a senior and I see what is coming . . . but you are attacking the wrong person in government and the wrong party!!!
I would suggest that you do some research on the matter! We are under attack by GREEDY US billionaires and they have and are destroying our country with impunity!!! They are the cause of budget cuts!!!
I have done a search on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. While they have almost fully divested of Oil and Gas companies, there is no evidence that they finance climate protesters. Perhaps you could document your source, with a link, so I can read that. Otherwise, I have to go with what their site reports.
@….ChuckB . . . . I would dig deeper than . . . they have been geting exposed for almost 10 years and even their investments in CN Rail are going ‘underground’. Focus on New Ventures and follow the money trail. That is one of their favourite groups to give to . . . read the articles below . . . I don’t have time to dig into my files right now!
“…The New Venture Fund is backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and the David & Lucile Packard Foundation. Krause uncovered that since 2003 New York and California-based charities have granted $15 million for campaigns targeting Alberta oil and against oil tanker traffic and pipelines through BC, including a $700,000 grant from the Oak Foundation to Tides US “to raise the visibility of the tar sands issue and slow the expansion of tar sands production by stopping new infrastructure development.”….”
Above referenced from : https://canadafreepress.com/article/following-the-big-us-money-behind-canadian-pipeline-protests
“….The New Venture Fund is a Washington DC-based charity that works with donors to fund and create major projects “to realize social and environmental change”.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gave $10.6 million to the New Venture Fund (NVF) in 2014 for “global policy and advocacy” projects and many millions more for education projects…. ”
https://business.financialpost.com/opinion/anti-alberta-oil-sands-campaign-heavy-on-funding-light-on-facts
https://www.pinnacledigest.com/pinnacle-tv/bill-gates-owns-canadian-national-railway/
https://business.financialpost.com/opinion/vivian-krause-the-cash-pipeline-opposing-canadian-oil-pipelines
Dig Deeper . . .
thank you for a thoughtful, heartfelt letter. the ucp are a gang of thug bullies. they give away public money for those that do not need or deserve it; and, they take away from the most needy, vulnerable, and deserving.
ewing – you make excellent points with regard to the role of greed, and do well to call out the sham that is the gates foundation (is there actually a truly good foundation out there?). you also make a great point in how energy will remain concentrated in a few private hands, once again holding the hard working masses to their mercy/lack of their mercy. however, where i feel you go horribly wrong is to support the cutbacks to the masses – effectively withholding public funds from those that pay those funds – whilst not decrying the ucp gifts to the very greediest and wealthiest that worm their way out of every duty to pay their fair share. moreover, i feel you err in heaping blame on the ndp at every chance, while seemingly choosing to lack in any scrutiny of the ucp or any govt that is not con. look deeper – and you will find that they all screw over the wage earner and the most vulnerable first, then the small business, then the medium business, and never the big corp or the top 1%. never. while the ndp appeared to still care for the bottom rung, they did nothing to alter the system that is causing our grief.
we need to get hold of the fact that we cannot serve the whole on taxes alone. govt needs to stop giving away money to benefactors, buddies, and the big corp; no more gifts via tax breaks and forgiveness, grants, and various other forms of corporate welfare: any public money used should come with a fair ownership in return.
no public wealth – such as resources – should be given away to private entities: the people should always hold majority ownership in their wealth. energy should not be private: we need energy to survive – it is an essential – and it is a money maker. with these sources of wealth, we can look after our collective needs very well. far lower taxation follows, as does balanced budgeting and no debt loads, freeing up money that fuels the economy.
Ah yes biff . . . spoken like a true NDP socialist that has destroyed every province it ever governed, banckrupted them and pushing investment out by over taxing them with little understanding that there are always other markets in other areas where they can make the money they need to pay for the large investments them make.
Oil companies benefited the communities, builing arena’s, complexes, supporting local charities. etc. but you love the NDP so you like to spend spend spend and allow infrastructure to fall apart, while building up the Arts and slowly killing off addicts painfully, inhumanely with Safe Consumption Sites . . .Yes how is the death of the salesman doing these days . . . when is the next election . . .???
It’s a wonder why people like ewingbt continue to live in their fantasies, when a little look out the window might temper their perceptions. Consider this analysis (http://www.progressive-economics.ca/2011/04/29/fiscal-record-of-canadian-political-parties/) which suggests that the NDP have run the most fiscally responsible provincial governments over time.
On top of that, they tend to make decisions and spend money for universal needs, that is, for people – education, health care, infrastructure. I certainly miss our last responsible government compared to the current one that seems hell bent on giving money to large corporations and demanding nothing in return.
Ewingbt, you fail to remember that corporations don’t make money – people do, all Albertans do. And that under-taxed corporations donate money to improve their image is a sign of a failed tax system.
Fescue you fail to understand that without the corporations there ARE NO JOBS!
The NDP has failed miserably every time they govern a province and bring it to it’s knees financially . . . not much point trying to tell an NDP anything though . . . The think tank that told Steddy Eddy to increase royalities really working out well didn’t it!! That same think tank receives money from the same US billionaires that pay the protesters, by the way!
They killed our economy and pushed oilfield investment into other provinces and the US! And that was a Conservative leader following some braindead idea and look where you ‘undertaxed’ ideas got us! Alberta never did recover, but SK deserved it, they were slumped for decades!
Within less than a year, Saskatchewan had a $3 billion surplus ( good on you SK, you needed it) while Alberta had a $3 billion deficit!
But NDP and unions all think alike and when they are unemployed, it is always the corporations fault!
We will soon have the NDP out of Lethbridge and get our city back, with new leadership on Council and then we will have our streets back!!!
Corporations are a relatively new idea. Gee, I wonder what people did before big MNCs came along. I think you are too enthralled with monopoly capitalism to understand economy.
As for government fiscal responsibility, did you not look at the charts? And the sources for those charts? Creating a surplus on one line, and a larger deficit on another is not good governance, it is a shell game. Likewise, spending the inheritance like income, as our cons have done with oil, is irresponsible. No, you’ll have to come up with a better argument (or more name calling) to change the facts.
Fescue, your link to the analysis of the NDP is just another left wing perspective which has no merit in the real world.
The Royal Bank of Canada is your idea of the Radical Left?
I spoke to someone the other day whose family member has Crohn’s disease and is facing a medication change due to the Kenney UCP switching to ‘cheaper, biosimilar drugs,’ for Inflammatory Bowel disease. Thus, this family member is anticiating, particularly, a life with more pain.
This is being seen as the Kenney UCP being tone deaf, inhumane, heartless, could-care-less……
To add insult to injury, this family member with Crohn’s Disease voted for the UCP because they run a small business and felt that the UCP platform would benefit them. Now, they are one of many, who regret voting for the UCP and won’t be voting for them again.
What troubles me is what’s called “Post-Truth” culture. Facts are called “fake news.” Scary scientific evidence is dismissed as “unbalanced.” “Guilty or innocent” is determined by partisan votes.
– Tadashi (Tad) Mitsui
Today’s letter from Mr Mitsui reflects on ideas informing contemporary thought and action around politics, human rights, the environment, climate change & etc. He is concerned about what he calls an increased self-deception and its power to guide decision making.
Ms. Westling is moved to caution the reader that there are consequences to face down the road based on the decisions made today.
ewingbt anchors himself in the past and issues a warning. He longs for things to be the way they were and is fearful of a future over which he feels he has no control.
biff and fescue point to a state of financial inequality as the source of injustice.
What is it that informs each position?
How does society chart a course forward?
Dr. Asad Zaman, economist and social scientist, states that “just as individual decisions are based on mixtures of facts and value, so collective choices by communities are based on mixtures of facts and values. Every nation has a large amount of wealth in terms of land, water, infrastructure, as well as skilled human beings capable of learning and producing objects. Each nation faces choices in terms of where to spend energies to achieve best results in the future. In making these choices about how much to invest in factories, how much in education, and so on, we must make subjective judgements. There is no way to avoid making value judgements when decisions require choosing over multidimensional characteristics.”
If our unspoken values inform our actions, Dr. Zaman further asserts that “if the world we live in is a social construct made out of our shared ideas, then changes in the knowledge we share can change the world.”
What, then, are our values? How are they informing our positions and our choices?
Could it be said that we echo the Irish author, James Joyce in his novel, Ulysses, with an attitude of “what’s yours is mine and what’s mine is my own?”
Is this the prevalent attitude du jour?
Has the Golden Rule been rendered obsolete?