While many struggle, others are taking more

By Letter to the Editor on April 9, 2020.

Frustration is the word for the current situation as many watch helplessly as their lives change forever. The business community dies. Service industry workers are without a cheque when former employers go bankrupt. We hear about essential workers like truck drivers being denied access to rest areas and restrooms as they work long hours delivering essentials to the stores that supply us during these trying times.

Amid the confusion, turmoil and tragedies of the tens of thousands going bankrupt are brazen organizations, politicians, the all mighty, the powerful, the unanswerable with a hand fully extended for more, more, more – money, that is. In this regard I was appalled to read in this newspaper March 31, given the current situation putting surreal pressure on public finances, that three members of the Japanese Garden Society had the shameless gall to appear at the Community Issues meeting asking that $2.9 million of public monies be released for a “new” community facility.

Federally, on the same day, the clown act running this country padded their wallets, while thousands they purport to represent self-isolate in the homes they fear losing and worry how to feed themselves and their families with no paycheque – zero. The life many of us once enjoyed in this “greatest country on Earth” is in permanent ruin – tens of thousands will never recover. Not so MPs whose salaries start at $178,900, not including crazy money self-issued for travel, meals, committee meeting attendance, housing allowances and on and on. Who voted for this? Is Canada a democracy?

Add to the above, on April 1 the tax supposedly helping prevent the world from collapsing under human-caused CO2 was to increase from $20 to $30. This country was broke before the coronavirus hit us in the gut. But politicians and the like, with seemingly little financial morality, shamelessly plug along asking, demanding, expecting business as usual – while demanding their self-isolating subjects hunker down and weather the storm. I predict it’s a storm that will never blow over for untold numbers of those going bankrupt daily.

Alvin W. Shier

Lethbridge