Canadians sell themselves short with Conservatives
By Letter to the Editor on September 29, 2021.
Editor:
Ralph Nader wrote a book called “A salute to Canada, and Canadian Achievement'” How many Canadians have read it? It should be on school reading lists. It might inspire us to ask: Why do we insist on selling ourselves short?
Nader lists hundreds of Canadian achievements like our Avro Arrow jet fighter-fastest in the world. A Conservative PM cancelled it to buy inferior expensive American jets.
Canadian farmers set up a cooperative wheat board and made it the world’s largest. Conservatives, Harper, Kenney and Dreeshan, gave it to American corporations.
The CPC work for the rich: election mantras are always about tax cuts, fear of debt, and “red tape.” Most workers are interested more in services from government, and scarcity of jobs.
Alberta’s first truly Conservative Premier Lougheed set up our Heritage Trust Fund. Every neo-conservative government since has trashed it and its principals.
Norway came to study it and our oil development policy. With similar population, and oil reserves, they built their fund. Today Norway’s fund tops over $1 trillion; plus, it pays education (kindergarten through university), health care, and all pensions, from their oil development.
Alberta’s “Conservatives” chose to hand over our resources to private international corporations for 50 years, and we are hundreds of billions of dollars in debt.
We also subsidize these corporations by billions annually to create the world’s biggest cesspool, pollute our rivers, refuse to clean up abandoned wells, or pay taxes – all without any cleanup plan. Conservatives are so eager to please Americans that we avoid looking closely at the mess their country is in through privatization.
Some American states’ minimum wage is $3 per hour, but they have more billionaires than any other country.
Does that impress you? Both last “Conservative” prime ministers are retired in the USA.
Harper is executive for Atlas corporation, promoting international corporate development.
D. Ryane
Lethbridge
-1
Absolutely Brilliant Letter. You have just described the Reformers. One of the things the MLAs from the Lougheed era taught us is “You Can’t Trust Them”. But the majority of Albertans don’t get it. They would rather watch them give away our oil wealth and taxes to their rich friends and force more and more privatization upon us.
Voting for Reformer Erin O’Toole who promised to gut our health care system, and has had nothing but praise for how his Reform Party pal Jason Kenney has killed off Albertans just proves how stupid we are. One of the nine doctors I helped relocate out of Alberta when Klein was kicking them around said it best
“Why should I stay in Alberta and support my patients, when my patients refuse to support me against this tyrant Ralph Klein”. Good question why should they, would you?
Thirteen percent of nurses in the Edmonton area have said they are leaving and I bet the percentage is a lot higher now after this election and you can bet doctors will follow. In fact some of our senior friends have already lost theirs to early retirement because of how they have been treated.
Albertans have told them they don’t give a damn about them. As a friend says “If the covid doesn’t kill you, these damn Reformers will. Chasing off the doctors and nurses, like Klein did will kill a lot more”.