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