Dear Editor,
So, according to Mr. Bertram, my political allegiance “clouds my judgment”, and that I am “overheated” in my opinions. Right back at you, Jim. I care about the things that I comment on, democracy, social and environmental programs, the wanton destruction of this planet by neo-conservative governments and their supporters, because I care about what kind of world we are leaving our grandchildren. I do not subscribe to the view that I should be looking at the world through a narrow financial lens, as does the government that Mr. Bertram supports. To me, money is not everything, and I refuse to solely focus on fiscal problems, real or imagined.
As for the charge that I was “making up facts”, and that my letter was also “fact- free” at the same time, was a trifle confusing. I’m not sure just how I can do both things simultaneously. I was also admonished for not looking at the federal government excesses. Mr. Bertram failed to mention that a number of these excesses have been reined in by the opposition, which was often a good thing, and goes to prove that minority governments can work when there are checks and balances in the system. This is also the sort of thing that would happen if we ever get proportional representation, which neither the Liberals nor Conservative parties want, and both like to have their own way. It is interesting to note that the Conservative Party could have received more seats in the last election if Proportional Representation had been the way we do elections, instead of the archaic “First Past the Post” system that we now endure. Food for thought, Jim?
Lastly, I was also told to look to the government of Ontario to get my examples right. This is where he and I diverge completely. I look to the government of Ontario as examples of how to get most things totally wrong. You only have to look at how many times the Ford government has had its policies challenged, often in court, (which costs the taxpayers yet more money), to see that I am far from alone in this.
The following are yet more examples of how not to do things. Ford and Steve Clark have reversed their suspension of our Environmental Bill of Rights, presumably because they got so much flack, again, from the general public. Still, it did give them time to ram through the projects that their construction company buddies wanted so badly that it was worth suspending democracy for. Government for the people? I think not. It does seem to be the way that this provincial government governs. It tries on all sorts of policies that weren’t in their platform, that way the public spends it’s time and energy combating one crazy idea after another, and meanwhile, they sneak through stuff that they want while we are distracted.
Yet another example of how not to do things is that the Ford government is evidently planning to create a body to oversee all nursing homes in the province, but, of course, it will be a private company. Talk about the fox looking after the hen house. This government has obviously learned nothing from the ongoing nursing home debacle, where the private nursing homes recently paid out $61 million in dividends, rather than invest that money in looking after their residents properly. As somebody said to me just today, if this sort of debacle had been going on in daycare centres, there would have been rioting on the streets. So why is nobody holding this government to account on this? Do all Conservative MPP’s agree on this, and, if not, why are they all silent? The nursing home industry is an absolute disgrace, and should not be tolerated. There is a fallacy in the notion that the private marketplace is innately superior, leading to the constant denigration of government and its functions. If the foolishness of cutting funding for public health care wasn’t already abundantly clear, Covid19 has driven it home with a sledgehammer. Our willingness to go along with the privatization cult in recent decades has left us weaker and less protected than we could be.
We deserve better.
Colin Creasey, Kemptville.
