A lot of questions were being asked last week about how Jason Kenney’s apologetic admission of fault for Alberta’s COVID problems could affect Erin O’Toole’s chances in Monday’s election.
There was a lot of dancing around the issue, but no one I heard was brave enough to state the obvious; neither of these men should be leading anyone, because neither of them cares about people. Their priorities are: step one, get more financial support: step two, get elected; step three, return to step one. The part about serving their citizens is left out of the cycle.
What Do They Care About?
Money, of course. They care about the big businesses that provide the money that gets them elected. They have to maintain the fiction that they care about small businesses, but that’s not really true. Small business owners tend to be small-c conservative, because they don’t like change, and the name of the large-C party seems to promise that. They are also attracted by the myth that the Conservatives are fiscally responsible. Statistics show otherwise. The regime that recently added the most to Canada’s deficit was Mulroney’s Conservatives. They just spend the money on supporting industry instead of on services for the population.
Another reason small business owners like Conservative governments is that this group loves to cut regulations. Of course they do. They don’t really care about things like the environment and the safety of the general public, so it’s an easy way to buy loyalty and make money. However, this has come back to bite them in a big way, because lifting COVID restrictions too early has led to more serious successive waves of the epidemic.
Stress Reveals Weakness
So when COVID threatens to shut small businesses down, we find out where the hearts of our leaders really lie. With each new wave, every government had to make a difficult choice; when to impose restrictions and when to lift them. Those willing to take the biggest risk with people’s lives imposed the least restrictions. Conservative premiers like Ford, Moe and Kenney who did this have been slapped down by Mother Nature.
And when it comes to politicians, many of them are too removed from the voters. Trudeau has done well with COVID, but he and his cronies in the PMO started out by cynically promising election reform, then dropped the idea as soon as they didn’t need it. Now that he’s in trouble, he’s trying it on again.
The Real Trickle-Down Effect
And there’s a worse effect of this selfishness at the highest levels. Canada has a small minority of selfish, nasty people who only care about others as potential victims. They are responsible for the racism, the anti-vaxing, and the bullying in our country. Politicians who don’t care about anyone else support these antisocial people for selfish purposes, and stoke their malevolence. And when we support those politicians, we are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Think about that when you’re choosing your vote tomorrow.