Opinion: Poilievre offers same old blame game, not leadership

Yes, Todd Whitcombe was accurate, Pierre Poilievre wants to take us back, to where ”a kid could start anywhere and get anywhere… (because) that is the most important promise Justin Trudeau broke.”

It looks like Pierre Poilievre wants to convince Canadians that Justin Trudeau is personally responsible for the sad state of Canadian health care, housing, convoys, inflation, wage decline, the cost of food – but the world was never as rosy as he pretends.

It’s a tactic. Say something enough times it sounds like fact: Blame Trudeau - Poilievre is the answer!

But is Trudeau personally responsible for the decline of the state of Canada, of the Earth? Or was this problem many governments in the making?

For decades, we knowingly didn’t educate enough doctors. Today, the idea of private-for-profit medicine appears almost appealing. Housing, commodified by Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) that buy scores of apartments, or offer reverse mortgages to seniors, thrive, because wages and pension plans disappeared. REITs rent to us for tidy profit. We pay the highest phone rates in the world. And our streets are riddled with those who have simply given up.

K-12 public education underfunding has accelerated. Post-secondary institutions once government-funded at 85%, now see about 30%. The U of A has cut faculties, sold lands. Food service and faculty jobs are both in the gig economy. Many government jobs are in the gig economy.

Mulroney sold one great Canadian railroad, Gordon Campbell another. Two-thirds of Canada’s oilsands are owned by foreign entities. Monopolies are rampant, wealth concentrated, governments complicit, Canadians impoverished. A whole-generational ‘privatization’ by Mulroney, Harper, Campbell and others, contributed to a massive move to sell off Canada.

Canadians no longer own enough of our former public assets to pay for our own well being. Fewer and fewer people own more and more of Earth, because – hey – socialism (maybe democracy) is for sissies, isn’t it? Hogwash. Hoodwink. Theft.

The role of democratic government is to provide a social, economic, and environmental setting where average citizens can appreciate life. It’s not to develop a bi-polar economy that favours the few.

So far, Poilievre has not provided any answers to any critical Canadian concerns beyond ‘liking’ Canada.

Is Canadian leadership wanting? Can we do better?

We need a new generation of Canadian leaders, with integrity, ethics, vision.

Where are you? Show yourselves. Canadians needs you.

Jan Manning

Prince George