Flashback Friday: It's time to press PAUSE in Canada
In our rush for more and better, we've forgotten how to run our governments
It’s Flashback Friday at Issues & Insights. This post was originally published in November 2022 and I thought you may find some interesting similarities and differences with the current political environment today. Let me know what you think has changed – and what hasn’t.
500,000 new immigrants per year. Every year. That’s what Canada has promised to accept. We need them to make our economy work. But, I have no idea where they’ll live. Go to school. Go to work. Get better when they’re sick. Retire when they’re old.
New provincial, national and municipal parks were promised by politicians during election campaigns — but no one knows where. Because building them wasn’t the point. Promising them was.
Free dental care. Free prescription medicine. Nearly-free childcare. All promised by politicians. To be delivered by governments.
But nothing governments run already is working.
Maybe it’s time to press “pause” in Canada. On Canada.
Canada is already a great place to live
Maybe it’s time to focus on making the stuff we already have work properly. Fix the things we’ve got. Before we buy new things.
Canada is already a great place to live. So great, that hundreds of thousands of people want to come live here. Every year.
Instead of spending money we don’t have to buy things we don’t need — let’s make sure the money we do have is focused on fixing and maintaining the things we do need.
I want a PM or Premier or Mayor to stand up and say … “let’s pause our plans for infinite additions, unlimited newness.”
Let’s figure out how to maintain the services and amenities we’ve got. Because, somewhere along the way, we seem to have forgotten.
We’ve forgotten how to operate public toilets. We’ve forgotten how to keep the water fountains working. To fix the pot holes. To pick up the garbage on our streets, in our parks, from our homes.
We’ve forgotten how to coordinate the traffic signals. To cut the grass in parks and public boulevards we already have.
We’ve forgotten how to keep our streets safe. To prosecute criminals. To defend our country. To protect our defenders. To lead our soldiers. Our police.
We’ve forgotten how to teach our kids. To care for our sick. Our elderly. To house our poor — heck, even our middle class.
We’ve forgotten how to feed our hungry. Our seniors. Our children.
We’ve forgotten how to run our borders so good people and good things are whisked across with zero delays — and bad people and bad things are kept out.
We’ve forgotten how to operate our airports and airlines so people are safe and travel is predictable, reliable, comfortable and enjoyable. We’ve forgotten how to issue passports, SIN cards, driver’s licences, pilot licences, NEXUS cards.
We’ve forgotten how to certify doctors and nurses and air traffic controllers. To train plumbers, carpenters, dry wallers, truckers and electricians.
Interestingly, we still remember how to produce lawyers. We churn out thousands and thousands of new lawyers every year. Way more than any high functioning civil society could ever need. Sorry, lawyers! Where is that productive efficiency when it comes to psychiatrists? Or carpenters?
Our governments have forgotten how to govern
Our buses, trains and ferries do not run on time. Our parliamentarians shout but never listen. Our voters don’t vote.
Our infrastructure is falling down. Our capital projects are never on schedule, never on budget and never as good as we were promised they’d be.
We’ve forgotten how to run our governments.
In fact, I think we’ve forgotten why we have governments. Governments have become things that must be protected from us — enriched, enabled, emboldened. Enlarged. Because so many of us work for them — meaning us — working for ourselves essentially. Paying ourselves with your money thank you very much.
Is it too much to ask our bigger, fatter, richer governments to at least do their jobs?
Let’s pause the betterfication of Canada while we fix what’s already broken. Let’s put a moratorium on “newness” and betterment for a couple of years while we focus on fixing what we already have.
If something can’t be fixed — where it must be replaced with something new — then let us mandate the old thing be dismantled, sold or trashed. So we don’t end up, as we do now, with two things to fail to maintain: One new and mysterious, one old and irreparable.
Canada is a great country. Ontario is a great province. So are all the others. Our cities are great cities. Our constant attempts to make them perfecter — our never ending election promises of newification, each of which leads to billions more in spending — are destroying them. Destroying us.
My vote and my undying patronage goes to the leader who hits PAUSE.
Are you with me?
You bet Mark. Our government just keeps ticking along. With 40% MORE STAFF - what are we to do. The public service in all its' forms is a voting bloc there are so many on them. Public service contracts, annual increases COLA, define benefit plans, Toronto councillors voting them selves a 24% pay hike - we deserve? What do us taxpayers deserve? This is starting to smell a lot like "Atlas Shrugged" for real.
Our government has become lazy, covid certainly didn't help nor did the 35K new civil servants. They took their cue from parliament when it allowed remote parliament to continue and then by apparently selling off government office buildings, had no place for all the employees to come back to. There needs to be some adults come into the room, adults with some experience running a business and who ABSOLUTELY DO NOT CARE ABOUT BEING RE-ELECTED!!!