MP Report: Government that hides facts untrustworthy

By Medicine Hat News Opinion on February 5, 2021.

Trust is in short supply these days. Historically, it has always been so with politicians (and should stay that way) – however, over the past number of years trust in critical institutions has deteriorated in Canada.

For example, trust in policing is at an all time low as we witness varied outcomes for differing groups of people, along with diverse levels of services based on where one resides. Likewise, police are equally as frustrated by the expectation that they are the caretakers for all of society’s troubles while political leaders and public servants do little to deal with the escalating mental health crisis, overdose epidemic and other social challenges that become a policing responsibility by default. Police are being set up to fail, as the various levels of governments, who Canadians once trusted to tackle these societal issues, have abandoned both those impacted by them and the police services responsible for managing them.

Trust between regions of the country has also deteriorated significantly since 2015. While other provinces prospered, Alberta saw federal government ideologies, questionable policies and inaction rapidly destroy jobs, families, companies, industries and our provincial economy. Justification for decisions has been wide-ranging and most often inaccurate, with facts and information replaced by ideology and politics.

Rather than one, strong, united country during the COVID-19 pandemic, Canada is broken into 10 provinces and three territories struggling individually to mitigate the impacts of the virus.  The myriad challenges and heavy lifting has been left to the provinces, while the federal government delivers cheques, eager to avoid making any decisions that might have blowback or hurt them politically. 

At this point in the pandemic it’s unacceptable that conflicting or limited information related to COVID-19 remains. Canadians deserve to see the concrete data used in developing public policy decisions surrounding the pandemic response. In fact, the Liberal government has yet to implement any system to gather such data, despite public health officials, scientists and legislators begging for it. This failure signals the inability to determine if current measures to halt the virus spread are even effective.

Lack of data also eliminates the prospect of evaluating the success of the measures taken thus far, including lockdowns. Does restricting the population-at-large from accessing all that is familiar, have more or less benefit, than the negative societal impacts of job losses, business closures, undiagnosed medical conditions, loved ones dying with no one by their side, separated families, increased mental health and addiction issues? These impacts, and many more, are the destructive fallout from extensive lockdowns and encroachments on our civil liberties.

Distrust in this current government actually undermines Canadians’ willingness to trust a successive government. As the Official Opposition, Canada’s Conservatives have been working tirelessly to restore public confidence in their political leaders and federal institutions. We will deliver a government that exceeds the accountability Canadians expect, and secure a strong future for our incredible country. 

We all deserve nothing less.

Glen Motz is the Member of Parliament for Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner

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