By Letter to the Editor on November 28, 2018.
Democracy is a game of inches. To believe in democracy is to accept that you, the individual, will probably never get exactly what you want. A shared vision of Canada’s future, common goals, compromise, respect and adversarial fellowship, grease the bearings of a healthy, functioning democratic system. The lawfully attained will of the majority of eligible voters is the righteous power used by government to rule. This power has the sanction of the people through fair and lawfully elected government and processes. the government honours the power it’s given by ruling in the long-term best interest of the people it serves. If this is all true, then I predict a sloppy, muddy, mucky spring in 2019. Quite obviously, our current federal and provincial governments want what they want — compromise be damned. They want no new Alberta-based pipelines, a dead petroleum sector, a less educated, poorer, more beholden and brainwashed, less free, general public — a public overtaxed, under-represented, and cowed into their smiles and vague head nods by political correctness. Our lovely prime minister has called those who disagree “pieces of s—” in the House of Commons. Recently he referred to the opposition as those “goons across the aisle.” Under his leadership, adversarial fellowship has become class- and culture-warfare. I believe Mr. Trudeau wants to take Canadians places they don’t want to go. The bearings of our democratic system are overheating because the federal and Alberta governments do not rule in the long-term best interest of the people they serve. Lowering the voting age to 16? That’s embarrassingly self-serving, Justin. Everyone knows how easy it is to fool children. If we cannot put the electoral system above reproach, then Canada has a terminal illness. I can wait two hours or 24 hours for an electoral decision I can trust. I recommend a return to the old ways of ballot counting. Call up the church ladies, remove all computer technology beyond calculators. Use the new system only when it’s unhackable, honest and beyond reproach. Any whiff of scandal or interference in 2019’s ballots could start fires that we can’t put out. Trudeau has stoked resentment and division for three-plus years with his wacky agendas, arrogance and ignorance. Just like his daddy. Ms. Notley is as transparent as a window screen. We know she doesn’t want Alberta to prosper. We know she doesn’t want pipelines or the oil sands. We know socialism doesn’t work. It’s the homogenization of the human race to the lowest common denominator. Who pays in the end? The village cow, the middle class. She is milked, bled and butchered, one piece at a time. One day soon these socialists are going to kill the cow, cut up what’s left, keep most of the carcass for themselves and give the guts and hide to the less fortunate. It’s going to be a sloppy, muddy, mucky spring in 2019. Leath Johnston Medicine Hat 18
Want to bet Johnston is a senior? I say that because it’s only seniors, us seniors, see making idiotic statements like these, the young people understand what’s going on. What a load of crap. It’s obvious that Johnston hasn’t been talking to our oilmen who have nothing but praise for what Notley is trying to do, to get us back on the path that Peter Lougheed had put us on, by collecting proper royalties and taxes and of course getting our oil to new markets and of course would have if there hadn’t been lawsuits to overcome. .
Maybe he would like to explain to us how Jason Kenney’s promises are going to make things a lot better for us, like not increasing taxes or royalties for his rich friends , while he gives away billions more in tax breaks and royalties and provides them with a lot more privatized health care so they can have first priority to our health care system. How stupid does Johnston think we are? Maybe he can explain how slashing billions off government spending like Kenney is promising by dumping the costs onto the backs of the people, like Klein did, going to be better for us? It’s no secret that Alberta has the highest percentage per capita of seniors in Canada using the food banks and Johnston is willing to let Kenney make the situation even worse. Why would anyone support that ????