The federal Liberal government is proving to be an extremely costly administration for the people of Canada, and Canadians likely won’t have any opportunity to exercise their franchise for another three years.
The deficit for this year, the Year of the Pandemic, has ballooned to astronomical levels, and the overall debt is forecast to hit an unprecedented $1.2 trillion dollars, a figure that most people would have trouble even imagining.
Mixed into this massive debt is a scandal that may or may not be the undoing of the minority Liberal government, namely the involvement of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Finance Minister Bill Morneau with the WE charity.
While the Ottawa press corps are wide-eyed with the prospect of Trudeau appearing before the ethics committee to testify, Canadians have to consider if anything he says is true or worth listening to.
In addition, there have been hints of some opposition parties considering triggering an election this fall unless Morneau and/or Trudeau step down from their positions.
The Liberals are in a minority position due to their showing in the federal election of a year ago, and the alienation and anger of the West in no small part led to this state. There is no representation whatsoever of the Liberals in Alberta and Saskatchwan, a fact that the Liberals have done absolutely nothing to change.
One big factor in this is the oil and gas industry, which is a major part of the economy for these two provinces, and which is hurting in a major way, with no drilling rigs poking holes for oil in Saskatchewan and production way down.
This isn’t the only factor — another is the refusal of the Liberals to reduce or cancel their regressive carbon tax on Saskatchewan, even during the economic nightmare due to the COVID-19 pandemic — but it leads to the question of what another election might result in for Canada.
For Saskatchewan, this fall will already have a provincial election along with municipal and school board elections, so to have yet another federal election would be a hardship for this province.
Unless, of course, it meant doing away with the Liberals at the federal level … but not the huge, huge cost they have incurred from this pandemic and from their economic policies that are crushing the West into the ground.
It’s difficult to conceive of any party taking on the current situation in Canada and doing something positive, but there is no question that something needs to be done.
The future of the country may depend on what happens in the next few months. Some of it may depend on the pandemic, which unfortunately is not going away anytime soon, and some depends on what economic recovery is possible. Let us hope something positive can result as we slowly recover and become strong again.
