GIFTS AND GRIPES ~ Election Concerns

This federal election raises many issues, i.e. four elections in seven years! The Americans have also had four federal elections in seven years, any one of which could and did change the economic direction and political policies of the country. Coalition! Is the group of Conservative Members of Parliament not a coalition of Reform and Progressive Conservatives? Should not all decisions of our government be made by a majority of the elected Members of Parliament regardless of their political stripe? Let us not confuse good government with righteous self importance. Let us also not confuse righteous self importance with conservative values. The real issue in this election however is the issue of economy versus the democratic nature of our country. Short term economic concerns versus long term democratic rights? With regard to the economic concerns, we must realize that the responsibilities for our current economic strengths and/or weaknesses are shared by past and present Conservative and Liberal governments. Our strong banking position has been created by the adoption and preservation of strong banking legislation, the independence of our governments in the past fifty years and their ability not to yield to foreign interests and some domestic pressure to change our banking rules. Will either party's short term budget policies bring irreparable damage to our long term economy? Will future generations look back and say "We are in poverty now because of a budget decision you made in 2011"? Probably not! With regards to democratic rights, everything that we are as a country is based on democracy including our economic structure. Democracy is not only the rules that create the democracy but also an unrelenting respect for those rules. It is respecting the right of all citizens to participate and for their representatives to be heard. It is above all expecting the elected representatives to be truthful and act in good faith. Lying is the most egregious offence of any elected official. All parties should be held accountable for the truthfulness of their elected members. Will future generations look back and say "We lost our democracy because of your deceit in 2011"? Let's hope not. Let's hope that recent displays of disrespect for our democracy are not a slippery slope for others to magnify. Steven Harper said, immediately following the dissolution of parliament, "Canadians don't care about the wording in the legislation, the economy is all that's important". He is wrong. YES WE CARE!! Yes we care about our economy, but we had better care more about our democracy for the sake of those future generations. While others around the world are fighting and dying for what we have and more than one hundred thousand Canadians had died in foreign wars to defend it, we can ill afford to allow any one person to injure it. No one man is that important.
~ Bill Stuart, Okotoks

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