Check It Out: How one person can make a difference
By Joan Janzen
How one person can A ten-year-old asked, “What’s the difference between a banana and bananas?” His answer: “One is just a banana, the other is crazy.”
Lately there’s lots of stuff going on that’s bananas. Everyone has heard the reports of Canadians returning to Canada who were forced to quarantine at an undisclosed location because their negative tests were insufficient, or because they had been given the wrong test. These people were charged $2,000 for a few nights accommodation and their family members weren’t allowed to know where they were taken. These Radison Hotels are owned by a joint venture led by a Chinese state-owned hospitality company.
The federal government is looking into developing a national childcare program, which isn’t necessarily ‘bananas’. However Jasmine Moulton from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation stated $20 million was spent on just the consultation about this program. “It’s going to be incredibly expensive and it won’t solve the real child care problems,” she said. “Not every parent should be forced to use a government childcare program, which the government can’t afford. Quebec introduced this program last year and it cost $2.7 billion. Every taxpayer should be worried because the next generation will foot the cost for these child care costs.”
Jasmine said, the federal government is spending $1.8 billion every day, and they don’t even know what they’re spending it on. Katherine McKenna lost track of tens of billions of dollars spent on infrastructure, and $100 billion is slated to be spent when the economy begins to recover. “CERB payments, in many cases, were over compensating for lost income,” Jasmine said. “Debt today means taxes tomorrow. Much of the debt will be subject to interest hikes in a couple of years. This is historic spending. For people who care about programs, and care about the next generation, they really should be holding this reckless government to account.”
How will all this debt be paid? Dan McTeague, Former Liberal MP explained the recklessness of the new carbon tax and blocked pipelines. “When you lose that kind of capital because your number one export is oil and gas, how are you going to pay down the $400 billion tab you just rang up in the last 12 months? Let’s have some common sense.”
All of these circumstances could qualify as being ‘bananas’, and have ordinary taxpayers asking how one Canadian (banana) can make a difference? One Canadian lady was asking herself the same question, and decided to attend an Electoral District Association (EDA) meeting of the party to which she was a member. She let her name stand on a council and got voted in the policies part of the EDA.
Each council member expressed their opinions and a policy was brought forward at a local level. A resolution was put forward and the vote was taken. The results were 8 for and 7 against.
“So that’s the power of one person showing up and you never know if you’re going to be that person,” the woman said. “I was brand new to the board and brand new to the committee. It’s really important that each one of us shows up at the level where these decisions are being made. These policies are passed at the grassroots level, before they go forward at the national level.” That may be another difference between a banana and bananas.
You can contact me at joanjanzen@yahoo.com