December 1, 2003
The intelligence of the average Canadian citizen has to be just below that of a chicken. How else could one explain our consistently bad governments, our reckless fiscal policies and our complete disinterest in anything that affects our future well being?
Take the environment. We tend to gobble up junk science like so much chicken feed as people like David Suzuki, Maurice Strong, Greenpeace and others of their ilk are constantly warning that the sky is falling. In the process we repeatedly shoot ourselves in the foot economically, as we stifle business initiates that would otherwise create wealth, on the basis that we must "save the environment". Our lame duck Prime Minister has committed us to the Kyoto Accord, but has left what we are actually going to do open-ended. Never mind that the Kyoto Accord is a massive wealth redistribution scheme designed to funnel wealth from first world nations to third world nations. The Accord’s so-called ‘pollution credit’ scheme is the most hare-brained idea ever conceived. It essentially states that it’s okay for poor, developing nations to pollute all they want, while wealthier nations must cut their economic output in order to reduce pollution. Doesn’t anyone want to know why it makes sense that Chinese factories can spew out tons of sulfur dioxide, while hockey moms in Brampton are being penalized economically for driving an SUV?
Then there’s that merry band of kleptocrats we continue to elect, who bribe us with our own money. Is anyone curious about how a guy who spent 40 years in ‘public service’, averaging about 100 grand a year manages to become a multi-millionaire? These are the kind of rags-to-riches stories one would expect from the likes of Robert Mugabe or Idi Amin, not from Canadian politicians. I didn’t major in math at university, but even I can tell that something doesn’t totally add up. Even when someone asks the right questions, as the National Post did in the case of the Grand-Mère imbroglio, the stone walls went up and no one seemed to give a damn--not even the RCMP. Totally stupid!
Gun control, anyone? Here’s an idea worthy of a country of morons: Let’s spend a couple of billion dollars making law-abiding farmers and sportsmen register their guns, so we can give the impression to yuppie moms in downtown Toronto that we are doing something meaningful about violent crime. Then, if anyone squawks about the high cost, we can make them look bad by citing bogus statistics about how many lives we’ve saved and watch the rubes eat it up!
Feeling a bit under the weather? Well, we have the best health care system in the universe. Just make sure that you don’t need to make use of it. Should you require an MRI, by-pass surgery or treatment for breast cancer, you’re in for a long wait. Are you in the market for a primary care physician? Good luck finding one, as none are taking on new patients. Like everything else in our wonderful nation, our leaders have totally screwed it up, but what the hell, it’s free, right?
Have you ever noticed how stupid people are never in favour of anything, but tend to be against everything? This is how we choose the people who represent us at the various levels of government. No one really cares about policy, we just vote for the guy that makes the most outrageous promises and then act surprised when they’re broken. Dalton McGuinty has just proven this point with his plethora of 231 election promises. Yet some people seem to be upset when he begins breaking them in the first week in office. Duh! Then there’s David Miller, the new mayor of Toronto, who has single-handedly managed to divert the attention of Toronto’s real problems to focus on stopping a crummy bridge! I guess this means that taxpayers really aren’t interested in increased taxes, businesses moving jobs out of the city, homelessness, another SARS outbreak or anything else other than this bridge to the island airport.
How can anyone but a kind hearted idiot-savant work all year, only to have more than half of his earnings flushed down the toilet without objection? But that’s pretty well the state of affairs in our wonderful country. Anyone protesting that we pay too much in taxes is made to feel dirty by accusations of greed. To me it’s one of life’s great mysteries that Canadians seem to hate the rich. There is an implication that anyone who makes a dollar more than you do has somehow gained his wealth in less than honest ways. But it doesn’t seem to bother Canadians when their politicians rob them blind. When they’re caught with their hands in the cookie jar, they’re often ‘punished’ with an ambassadorship to Denmark.
Taxation wouldn’t be too bad if the money were spent wisely. If we had ready access to medical services, or turned out wunderkinder from our schools every year, or didn’t have the streets of our major cities teeming with beggars, I could see that the taxes were doing some good. As it is the money is largely being wasted with government functionaries blowing $160,000 per year on ‘travel expenses’ and a billion of it just disappearing into thin air as it did with the HRDC two years ago, while every special interest group in the country feeds at the trough beside the politicians and their toadies. I don’t understand why our government should fund studies of the reproductive cycles of African Women, or "Buddies in Bad Times" theatre, or gay pride parades, while soldiers in the Canadian Military are having to make use of food banks.
Being stupid isn’t so bad. It’s being unwilling to learn that’s the real crime here. It seems to me that Canadians, as a nation, have managed to fool themselves into believing that nothing they do can make a difference. As a result, only 30 percent to 50 percent of the electorate bother to vote in any election. That’s the real stupidity.