When a Government is Past it's Sell-By Date

Just pulled this quote/rant from Facebook.  I claim no ownership/authorship.  Does make a point though.  A very definite point....

"I just saw someone tell a distant relative to avoid social issue debates when choosing a party, and that they're voting Conservative to, "Preserve our economy, their family and their bank account. "  wink emotic

Our dollar is shit and our economy is terrible. There's nothing to preserve. We're the only G7 country in a recession and the IMF just downgraded our growth outlook yesterday.

Although we did have a 'balanced budget' after they sold our GM shares (at a loss of 3.5 billion dollars. It also removed the incentive for GM to continue manufacturing in Canada, which lead to a cut of 1000 jobs in Oshawa alone within 3 weeks of the sale), cut 2 billion dollars from our contingency fund, stole 1.8 billion dollars from EI (which we all pay into), and took 900 million dollars from sick leave benefits for public service employees.

All of our money and resources were put into the oil industry. In addition to the negative environmental impact and the further strain on our relationship with many First Nations communities, that turned out to be a terrible financial decision as oil prices continue to drop. A few years ago, I knew at least a dozen men working on oil rigs. Now I don't know any, because they've all either been laid off, or injured on the job.

Then there are the jobs lost from the massive cuts to healthcare and the arts. For the first time in 2 decades, the number of nurses working in Canada declined. My doctor is paying out of pocket for his patients to have pap tests, because the government no longer covers the costs, and he doesn't want women to put off having them. And I don't know a single person who works in arts or the media in Canada who hasn't at the very least seen a pay cut while their coworkers were laid off. A lot of companies just fired all of their employees then hired them back as freelancers at much lower rates and without benefits. As a disabled person who works in the arts, the cuts to both sectors has been nothing short of devastating.

There's also a promised 12 billion dollar increase on military spending (serious question: why?) while making massive cuts to Veterans Affairs. They cut lifetime pensions for injured veterans, shut down 9 offices (resulting in 89 jobs lost, leaving 8 employees to handle 17 000 veterans) and cut over 900 jobs from Veterans Affairs (mostly from the disability awards branch). Despite the massive increase in veterans in need of mental health treatment, there's an average of an 8 month wait for veterans seeking mental help, and a 24% refusal rate for veterans seeking mental health help through their disability benefits. While this was happening, the government gave $500 000 in bonuses to management for cutting budgets (which they did really well, apparently, since they returned 1.13 billion dollars allocated for veterans services to the general revenue). The Conservative government then spent another $750 000 dragging out a class action lawsuit by veterans trying to get their pensions back.

Then there are even more court costs from the senate scandal, in which everyone involved in both the acts and the cover-up, with the exception of Mac Harb, was appointed by Harper. The court costs are on top of the cost of the RCMP investigation and the million dollars of fraudulent expenses.

Speaking of immeasurably stupid court costs: we've yet to hear how much we've spent trying to prevent one solitary woman from wearing a niqab during her citizenship ceremony, despite the fact that she was only the second woman in history to even request it. Those costs will continue to rise, by the way, because they've stated that they plan to appeal and take it to the supreme court.

In keeping with the string of really, really awful money decisions, we just engaged in a secret arms trade deal (literally, keeping it a secret was a part of the deal) with Saudi Arabia, a country that is schedule to crucify one 17 year old and behead another for taking part in a protest. They also just threatened all of their citizens with execution if they post anything negative about the government on the internet. We sold that country military equipment and promised to keep it a secret. That's goddamn batshit cowsuit crazy, and gives a lot of insight into why our government continues to refuse to sign the UN's Arms Trade Treaty (we're the only NATO country not to do so, despite pressure from all of our allies). Had we signed the treaty, we would have had to report the deal to the UN, at which point it would have been rejected because of the aforementioned human rights violations.

And all of that is without getting into issues like missing and murdered Indigenous women, cuts to Canada Post, bill C-51, the complete inaction re: Syrian refugees, the lack of safe drinking water on reserves, the terrifying food deserts in Canada's North, the inaction on the Truth and Reconciliation report, our rapidly deteriorating international reputation, the admitted lip service to environmental concerns so Europe won't call us out about the oil industry, the mass deportation of Roma refugees, the cuts to healthcare for the non-Roma refugees, the cuts to international aid, the cuts to CBC, the cuts to women's health funding, the blatant Islamophobia, the baldfaced lying about marijuana, and Harper's refusal to not have Lego hair.

We're currently living in the worst possible Bush-era SNL sketch. We're past the point of parody. We're doing everything we've historically made fun of Americans for doing, only somehow worse because of our unearned, smug self-righteousness from decades of self-identifying as the world's peacekeepers. It's gross. It's so gross."