On a personal level, I have allowed myself to be distracted for the last while…(consequently there have been no recent blog posts) primarily it was by the very consequential federal election we had in late April, and how I was very engaged in ensuring that as a country we did not allow ourselves to venture down the path, that seemingly several other countries have, into a space where selfishness and greed prosper amid the toxic politics of anger.
The existing federal government of the time had guided us through perhaps the most challenging of times in the last 75 years, including with our closest neighbour, 4 exhausting and chaotic years of Trump…forced to renegotiate NAFTA, successfully at that…navigated Covid, the most serious health crisis the world had seen in our lifetimes, including the misguided pushbacks on life saving heath restrictions…an invasion of Ukraine by Russia and the geopolitical implications to the global energy supply, spiking prices…the rapid global inflation that resulted from the economic reopening post-Covid…the resulting escalation of global interest/mortgage rates…but still avoiding a recession and maintaining a triple A credit rating…managing the most consequential year over year impact of the climate crisis, highlighted by the wildfires and smoke covering much of the country while defending the steps being taken to limit the CO2 being released into the atmosphere…the challenging situation in Israel/Gaza where every step can be mis-interpreted by one side or the other…however, after almost ten years in power, the electorate had tuned out the long serving leader(s) and wanted a new voice(s).
Unfortunately, we were dealing with an official opposition party which was no longer interested in fulfilling its responsibility of holding the government to account, but which demonized opponents, intimidated journalists, disrespected institutions, politicized the rights of the vulnerable, scapegoated immigrants for the housing situation (actually, it is significantly impacted by the financialization of the housing market by big money investors), weaponized peoples anxieties, politicized tragic events, emboldening violent extremists and others who are detached from reality & undermine truth…to say nothing about the childish antics. Watching the leader of the official opposition debase himself with goofy conspiracy theories designed to continue ratcheting up the paranoia of a small group of the population, quite frankly was embarrassing for many Canadians…unfortunately that appeared to be a core part of Conservative Party strategy as they saw this wing of the party as useful agents of chaos. Equally, Canadians recognized that their message of hate, despair, division & everything is broken is not leadership, its populism…we certainly didn’t want to elect a Prime Minister and a party who didn’t seem to care about the truth. Most Canadians recognized that you cannot run a country on outrage and insults…
However, all of these consequential events and situations had and still have many of us struggling with how to understand and deal with it all…many look for someone to blame for their struggles, even when that’s too simplistic. Along with economic anxiety, social uncertainty, and health vulnerability driven by climate change and continuing repercussions of the global pandemic, a significant challenge is addressing the growing wealth inequality highlighted by the staggering and growing wealth concentration in Canada and around the world (the benefits from economic growth in recent decades have increasingly gone to capital and not wages…no serious person continues to believe that cutting taxes on the wealthy will result in trickledown economic benefits)…this escalating wealth gap is creating anxiety and anger among many young people leading many to lose faith in our civic institutions, making them vulnerable to hard core alternatives…highly unequal societies leads to a destabilizing of democracies…there is a strong call for generational fairness…so, the question before us wasn’t merely about supporting or opposing a single politician, it was about the values we choose to uphold as a nation.
Thusly, with a new leader of the governing Liberal party, Canadians took a closer look at the options and reaffirmed their understanding that we can nuture a healthy, kind and more just and equitable Canada and world.
The new PM Carney headed shortly thereafter to an oval office meeting with the current occupant and told Trump, as he again spewed his delusional comments about Canada becoming the 51st state, that “There are some places that are never for sale,” going on to state that “Having met with the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign, it’s not for sale. It won’t be for sale ever.” And so it began…
It will be extremely challenging for the Canadian government as well as many like-minded governments in other parts of the world, to manage the chaos emanating from the United States, and to reinforce our shared human values of hope, kindness, compassion, dignity, honesty, good manners, inspiration, optimism, fairness, decency, decorum, integrity, understanding, dare we say love and courage with support for those doing the hard work of building communities and ensuring that we have a climate stable future.
At Canoe Foundation, our mission is to financially support and advocate for Indigenous Peoples to be leaders in the movement for sustainable and effective solutions to climate change, and for a peaceful, healthy and green future. Our Paddle Project is our fundraising initiative and every purchase of a Canoe Foundation Paddle is a hand up for the earth and for those Indigenous Peoples on the front lines of climate change making a difference for all of us. Every purchase is to acquire a symbol of engagement and support for Indigenous climate solutions.
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