About That Alberta Health Care Story
06/07/2009 05:12
Don:
I was very interested in the comments by George Proulx and Jim Starko on your Website yesterday about pensions and health care. They reflect what I believe is a fairly common sentiment in Alberta about the sense of
entitlement and arrogance that characterizes the Stelmach government.
This government’s behaviour is typified by extreme, even obscene, generosity to people who for one reason or another are insiders and cronies, and mean-spirited parsimony and outright hostility toward programs that benefit ordinary taxpayers or society as a whole. Gold-plated pensions for well-connected senior managers are an example of the former; attacks on funding for pensioners’ pharmaceutical needs and on our public health care system are examples of the latter.
George is completely correct when he suggests it is nonsense to claim capable and talented people won’t do good work for salaries much more in line with what the rest of us are paid. And Jim is quite right to state that anything done by the Minister of Health must have the approval of the Premier. That’s how our Parliamentary system works. But I am growing impatient with suggestions like Jim’s that Premier Stelmach should pay attention to “what Albertans are trying to tell him.” Why should he? We never hold him to account.
Really, we Albertans have no one but ourselves to blame for this sorry state of affairs. We are perpetually dissatisfied with the government’s policies. We constantly complain we weren’t informed of the government’s agenda during election campaigns. And we regularly return this government to power with massive majorities. Is it any wonder they seem to grow more arrogant with each passing year? What would they have to do to incur our displeasure in the polling booth? Drop an atomic bomb on us? I fear the survivors would crawl out of the rubble and vote Conservative!
Questioned about their voting behaviour, Albertans often ask, “What alternative is there?” But really, shouldn’t the question now be, “What alternative could be worse?” At this point, letters to the editor, or letters to our Conservative MLAs, are not going to do any good. The only remedy that will work is to demonstrate our dissatisfaction by voting for opposition candidates on voting day. If we can’t bring ourselves to do even that, I guess we deserve our fate.
David Climenhaga
St. Albert
SINC SAYS:
I suspect there is much truth in what you write David, but until the NDP or the Liberals come up with a charismatic leader, a real leader, they will remain in the political wilderness in Alberta. Brian Mason is boring and tired and is seen as the bus driver he once was by most voters. The Liberals keep trying and failing to find that person as well.
Tired old familiar opposition faces just don’t cut it in Alberta. They need much younger people involved. Someone with vision and foresight and the guts to enact popular programs and protect seniors, but not forgetting all Albertans. That elusive mystery leader of either opposition party is still very much at large.
