A self-ordained professor’s tongue too serious to fool, Spouted out that liberty is just equality in school
“Equality, ” I spoke the word as if a wedding vow. (4th verse – My Back Pages Lyrics by Bob Dylan (1964)
Because it’s 2015
Here we are in mid-February 2021 waiting for our turn to receive the vaccine that will protect us from Covid-19. It’s been almost a year since this pandemic of a world war severity started. As a nation, even, on the whole, as a world, we’ve co-operated with the directions of the various levels of governments as they struggled to learn about this Covid virus. Questioning – how it works, how to prevent catching it, how to contain it and how to cure it.
As we learned about it, the prevention models kept changing, no touch of body parts, distancing, talking without covering and keep washing 20 seconds, 30 seconds, thoroughly, this way, that way. Finally got into a standard prevention – masks (3 ply preferred), no yelling, no shouting, no singing, distancing and only a few people together. The fewer the better. It’s good, we can get through this. They’re working on the vaccine. The end is in sight (we hope and pray.)
Mid- December – it’s Hallelujah time! The first vaccine has been approved. The 10 month’s we’ve had to prepare for this phase of the world war type of pandemic is now ready to kick off and we can start to plan for a life that is the new normal. Whatever that may be. I digress, so many ways of doing things have changed because of necessity. The daily activities (when we could go back to the way it was before) may never return to the ‘before’. We have gone through a period of ‘had to’ change and some of those changes are great, finally, it’s about time: to I missed that, it’s good to hug and hold and be close and cheer together with a crowd!
‘Because it’s 2015’ –
refers to Justin Trudeau’s commitment to have a gender balance as his prime structure model of his cabinet, followed closely by ethnicity, religion and younger age . The Justin (and his wonderful crowd of 2015) felt he could do wrong. His not enlightened, but post-modern model will finally solve not only Canadian problems going back at least 150 years, but possibly the world’s problems going back 500 years. All the present important tribes were covered. ‘We can do no wrong’ was the resounding refrain.
The art of playing government was the principle for the former teacher. Everything he (Trudeau) had learned from a textbook or on a processive liberal professor’s knee could be applied. This structure continued to 2019 and the lack of knowledge and experience in his cabinet caused him numerous difficulties. SNC Lavalin, & Navy Procurement to name a couple did nothing for Trudeau in learning to how to select the leaders Canada needs.
The results of the 2019 election produced a result that Andrew Scheer had lost, not that Trudeau had won. Even though Trudeau still had a talent pool available to him to build a capable experienced cabinet, he chose to continue his post-modern dreams with 50% gender balancing, ethnic diversity, and a younger age.
A little background on the cabinet selection pool that Trudeau had available. The were 154 Liberal MP’s elected . Out of the 53 Women elected he had to select 18 members of Cabinet. That is 34% of the women. They consisted of Journalists, Doctors, Lawyers, Social Workers, Tons of Public Servants, a Business Person and a Professor. Out of the 101 Men elected he had had to select 19 members of Cabinet. That is only 19% of the men. They consisted of Journalist, Doctors, Lawyers, Social Workers, Tons of Public Servants, Professors, and a couple Businessman.
The biggest sacrifice of the post-modern way of thinking is the lack of respect for knowledge consumed or experience absorbed. These are invaluable for making decisions that not only have relevance for what happening now, but also for laying essential groundwork for the future. The knowledge and experience give a basis for actions that are occurring now but can be explained by showing actions performed sacrificially in the past.
Rod Dreher wrote a book ‘Live Not By Lies’ ( Which by the way was a title of a speech given by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn before being exiled by the Russians, because of the book ‘The Gulag Archipelago’ which described the atrocities that occurred in the Soviet Union under Communist rule.) In it, he states “Equity means treating persons unequally, regardless of their skills and achievements, to achieve an ideologically correct result.”
Anita Anand is a new MP in 2019. Her career before this was a professor of Law at U of T. While certainly no slouch, the real-world experience could be limited. I believe she is attempting to do the best she can, given the believe set that presides in cabinet.
The harsh reality is that this is a greatest hardship that has hit Canada and the world since the World War II. This needs to be acknowledged and used as a basis of all actions. We need the best people available. Period. Don’t care if they’re white, black, Asian, Indigenous, male, female, straight or gay. Just the best.
Because it’s 2021!
The best will understand the importance of the crisis. The best will understand the mission – get vaccines to all Canadians as soon as possible. The best knows the players. The best knows the facilities, The best know the politics. We need a Winston Churchill, a person singularly suited to solve this as quickly as possible.
It’s hard to believe that the Canadian government wouldn’t realize that other world governments are going to protect themselves first. For Canada to build a vaccine producing facility starting almost immediately would have been the only prudent thing to do. The abilities wasted going forward with imposed restrictions and our economies at a minimalistic pace, until this is resolved, has an enormous cost.
Anita Anand should have been yelling this from the top of the Parliament buildings. But she did not know better. How can we accelerate our receipt of vaccines under this exist situation? We are presently dependent on two world sources for the vaccines Both (Europe and the US.), we have had long histories with and sometimes it’s critical for these governments to be reminded of the past action when Canada was there to help the ‘cause’ with the continuing expectation that our relationship is based on all sides ‘paying it forward’.
We were there for the US in WW II, the Korean War, Sept. 11th with Gander, presently with material going between borders so both our industries can continue to provide all we need. Biden might have to be reminded by his buddy – Justin, that we are in one big basket working together. If we do not get better at the same time the US industries and markets will have to wait for Canada to catch up to be able receive the benefits of our market needs.
As an immigrant born in The Netherlands, a story often repeated to me was that of a town in Holland – Holton, where school children maintain the cemetery holding over 1350 Canadians buried there from the Second World War. The image below shows them lighting candles on Christmas Eve each year. They also have ceremonies honoring them on May 4 and November 11th.
(Photo Credit: https://twitter.com/lindavanderwijk
I’m sure if Holland is gently reminded that the EU is making it difficult for Pfizer in Belgium to honor its contract for Canada to supply it Covid-19 vaccine I really do believe that steps would be made the we would receive our vaccines in a timely manner.
A great version of the song My Back Pages is song by the group America – Following is the link to it on YouTube –
A self-ordained professor’s tongue too serious to fool, Spouted out that liberty is just equality in school
“Equality, ” I spoke the word as if a wedding vow. (4th verse – My Back Pages Lyrics by Bob Dylan (1964)