Editor:
Watching the presidential investiture and the people who were invited I was reminded of my younger years when I used to hang out with members of the Vancouver Stock Exchange (see Wikipedia). Thankfully I learned the valuable lesson that we become the people that we hang out with and moved into civil society instead.
Whatever one’s political stripe, these people are descendants of the robber barons, the new western oligarchs who don’t care about anything except satisfying their own egos and greed. We are heading towards our own “throw the bums out” moment and once again we will face our own cynicism and apathy when it comes to voting.
There are good people in all parties and all carry a bit of what we need to thrive. There are also people who are incredibly destructive or ineffectual except for commanding a large salary. For example, Mark Carney ran both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England to much acclaim and no chest thumping, while Christy Clark has good teeth and remains, in my opinion, responsible for the boondoggle that is BC Ferries.
I fail to understand why we can’t have Mark Carney as prime minister, Poilievre as foreign minister, Singh in charge of social services and Freeland in charge of defense. All I ask is that they don’t embarrass us and keep their hands out of the till, or am I being hopelessly naive?
I also fail to understand why our country, which is similar in population to Ukraine, does not understand the value of a highly trained militia and the benefits of persuading our sons and daughters to enlist and learn something. We are not warmongers but I am reminded of the cat next door who deploys a fearsome set of teeth and claws and whom I avoid annoying.
Chester Machniewski
Gibsons
