The Wrong Path Taken

 On April 2nd I wrote the following piece and submitted it to the Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal. They published it in the April 6th edition of the paper under the title "Leaders take us down the wrong path".

There is in the news a lot these days something called the “Great Reset”, what ever that means. Having said that I would like to see a reset, one where we go back to a time where everyone was considered “essential”. Where we did not have a government trying to bankrupt us resulting in, we, the people, risking freezing in the dark. And we all know that with our climate, which unfortunately has not got any warmer, that death by freezing is far too likely. A time where government would not even think of trying to impose restrictions on us without solid evidence that it worked and that had been properly vetted by our elected representatives rather than imposed by a heartless bureaucracy.

A time when “government” was involved in setting reasonable rules that still allowed free enterprise to do its magic of providing jobs for those with, at times, simply basic skills and producing products that at one time were only available to the rich and in doing so made us feel richer than we really were. A time where we showed much more respect for one another. Where we felt that we were equal in that we all had the same opportunity no matter our wealth status.

I could go on, but I hope you get the point. Up until the early 1990’s that was our world. As Timbuk 3 sang back in 1986, at that time we all thought with reasonable certainty that “the future is so bright, I gotta wear shades”. Now the future is looking darker and darker as our Provincial and Federal leaders have forgotten, some intentionally, why they were elected in the first place; to provide good government to Canadians and ensure our future and the future of generations to come.

I know that by wanting to go back I sound like a traditional Conservative, one who “conserves” and does not like change but that is not the case. Rather staying on the beaten path and building on past accomplishments we let ourselves get sidetracked on a path that even at that time was fraught with uncertainty as the reasoning used was unsound yet far too many of us had grown complacent and privileged to the point that it was believed we could do what was impossible. Too many bought into the idea we were omnipotent. We are not, never have been and never will.  We went down the wrong path for the wrong reasons and the time is running out to backtrack to where we went wrong and get back on the right path. Let us not be like those people who followed their GPS down a back road during winter to become stuck and end up freezing to death just because they gave unquestioned fealty to that fancy gizmo they thought was taking them down a better path. There is no shame in admitting you were wrong and backtracking to a better route forward. That is a reset worth doing, while we still can.