I had some time to listen to a Jordan Peterson podcast this last week. In today’s modern age of technology pointedly creeping in to every facet of our lives, there are several skillful orators that are both bluntly captivating and not afraid to throw subtle humor into the lecture to bring the point across.
One statement Mr. Peterson made in his lecture that had me stopping and rewinding was a fairly simple statement at first, but after listening to it several times over, it struck a nerve that has been bothering me politically for some time.
“People who think they don’t deserve better, don’t go looking for it.”
This statement is a fundamental pinning of Western Canadian politics as we know it. Since Confederation, Western Canada has been told governmentally by Easterners that there is nothing better to look forward to,…don’t think about it…and by the way,… send us some money. We will get back to this point in a moment.
We all see the pending landslide of support that has grown out of the Conservative Party of Canada’s latest leader, Honorable member for Nepean-Carlton, Pierre Poilievre saying all the right things to draw together as many Canadians as possible from across a broad spectrum of backgrounds and regions. This looks like an easy election for Mr. Poilievre considering the hourly scandals plaguing Mr. Trudeau and his brash capricious abandon toward the rule of law, not to mention his control of both the media and the RCMP.
Mr. Poilievre has been short on details on any of his promises thus far, but let’s face it, there is a lot of campaigning in the general area post dawn of the Canadian Middle East, (or what we like to call Manitoba). He knows that the majority of the seats are East of Manitoba/Ontario border and that is where he must win his majority. So, with Western Canada being short sighted, failing history class, and not looking for anything better than the least common denominator, Mr. Poilievre is free to concentrate his time in the East.
Mr. Poilievre has inherited a few of the past Conservative leaders problems, and no one from the West has aired so much as a murmur about. Mr. Poilievre is aware of these issues, but so far has chosen to stay unique quiet about them in a more, “Let sleeping dogs lay”, approach, instead of having to face some realities that are not so easy to answer, yet alone talk about in ways of correcting.
We sat idly by as Brian Mulroney was the first G7 member to sign up to the United Nations Framework on Climate Change back in 1992, yes, Conservatives slowly paved the way for Climate alarmism today and UN Agenda 2030. We just have to look at the few independent media outlets to see the havoc and pushback that is causing all over the world. We are dealing with the problems created by Agenda 2030 all the way down to our municipal levels of government today and it is getting interesting to follow your tax dollars, where those dollars are going and the green 3 ring circus of strings attached to trying to get anything done at the municipal level.
We sat back and watched with great hope as Ukraine became independent and Steven Harper sent Christina Freeland’s mother to Ukraine to build a constitution and legal system for the fledgling country,… now a disaster of epic proportions. I’m not sure at this point who is taking the current situation in Ukraine harder, Steven Harper or Christina Freeland. Time will tell.
We all sat back and watched the depleted Canadian Senate be forgotten about in a rare glimpse of brash cockiness by Steven Harper, only to witness it be deliberately filled with Liberal donors and supporters to ensure that the next several non liberal governments basically be strangled by an unelected house, who only have to answer to their respected underwriters.
The current elephant in the room is our countries deficit and debt. This is an incredible problem for any government who wants to try and tackle it. For the 2024 Federal budget,10% of all government revenue will go just to pay interest. That is an incredible handicap to place on the people of the country and those who want to govern it when the year over year interest cost is growing! 20% for 2021/22, 43% for 2022/23 and 34% for 2023/24! (See page 16 of the document below.) Justin took on more debt so we didn’t have to. He is just passing that problem on to the next generation and the next government.
Years ago, there was a slight glimmer of hope in Deborah Grey, Preston Manning and the Reform Party during the Mulroney hay day that brought a badly needed dose of reality to the House of Commons, along with another development called the Bloc Quebecois. Former disgruntled Conservative Environmental Minister Lucien Bouchard Leading the Bloc could tell you something. Both were regional parties at the time looking to promote the interests of their respected areas of this nation. Both reginal parties were created by people who thought they deserved better and went looking for it! But the Western Identity was all so easily snuffed out by the Progressive Conservative Party looking for any way possible to form government, short of actually doing something conservative and/or progressive.
So what, may I ask, is holding us back from looking for something better? The Bloc is doing well, and that is simply because Quebecer’s want their ideas brought out on a national level and have excelled at bringing those ideas to light no matter how distasteful they may seem to the West. Why are we not looking for something better? Why are we not thinking about this?
There is a second quote that might answer that question…
2% of people think, 18% of people think they think, and 80% of people would rather die than think.
As a Western Party, Maverick needs to tap into that 2% of people that think independently and want to go looking for something better. We have to face facts, and some of them are quite unpleasant. Mr. Poilievre will have to go with his hand out to the powers brokers of Eastern Canada and will have to leave the West alienated yet again, or at the bare minimum, spin the story to make it appear that he is doing the West a favor. History has shown us that, at best, a conservative government will put in place what we are told is a good idea, only to have consecutive governments capitalize on these policies to, at least, keep the West in the economic grips of the East.
Mr. Poilievre can keep his talk of “Common Sense Government”, If you are a career politician, common sense is a synonym for smoke and mirrors. I for one, want representation that works for the people, not politicians and their sponsors. Mr. Poilievre has some hard decisions ahead of him, but if we learned anything from history, we are looking at the next Brian Mulroney. The West will be used to finance the country and pay for all the wants, needs, and wishes the East can dream of.
The West wants something better, and we better start looking for it!
Regards,
Bevan
Bevan Kelbert is a grain farmer in West Central Manitoba growing wheat, canola, soybeans peas, barley and oats using a combination of old and cutting-edge technology to maintain a successful small farm. Armed with a diploma of Agricultural Engineering Technology, Bevan aspires to be a farmer version of Nasa’s Gene Kranz, “I don’t care about what anything was DESIGNED to do, I care about what it CAN do.” Bevan sits on the Maverick board as the representative for Manitoba. Featured image was generated using Bing AI.