Canadian Commissionaires?

Canadians have a government controlled not by the people, but by a small band of unelected, anonymous and imprudent individuals in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).  This over-powered and slippery organization acts like Royalty; respectively, there is an elected King, along with an endless entourage of sycophants, advisers and court jesters waiting to catch his ear.

 

The PMO looks at government policy through the light of the polls.  With an accountant’s empathy, everything is reduced to numbers.  If half the country supports you, why change things?  This means the PMO’s office is spinning its wheels trying to look busy, when all they are doing is maintaining the circumstances that got them elected.  The most important issue for our breed of politicians is to get re-elected and keep their cushy jobs.  The goal is certainly not to be innovative and find solutions for our Nation’s problems in a sensible fashion.  Once elected, greed, ego, power and self-importance are more essential than the melt-down of our entire economy.  Housing, Medicare and jobs become issues that receive a lot of hot air, empty promises, and expensive commissions to study the problem, then release a lengthy report that no one reads and offers no solutions.  Even the politicians that intended to fight for change are seduced by the golden pensions and financial rewards.  Before they’ve moved any furniture, their extended family, friends, neighbors and friends of friends all receive affluent jobs and are now set for life.

 

One of the greatest excuses for unnecessary employment would have to be the “commissions” they form whenever they pretend they want to study something.  No one even bothers to find out how many other “reports” there are, read the existing literature on the subject or talk to people that are currently experts in the field.  There are dozens of reports on how to save our public system, not the least of which is the PM’s Blue Ribbon Panel Report on health care from the 1990’s.  Why were its solutions never applied?  What about the suggested changes from that $15 million dollar Romanow Commission Report?  Erstwhile Minister of Health Alan Rock believed the changes would reorganize hospital administration costs enough to fix our medical system.

 

If the changes would cure our ailing system, why were they never implemented?  Sadly, these expensive commissions study the problem, then offer solutions no one reads. 

 

The clock has been ticking too long: someone needs to rewind it.  Once they have a commission studying the problem, the initial issue is supplanted by another issue, and now the global economic meltdown.  What was exceedingly critical has been replaced by something even more devastating.  It might be argued that our Government welcomes these imminent disasters as they refocus our attention on more current and calamitous events.  And, they get another chance to grab the spotlight and look like they are ready and prepared with the perfect plan “to save the nation”.  Hogwash.  Another chance for more commissions.  Finally, a job for Uncle Bill.

 

Purporting to do something while actually doing nothing really shines through the cracks in these committee doors.  MPs spend 50 percent of their time on these government controlled committees dong studies and reviewing legislation.  They guzzle public money and waste the valuable time of hundreds of parliamentarian employees.  These studies are then used for nothing more than a doorstop.  MPs know this, yet persist with the sham, wasting their time, their staff and public money.  But that’s why there are so many well paid jobs in Ottawa.  Sticking to your principles and demonstrating leadership on issues is a one-way ticket to being ostracized from your colleagues and the system.

 

Parliament must be reformed to allow MPs to tackle problems that matter to the public.  The public needs to be engaged in the political process; otherwise, nescience will make them their own victims.   Never expect sympathy from the greedy fat cats we sent “abroad”.  Circumstances and the human faces behind them are gone; our government protects itself and only sees spread sheet columns and how the numbers add up.  Needy citizens will become needier, the poor will become poorer and struggling middle class workers will be poor and needy very soon.  Needless to say, an economic meltdown might hurt us, but our well-padded politicians have exorbitant pensions that ensure luxurious retirement.  Our tax dollars at work again.  Ironically, one hundred years ago there was no income tax, and a political career meant trying to help your constituents

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