Our Insecurity is Strangling Canadian Prosperity
“We’ve spent all this money, what do we have to show for it?” – Little Mrs. Graham lamenting the state of Canada’s finances many years ago.
These were the sentiments of one of my elementary school teachers some time back when I stopped in for a quick visit. As a note, we had two Mrs. Grahams, one small and one large. But the epitaph is as true today as it was those many years ago, where has all the money gone?
One of the areas of concern starting to rear up again in Canadian social media circles is the issue of waiting times for medical procedures and the general lack of medical availability. People are starting to see their own health, along with their family and friends, suffer due to the chronic inability of the medical system to perform. Have you ever tried to find a new family doctor? We have known for decades that the Boomer generation was going to swamp each sector of society as they moved through. So why the general lack of preparedness despite government assurances that more money is going into the system?
Sure, there was some chattering during last year’s Federal election regarding health care in this country. The Liberals made some vague noise about universal pharmacare and the NDP declared ‘Free for Everyone’ as they are wont to do. Did anyone believe that the Health care debate was getting the attention that a National crisis should normally garner? Even if the panacea of ‘Free Drugs for Everyone’ program is in the offing, it will take forever to work out the details and roll-out. The Liberals still have not fixed the Phoenix system for paying their own employees so the question is how will they not screw this up too?
This is not a swipe at any particular level or brand of government. This incompetence related to getting anything done in Canada crosses the entire political spectrum right down to the municipal level.
But let us get back to a little, old lady’s observation that Canada is bereft of any sort of meaningful accomplishments. The reason for our general lack of paradoxically not being able to get anything done despite mountains of cash being thrown at a problem is our insecurity complex related to being a poor nation.
What? Poor nation you say, that’s not right! Au contraire, we could have been a great nation but ever since WWII, Canada has slid further and further into obsolesce and we are squandering the resources that this country is blessed with.
Here is a pointed example of Canada’s insecurity related to the inconceivably long and expensive process of procuring military equipment, namely the New Shipborne Helicopter. The book, The Politics of Procurement by Aaron Plamondon, goes into exquisite detail over how the venerable Sea King helicopter which was to be replaced in 1975 has still not been fully replaced by the new Cyclone.
Read the book but here is an example of the mission creep which affects all Canadian institutions. The Statement of Requirements (SOR) for the original Sea King was only about four pages. When the military was starting to look for a replacement in 1975, the SOR had already ballooned to four volumes. All that extra time and effort jacks the ultimate cost of anything the military wants to buy. They do not get shiny, new toys very often so they want to get things right. Then because the government waffles over these decisions, it gives new governments time to cancel programmes outright and start their own politically driven agendas. That is how the CAF never gets their equipment. It is also how Canada does not get new pipelines and end up buying foreign oil from dictatorships.
General insecurity stalls out industrious Canadians. There is no point in going into the pipeline debate as those things get hopelessly mired down. But here is an example of something as simple as recovering a log from the bottom of a lake. In BC, when logs are floated across lakes, some become waterlogged and sink. This wood is still incredibly valuable and the diving company I worked for wanted to go after them. We did not bother because you needed an environmental permit to disturb the bottom of the lake, a permit to have the log on the surface, a permit to bring the log to the edge of the lake, a permit to bring a truck down to the edge of the lake, and a permit to take the log away. Now throw in a few more layers of bureaucracy like Indigenous and gender balance, and it is just not worth the effort for a small outfit. Ostensibly, regulations are meant to protect things but in reality, they serve to stifle industry.
All levels of government are bloated with civil servants whose job is to regulate the country to a standstill. Here is an example from what I observed in the military that is just as true of the civil service. An officer would enter a new job. In order to progress and be promoted, they needed to effect ‘change’. They were never in the job for long or had a budget large enough to push through a complex project that would take decades to see through and effect real change. They just fiddled with the system enough to piss off their subordinates. That is where the saying ‘The more things change, the more they stay the same’ comes from. Meanwhile, their budgets got spent mostly spinning wheels.
Here is an example from the Coast Guard. The West Coast fleet, back in the day, had a couple of ladies with Rolodexes looking after everyone’s pay and nary an issue. The system was modernized with a new building in downtown Vancouver with 50 employees and it went to shit. You were happy to get any sort of pay cheque and issues would take up to half a year to fix.
Here is one from the Veterans Hospital in Halifax. The building has rats. Nurses can hear them humping in the walls and ceilings. Veterans Affairs representatives told me to my face that they were aware of the problem and were having meetings to discuss solutions. The solution was to call an exterminator and kill the vermin. Instead, admin types endlessly study the issue as they are reticent over spending money to fix obvious problems. Meetings give the appearance of ‘we are on the job’ when actually nothing is being accomplished.
Suffice to say, Canadians could endlessly bring up examples of why stuff does not get done in this country. Heaven forbid if we cross some politically incorrect line. What if those ‘people’ get offended? Is there anyone left to apologize to yet? Have we sufficiently studied this issue to death with regards to how it will effect the Canadian three-toed hemostar, the Indigenous tribe on the other side of the country, the ever popular Canadian content rules, and just for fun, the new ‘gender’ balance rules we are going to have to follow. To be crass, we are a nation of pussies. Sorry, eh?
Venezuela is listed with having the world’s largest proven oil reserves. Their descent into becoming a ‘shit-hole’ country took less than two decades. Don’t worry Canada will be the Northern Venezuela soon enough the way we are going.
Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.