To: Brian Jones
Subject: Commie
Message: “I bet if you had the power to, you would love to turn Canada into the Peoples (sic) Republic of China or the Soviet Union. You’re a burnt out communist hippie. I can’t believe the garbage you write in The Telegram. Don’t blame capitalism for your poor life choices Brian.”
Oh, the nostalgia. Being called a commie prompts happy memories of a joyful youth as a student radical at the University of Calgary, where anyone expressing any sort of idealism or hope for a better society was branded left, red, pinko or whatnot.
Alberta is, was and remains Canada’s Texas. Not in the sense of gun-toting, rugged individualists — although there are those — but of a crass conservative wasteland bereft of empathy or kindness.
The province’s unofficial motto is, “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.”
Today, thanks to high unemployment due to the COVID-19 pandemic and oil prices that are lower than a horse thief, Alberta might need to import millions of made-in-China bootstraps.
Go ahead yahoo … pull yourself up. Sorry, my mistake — bootstraps and pulling oneself up is only for other people.
Regular readers of the news may have noticed that among the hundreds of headlines generated about these troubled times, not a single one has said, “Albertans reject Ottawa’s money.”
The bitumen barons will get billions for a bailout. Strangely, oddly, these were among the very people who, in the B.C. era — Before COVID — screamed in horror at the mere mention of state intervention.
Oil workers who once mocked the notion of employment insurance now accept the dole from the federal government. Goodbye bootstraps.
Perhaps my memory plays tricks on me, but I could have sworn that while delivering The Calgary Herald one day in 1972 I saw the headline, “Commie Trudeau re-elected.”
The thing about hypocrisy is that it utterly lacks self-awareness. This is why, when the horrid COVID-19 pandemic ends, the world will revert right back to the way it was, economically speaking.
Be careful about believing popular platitudes such as, “We’re all in this together,” and, “We have your back.” We’re not, and they don’t.
Sure, we wash our hands and stay six feet apart, mostly, and some people wear masks while out in public, to decrease the risk for their fellow citizens.
But when it all ends, it will be right back to the bootstraps, coast to coast, not just in Alberta.
Not even two months in, the COVID-19 pandemic should have taught everybody that we need a better economic system.
Not even two months in, the COVID-19 pandemic should have taught everybody that we need a better economic system.
My friendly email correspondent quoted above has a question.
“What was wrong with the old system, commie?”
Well, for one thing, it was perfectly OK if market forces — a lost job, say — caused someone to lose their house, or for a renter to be evicted.
The pandemic has apparently revealed this is not OK — for now, anyway. When the viral scourge ends, banks can go right back to repossessing houses, and landlords can continue their evictions.
The titans of trade and commerce have been uniformly silent except when they have their soft hands out for more taxpayers’ money. (See: Air Canada.)
The various chambers of commerce and boards of trade and captains of industry/privates of production — and yes, this includes you, Conference Board of Canada — need to pay attention to at least one thing the pandemic should have taught them already: for the free-enterprise system to thrive, consumers need money to spend.
In political terms, change “consumers” to “citizens” and you have a strong argument in favour of establishing a guaranteed basic income.
You don’t even need to resort to pleas for justice or fairness or altruism or NDP slogans. It’s simply practical, just as the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) is practical. Money gets distributed and spent, benefiting people, businesses and the economy.
If you personally don’t need the guaranteed basic income, you don’t take it, just as people who don’t need the CERB don’t take it.
Unfortunately, society’s rules are written by the rich, not by normal, sensible people, and rich people are notoriously and historically unskilled at visualizing a kind of society that would benefit everybody.
Brian Jones is a desk editor at The Telegram. He can be reached and called a commie or anything else at [email protected].
