This is an analogy between a leaking roof and our present Federal government. Sort of.
You see, our roof is leaking, and the Liberals led by Justin are busy putting pots all over the floors to catch the drips, or in some spots, downpours coming through the roof. Unable to put the pots and pans out quickly enough, the leader Justin had made a deal with one of the neighbours to assist on the promise of returning the favour someday. When the rain eased.
This neighbour on the left side, has some friends in the labour movement and although few in number, they do have the tools to repair the roof. When they can find the materials. In the meantime, they too are putting pots in the living room and main bedroom.
Their leader is busy defining the source of the leaks, looking particularly at the stream of water called healthcare and affordable rental housing that is pouring into the kitchen.
The basement, a critical area where the water is rising and may soon threaten the foundation because the sump pumps are failing to keep up, is where members of the DND are carrying canvas buckets up the stairs and dumping water outside. The basement is home to the Department of Defence. Just saying – it is one of the layers of building blocks making up our country’s foundation.
The strange thing about our leaking roof is that it continues to leak even when the weather outside is clear. This is because a neighbour on the other side of the house, the right side, has their lawn sprinkler spraying the roof. Ergo the leaks. Pierre, the neighbour on the right, keeps yelling about axing the tax but what he is doing is alike taking his axe to the (our) roof. He has no plans to fix the roof but claims turning off the carbon tax sprinkler will solve everything. Duh.
The plans by Justin are to promise to fix everything. Eventually. In the meantime, he will simply get more public servants to put water pots in place, dumping the pots whenever possible - and here is a beacon of hope for us – he and his potholders are meeting in caucus on The Island this week. The neighbour on the left has withdrawn services unless there is a non-confidence storm on the hill.
This has some of the caucus concerned.
Back in the leaking house, the DND people who are carrying their canvas buckets up the stairs, are suffering from the malaise of exhaustion. Actually, the diagnosis ought to be ‘bureaucratic overload’ because they simply cannot get things done in a timely manner with the budget and manpower assigned to them.
For instance, they have been trying to buy some jeeps – Light Armoured Vehicles, and ‘ordinary’ service pickup trucks - since 2017.
From news videos, we know that the terrorists and bad guys use a standard second-hand Toyota 4x4 with a machine gun on a welded stand as their LAVs. You and I know how to buy a pickup truck – and could likely get a good deal if we bought a batch of 1,000 of them. Okay, the soldiers want something better, and in the meantime, they will drive old vehicles from another era. The Ottawa-based bosses promised to have the new vehicles by 2034 – but that was before Justin said we all should be driving electric vehicles by then.
Do not get me started on the time it took us to decide on a new fighter jet. Or new boats with guns. How do other countries get things done more expeditiously? Is it our type of government with its growing bureaucracy that has us bogged down? Are we not ready yet for proportional government where we might cooperatively actually get the roof fixed and do away with the pots and pans?
Or are we continually biting off more than we can chew? We are such a large geographic country with a relatively small population that somehow has gained a reputation of hitting above our weight that we think we are mini-Americans. Heaven forfend. Perhaps it is just our vast distances that suck up our resources as we try to be all things to all our peoples. You know, forest fires, floods, droughts, heat waves, and the remnants of hurricanes. And strikes. And housing shortages. Health care. Opioids. Education, and other holes in our roof and social network.
Or, as I may have mentioned before, is it our political leaders who fluff themselves up on the world political stage making promises far beyond our capabilities? Joly goes to China on a trade mission and the next thing you know China is taking us to the WTO in a dispute over EVs and steel. EVs are those cars and trucks Justin says we must all drive in a few years once we get the electricity grid thing figured out. And by gosh, we will not be driving any cheap Chinese EVs! Even if they sport the Tesla badging. Another hole in the roof.
We must stop putting out pots and pans to catch the water leaks and get our roof repaired. If we cannot do this with any of the current political parties, then maybe it is time for some proportional representation in Ottawa. That Supply and Confidence agreement between the Libs and the NDP did seem to work after a fashion, so imagine what could happen if all the parties worked together: heck, we might even get the roof repaired. Just saying.
