Thursday, March 30, 2017

Stepping Up To The Plate



 Canada's Prime Minister may be a great communicator. He clearly has the ability to inspire people to be optimistic about the future. He is reasonably bright, far more diplomatic than his father and his boyish charm is attractive to people both in Canada and around the world.  It may be the first time that a Canadian Prime Minister has attracted so much positive international attention. He says all of the right things about climate change, women's rights, immigration and world peace. It is time however, that he started to do more that talk a good talk. Trudeau is facing two specific issues that not only may define his time in office but may define Canada and its role in the world for the next few decades.

 Just under a year ago (5/25/16) I did a piece entitled " On Being a Smug Canadian " in which I suggested that it was easy for Canadians  to criticize other countries'  (notably the USA) immigration policies because our borders were not vulnerable to large numbers of people sneaking in. Well - things have changed. Small numbers of illegal immigrants from the USA have, ever since Trump's election, started to cross into our country. So far there are not the thousands of people who cross over the USA's southern borders, nor are there the thousands and thousands of people from the Middle East who are attempting to cross into European countries. Still it is a test for us and I am not sure that we will pass.

The federal government must start to allocate resources immediately so that the small towns along the border can provide the necessary initial levels of support.  If we believe that we have a collective responsibility to support those who have asked for help, then we need to collectively create a national response. We must ensure that those small border towns do not carry the emotional or financial costs alone. At the same time we also need to ensure that there are sufficient resources in place to process the refugee applicants, do the security screening and to help them to relocate to other parts of Canada. If Canada starts now to provide those supports then we will not be overwhelmed when the numbers increase. If we wait too long, then the capacity of the residents of those towns to care will rapidly disappear.  Then the only option may  to create one of those horrendous refugee camps that one sees on television. That cannot be an option for us.

The second issue facing the federal government is Trump's declaration that dealing with climate change is not a priority for his administration. In fact he does not believe that climate change is even real or at least that it is caused by humankind's use of fossil fuels. To that end he has promised to lower emission standards for vehicles and factories, to do away with regulations that deal with the use of coal fired hydro plants and to encourage oil and natural gas extraction including fracking. Trudeau has, of course, made the exact opposite argument. He has publically, on international stages, promised to lower Canada's total carbon emissions. Various large manufacturing and/or international companies are now saying very clearly that if Canada continues on this path, the already uneven playing field will become so unbalanced that Canadian companies will not be able to compete with their competitors to the south. The pressure to lessen the federal government's stance on climate change will only increase in the upcoming months.

We cannot allow that to happen. We must, as a country, keep our promises to the world community. We cannot allow the bully to the south to force us to ignore the science so that we (or at least some of us) can become richer. We cannot afford to lose four years  -the climate is changing far too quickly. We must not listen to only those who believe that the international business world knows what is best for us. Commerce is important. We need a vibrant economy and that includes manufacturing that must compete on the international market. But not at the expense of our grandchildren living in a world that can no longer support them.

It is easy to make great speeches - it is equally as easy to make promises.  It is even easier when big brother to the south agrees with us. The hard part is following through on those promises when he doesn't. It is time that we started to do so.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Blog Archive

Followers