Canada: All of a Piece

It's just so difficult to reconcile to the position that Canadians find themselves in with their political situation in Parliament.  At least it is for this Canadian.  Once a lifelong NDP supporter, my elderly years have given me a new perspective entirely.  One that views the NDP with distaste for its legendary and outdated socialist-left agenda, simplistic and out of step with Canada. 

All the more so with a man at the helm who cannot seem to bring himself to admit that Quebec separation from Canada is logical enough from the perspective of the die-hard third of the population who refuse to let the notion that they are capable of fending for themselves and must do so to preserve their heritage and language; not so much for the rest of us.

Thomas Mulcair's muddy reaction to Quebec nationalism, treading ever-so-gently to preserve the NDP presence in the House of Commons giving them Official Opposition status for the first time in their history, reveals a man who is a tad more of a slimy politician than he is a patriot.  But then, patriotism so readily slides into mealy-mouthed sanctimony; best left aside.

In his zeal to convince voting Canadians that the Conservatives remain the wrong choice for the country he has taken to criticizing every position the governing Conservatives take, chief among them for the time being their focus on the national economy, so hugely dependent now on the energy sector, the sole sector aside from Canada's massive mining interests, of advancing the GDP.

He aspires to become the prime minister of the country, bringing his NDP party to full majority rule status, yet he has managed quite effortlessly to begin the process of estrangement of the provinces.  It is Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Alberta that Mr. Mulcair derides as being the ruination of the Canadian economic recovery, even while Alberta's energy resources remain the clear picture of future federal endowment.

Without Alberta's generosity in sharing, along with Saskatchewan and Newfoundland in their newfound status as 'have' provinces - what advantage in today's depressed financial world would Canada continue to have?  "The manufacturing sector has been hit particularly hard here.  Yet the government puts all its eggs in the resource basket while manufacturing loses hundreds of thousands of jobs."

Actually, Canadian labour has priced itself out of competition.  What innovators and entrepreneurs that Canada has aplenty must focus on is producing unique quality technological and other products that the world will clamour for, and not rest on their laurels once that has been accomplished.  In fact, business has performed quite well in Canada, with profits ensuing that have not yet been re-directed back to investment.

If he's addressing the automotive industry, and he was, and is, then we must turn our memory back a few years and recall the massive financial rescue undertaken by Canada and Ontario on behalf of automotive manufacturing in Ontario.  We'd do well also to think of some of those plants being shuttered now, despite that infusion and relocating to the U.S., to 'right-to-work' states.   Unlike the $70-an-hour auto factory jobs in Canada.

The "artificially high" loonie that Mr. Mulcair bemoans does benefit perhaps not manufacturers but other parts of the Canadian economy, hugely.  But even manufacturers, purchasing machinery and raw goods abroad benefit from the higher dollar.