We learn we have an ever-increasing list of rights the government is meant to provide. Canada is on the leading edge of having rights, as we’ve been discovering under the Trudeau government. Recently the Liberals completed their rollout of a national daycare system, which it achieved by supplying the provinces and territories with billions of dollars to pay for it. In its deal with the New Democrats the government has promised a dental care program and progress on a universal national pharmacare program as well. These are on top of a pledge to provide more money to hire more nurses, doctors and mental health professionals, and to remedy the many holes made evident in the health-care system by the COVID pandemic.
And don’t forget the crisis in long-term care homes, where the COVID death toll was appalling, or the promise to spend more on Canada’s sadly degraded defense system, the state of which in the face of the Russian war on Ukraine even embarrassed some “progressives.”
It’s a lot of big bucks for a government that has already doubled the debt and is running its existing responsibilities increasingly on borrowed money. Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland is to release her second budget on Thursday, and somehow has to find a way to convince Canadians that, once again, “we can’t afford not to” pour money into all the things Canadians feel would be excellent to have.
No comments:
Post a Comment