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The cost of federal stupidity

I think I have finally become an Albertan. Ottawa was my birthplace and I grew up with an inborn genetic predisposition to cheer for the Ottawa Roughriders. My heroes were federal political leaders.

I think I have finally become an Albertan. Ottawa was my birthplace and I grew up with an inborn genetic predisposition to cheer for the Ottawa Roughriders. My heroes were federal political leaders. My classmates were sons and daughters of senior government officials, diplomats and members of Parliament. After many years away from home, I returned to Ottawa and served for two terms as a trustee on the Ottawa Board of Education.

It was a time of change. While chairing the education committee, we introduced metric conversion and French immersion. Union militancy by the teacher associations led to teacher strikes for the first time in Ontario history. School trustees at that time had considerable influence as we could raise taxes and were directly responsible for negotiations for teacher contracts. Yes, we even appeared in front of the national wage and price control commission and were on a first-name basis with federal and provincial cabinet ministers as we struggled with the fundamental changes in Canadian socio-political structures that marked the Pierre Trudeau years — exhilarating, confusing and frustrating. At that time the Marc Lalonde push for a guaranteed family income was much more riveting than the National Energy Policy. Eastern political intrigues were more focused on whether Peter Lougheed should lead the federal Progressive Conservative Party than on whether Alberta was on the verge of economic collapse.

Now I am an Albertan. We first came to Alberta in the mid 1980s when Premier Don Getty warned us we could no longer sustain the costs of our health care system. We settled in St. Albert in 1990 and bore the brunt of the Ralph Klein Revolution. Remember the five per cent cut and the creation of regional health authorities? We are at it again. And so is the United States. We are also once again consumed about the effects of our energy sector on our economic survival.

Meanwhile in Ottawa, the national focus is riveted on a sleazy German-Canadian who tried to bribe a Canadian prime minister to sell arms to the Canadian Forces. The Right Honourable Brian Mulroney hasn’t helped his cause by failing to report three $75,000 payments he took as a retainer to influence the UN to do the same. Obviously Mulroney was unsuccessful and didn’t spend the money. He also didn’t immediately report the payment as income to Canada Revenue Agency. Karlheinz Schreiber should have been deported to face charges of bribery in Germany. He is a crook and a liar who has been allowed to stay in Canada for partisan political reasons. The whole thing stinks.

The mayor of Ottawa has been charged with bribing someone not to run against him. So what? Federal MPs cross the floor to get cabinet posts.

Ruby Dhalla, a Liberal MP, is accused of mistreating her mother’s caregivers. The federal minister of immigration has promised they can stay in Canada until the matter is sorted out. Why treat them differently from Schreiber?

Meanwhile the National Energy Policy returns to Alberta with little federal notice or care except as a federal government revenue source. Let’s change the tax system folks. Let’s pay all our income taxes to Alberta and let the federal government try to collect their so-called share from Ed “Steady Eddie” Stelmach.

Dr. Alan Murdock is a local pediatrician.

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