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This is the Worst Canadian Government Ever: is a scathing (but accurate) article from Rex Murphy in the National Post. Not my words, but many of my thoughts and opinions!

Economics

The country is in an economic coma. The House of Commons is a movie set. We are shamed in the international community. And the list goes on.

It’s a mess. It’s a shambles. It’s an embarrassment. It is the worst ever by any reasonable measurement.

Judging by their performance on the most important files, the current bunch in Ottawa would need to hire a consultant to figure out how to get wet in a thunderstorm and set up a task force to study how to tie their own shoes.

Look around you. Canada is in the biggest, most persistent, and threatening crisis since — well since ever. The long-term care homes are under a blizzard of mortality. There is heartbreak in every small business in the country. The worry and anxiety level of most everyday citizens — especially those not shielded by uninterrupted cheques from provincial and federal governments, and those not serving as a member of a legislature — is at an all-time high.

On the Covid Nightmare

This government hoards any real details about what vaccines are here, how many are “secured” on paper only, and what they have promised to pay for them, as a miser hoards gold. Every press briefing on this most important of concerns is a dance of evasion, platitude, confused projection, and sometimes just pure ignorance of what is actually the case.

They are the most deliberately obfuscatory, opaque, access-of-information-allergic administration under the democratic sun.

One year into COVID our venerated House of Commons is a disemboweled, non-functioning, neglected wreck. The targeted disrespect of the absolute and central symbol and instrument of our democracy has no parallel. No “minority” government has ever operated with the smug insouciance and patented, virtue-perfumed arrogance towards the Commons as the Trudeau government. This is, when we step back, their biggest sin.

Shutdowns and Cabinet Shuffles

Since 1867 no prime minister has abandoned the House of Commons and downgraded its significance for so long a period and for such obviously self-centered and political opportunistic reasons. It is so much easier, so much safer, so much more convenient — to walk from the bedroom to the one-printer office and mail in platitudes and arias of evasion via Zoom

What other government has parted ways with a governor-general, and to top it off, a governor-general brought in by the world’s No. 1 “male feminist” as a role model for young women and girls? The same male-feminist who conveniently loses all his top-performing female ministers. Someone should do a “gender analytics” study on Justin Trudeau’s cabinet.

Not to worry. It has lost a finance minister over ethics charges during the mightiest spending binge since the Big Bang. An attorney general, the prime guardian of our rule of law, was hounded out because she would not bend the rule of law. The most qualified and respected woman, a doctor of medicine no less (in other words a real doctor) could not abide staying in so carelessly unethical a cabinet. Thus, at the very time Canada would have wished the most competent person to deal with a once-in-a-hundred years medical emergency, Dr. Jane Philpott is not even in the government.

Meantime Seamus O’Regan, the Trudeau cabinet’s favourite nomad — he takes up and puts down portfolios with the “greatest of ease,” leaving no impression behind as he goes — burbles on, during a pandemic, about planting two billion trees. Imagine, two billion. We only have about 300 billion already! Priorities I guess. Repeat after me the holy incantation: climate change, climate change, climate change. It’s better than a vaccine.

Hostages in Chinese Prisons

We have two hostages in the tyrannical torture houses of Chinese prisons. Those poor, suffering and tormented men must truly have been uplifted — if any news ever reaches them — to learn that their government, during a world pandemic, was collaborating with the Chinese government to “jointly develop a COVID-19 vaccine.” Remember the line from Casablanca — “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world …” — and Insert “countries” for gin joints. Of all the countries in all the world, why did the Trudeau government pick …. China? Incompetence can’t cover it. We need some term that speaks of dedicated and determined, merciless and staggering wrong-headedness: the purblind leading the purblind.

Budget

We have had no budget in two years. (Actually, we have one now, this article was penned pre-budget release, but unbelievably irresponsible) We have spent more than any other government, by far, in our history. We have no idea where all the money has gone. The auditor general has been denied the resources to even keep track of a portion of it. There is no coherence, or trust, between the majority of the premiers and the prime minister. We have been offered occasional delights, like the celebrated comic opera of the WE brothers and the (temporary) $43-million gift to them to administer half a billion dollars of your money.

Distractions

The Liberals have given far more time and dedicated energy to the Derek Sloan affair (whatever that was) than the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline, and the emergent threat of Alberta leaving the Confederation. (Query for a serious panel discussion: Is Canada safe from Bidenism?) Alberta groans while the Trudeau government spends over $36 million for “stay-at-home chairs” for its civil service.

Conclusions

Is our present government the worst Canadian government ever. Can there be any question?

The country is in an economic coma. The House of Commons is a movie set. We are shamed in the international community. Contracts on COVID are all Top Secret. There is zero reliability on any projection made by a minister or the prime minister on where we are on vaccines and distribution. Rideau Hall is shortly to be listed on Airbnb. Farmers have been hit by fuel and carbon taxes. Newfoundland teeters on bankruptcy. The West has never felt so far out of things. I could go on.

Is this what was meant when the rosy words were first pronounced: Canada’s back?

To calm yourself, however, there is always this: Climate change.

Climate change. Climate change. Two billion trees. Two billion trees. Home chairs. Home chairs. Derek Sloan.

Photo credit: SEAN KILPATRICK/THE CANADIAN PRESS

Is Rex Murphy correct? Do we currently have the worst Canadian government ever? What do you think?

Have you looked at your hydro bill lately? I mean really looked? Do you have a hard time understanding the bills you pay? It makes me wonder if they purposely make the bills confusing so that people will not look carefully and just pay what is requested without thinking about it. I have to admit that until I heard recently about the drastically increasing hydro costs, I did not pay enough attention to them. It does not help when bills are automatically paid through paperless bank accounts. These technological advances in banking and bill paying are very convenient but can lead to consumer oblivion.

HydroOttawa provides electricity to our home in Kanata, Ontario. After looking at our most recent bill very closely, I have a lot of questions…

Recently they have switched us from equalized payments to monthly billing. I am not sure why, but somehow I do not feel it is to our advantage. I heard recently of many complaints from rural residences that were charged exorbitant rates from HydroOne (one report was $12,000) through their pre-authorized automatic payment plan, then offered a credit to correct the mistake instead of a refund. In other words, Hydro keeps the money and the customer is left with $12,000 less in their account. What would happen if you didn’t have that kind of money in your account? Or were counting on it for something else? (like food maybe) I’m sure you would still be stuck with a large interest charge for overdrawing on the account even though the mistake was not yours.

Our consumption of electricity (hydro) is categorized into off-peak, mid-peak, and on-peak periods of each day. Reasonable, I guess, if nothing else to convince you to use less electricity during the on-peak (more expensive) hours. See the chart below for peak and non-peak hours. What I do not understand is why there are two charges for each of these categories on my list of charges.

Demand Periods	Time-of- Use Prices
On-Peak	12.9 ¢ / kWh	Weekdays 7 am – 11 am 5 pm – 7 pm

Mid-Peak	10.9 ¢ / kWh	Weekdays 11 am – 5 pm
Off-Peak	7.2 ¢ / kWh	Weekdays 7 pm – 7 am Weekends All Day

also on the list of charges to be paid:

-HST (harmonized sales tax)

-Regulatory charges; they do attempt to explain what that entails on the back of the bill, but basically it means us funding the Ministry of Energy for the never-ending scandals and inefficient, ineffective, billion-dollar programs they come up with.

-A debt retirement charge to pay off the debt accumulated by Ontario hydro, which by the way, was paid off in 2011. Instead of removing the debt retirement charge from our bills, more money was borrowed to fund other Liberal blunders. So, on our bills, it appears like the original debt wasn’t yet paid off, and we continue to pay. To add insult to injury, top Ontario Hydro executives, probably the ones responsible for this massive debt in the first place, recently received bonuses to their salaries and extra padding to their already luxurious pension plans.

-and then a nice big hydro delivery charge on top of our usage charges, which you get whether you use the electricity or not. This we found out on a similarly confusing hydro bill from Hydro One which services our cottage in rural Ontario. As our cottage is used only in the summer months (and even then mostly just on weekends) and not at all in the winter, you would think the delivery fee of approximately $80 per month would not apply off-season. No such reasoning, we pay the delivery fee every month, even though there is no electricity being used between October and May!

At the end of the list of hydro charges, it shows a clean energy benefit credit! This comes from the Ministry of Energy, currently run by the Liberal government, whose scandals (the canceled gas plants saga that cost us $1.1 billion for example) we are paying for with the regulatory charge mentioned above. Are you confused yet? Why not just waste less money on the scandals and non-efficient, non-viable programs like another windmill farm that is slated for construction in Chatham, Ontario, and charge us less upfront?

If I am complaining about the fees we pay for our home and cottage, what about the companies and organizations whose consumption would be much greater? In comparison, their bills must be staggering! I heard of one curling club that had to close its doors because it could not cover the increased cost of hydro with its membership dues; I have no doubt many other such organizations will be doing the same.

I also feel bad for the many pensioners in Ontario who are living on a fixed income. Should they have to choose between paying for hydro and buying groceries? I am not far from the fixed income days myself; what was supposed to be a comfortable, relaxing, well-deserved retirement may be a little more stressful than planned…