Marco Navarro-Génie

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau may be using Indigenous Canadians as human props to get their votes, and the votes of Canadians for whom better treatment of Indigenous people is important.

…for all that is being said about Alberta today, infected Albertans have so far survived COVID-19 at three times the rate of Quebeckers, and nearly at twice the rate of the average Canadian.

People will disagree with public officials and their decisions. In a democratic arrangement, there is an expectation that people will address their differences respectfully, and even in friendship. Frederick Haultain, the founder of Alberta and Saskatchewan, was notorious for his kind and respectful ways. Unlike our contemporary crop of leaders, he never insulted even his most vicious or slandering opponents.

For generations now, successive federal governments have made promises without delivering. For all the inflated rhetoric, even the present federal government has been incapable of permanently delivering potable water to so many Indigenous children. Worse still, not that long ago, Prime Minister Trudeau openly mocked Aboriginal women at a Liberal Party fundraiser in Toronto when the women demanded clean water for their children. Expressions of solidarity, vacuous electoral promises and virtue-signalling schemes will not deliver the outcomes that Indigenous Canadians need, just as handing out large amounts of unaccountable monies over decades has failed.

There are two strong reasons for the costs of increased usage of the Kananaskis wilderness areas to be shouldered by the healthcare budget. It is a health matter. Physical activity and social interaction are salutary for Albertans coping with the economic and psychological hardships imposed by their government. Second, a pricing mechanism is wrong because the excess use did not issue from regular market demand. Claiming “medical advice,” the government has locked Albertans down and continues to restrict most options for essential social and physical activities. The excess costs associated with wilderness usage should therefore be medical costs.

One would think that citizens whose lives are being hurt by their own government policies would receive sympathy and compassion. But instead, those suffering outside the medical tutelage of Alberta Health are disparaged as “unhinged conspiracy theorists.”