A not so Merry Christmas?

As many of us gather with family and share conversation, memories, good food and presents I hope that I, my handful of readers, and any others that have been taking notice can, however briefly, ignore the ever increasing turmoil across the world. More than 6 years ago I started this blog to speak out against what I saw as an increasingly authoritative and power hungry government lead by one Stephen Harper and was therefore greatly relieved when he was tossed from power last year. Whilst our new government is far from perfect let us not forget how close we came to loosing so many of the things that I for one believe makes our country great. Free speech and the right to (peacefully) protest those things we disagree with, protection of our national parks, our rivers and streams, our lakes and shorelines. The ability of our 'arms length' watch dogs to actually do their job, make public their reports and receive sufficient funding to do so, the ability of our MPs and Senators to vote their conscience without penalty, etc etc.


I will admit to giving the current government a bit of a free ride over the last year and there are things that I could be quite critical of, however after all those years of seeing our democracy being attacked and stealthily little by little reduced to a shadow of its former self I find it hard to critique a government who I believe is trying to reverse some of those cuts. It took 10 years to almost destroy it, it will not be resurrected in just one year so whilst I support those who are keeping this governments feet to the fire I will be giving them a little more time before doing a whole lot of writing about their actions. When I look at the place we were the beginning of last year, and the place where our neighbour to the south appears to be going, and the events in the middle east and elsewhere I can only thank god that we here in Canada have a more benign administration than most, one that is largely devoid of right wing bigots and extremists.


So as the new year approaches my thought is how lucky we are, most of us will have a roof over our heads and food on the table, we have thus far managed to resolve our differences with out armed conflict and we are free to express our opinions (including about our government) without arrest. There are many problems to be resolved, poverty, homelessness, Jobs, education and heathcare funding, the list is endless but I do not know of any other place I would rather live.


Thats not a very 'merry' summation, its hard to be optimistic given world events but I do wish us all a brighter and more uplifting 2017!


See you next year (as and when I feel like writing which is increasingly becoming less frequent! ).


The traditional wish of Peace on Earth seems to be particularly appropriate this year and that is what I wish for for 2017.

Support Democracy - Recommend this Post at Progressive Bloggers