Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, October 23, 2019. Photo: Reuters
Saikat Kumar Basu | Exclusive to Ekurd.net
Canadians have gone through their national parliamentary election and Justin Trudeau has bee re-elected as the Honourable Prime Minister of Canada for the second term! I sincerely believe that you will take the great legacy of his father and former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau forward and once again re-establish Canada as a great nation.
As a proud Canadian I extend my heartiest greetings and best wishes to the newly elected Canadian Government and believe that Prime Minister Trudeau will uphold the great Canadian legacy of equality, fraternity and liberty an example to the members of the global community. But this time his Liberal party has only been able to form a minority government and is dependent on support of other similar minded parties with political differences like the New Democrats, Bloc Quebecois and the newly elected Green Party. The Conservative party of Canada will serve as the major opposition. But all these parties have major political, sociological and ideological differences among them which could make running this new minority government quite challenging
The current dismal situation of this great humanitarian nation worries me deeply; making me to think the direction in which we are heading. Our current time tested federal structure of the nation is slowly dismantling in front of our eyes. Our provinces are standing against one another and political parties are getting engaged in heated debates discussing the possibilities of breaking up due to numerous differences. What is sadder is the fact that even ordinary citizens of the country are getting pushed into this vortex; and the deep divisions in the Canadian nation are unfortunately showing up like a melting iceberg on the Arctic Sea.
I sincerely believe that this is the time for all Canadians to sit together and discuss our differences in both houses of the parliament and find solutions to our never ending socio-economic problems. We all love environment and we all want to work together in protecting Canada’s unique ecosystems. But I also believe that in this modern time ecology and economy has to go hand-in-hand with one another to create a prosperous nation and generate equal opportunities of growth and prosperity for all Canadians.
The non-constitutional way in which one province is blocking the economic opportunity for another province is unacceptable; and true alternative for oil and gas technology is only available in economically feasible form in the distant horizon. Non-judicious environmental romanticism concocted with political ambitions to me is a recipe for disaster. Numerous families and organizations across Western Canada are getting hopeless and desperate as they are losing their jobs and businesses. We need to understand if our environmental romanticism destroys the very basic economy in which our people survive is only going to dismantle the federal framework of Canada.
The deep frustrations, helplessness, fear and anxiety of economic downturn across Western Canada is running extremely strong among the ordinary citizens here. Unless this is seriously addressed at the earliest; a huge socio-economic and socio-political crisis will engulf entire Canada. The East-West divide is going to disrupt the economic and political stability of our great nation. This brings us to a situation of such massive scale disruption of the federal and provincial government inter and intra relationships falling apart in the past decades.
I believe that only one person could bring Canada out of this political and economic helplessness and chaos and that is the Honourable Prime Minister. He needs to address the people across Canada and particularly in western Canada to forget their differences and stand up for the nation together. He has been communicating with leaders and representative of various political parties to find a common ground. Although this is greatly appreciated; but not enough to resolve this issue! I feel that the Prime Minster needs to get out of Ottawa and visit the very people personally and talk to them directly from federal platform to address their deepest fears and serious concerns. It is important for Prime Minister Trudeau to meet people personally to listen to their problems; not just to leaders of political parties and various political representatives.
Canadian politicians and parliamentarians need to understand the unimaginable pain people across the provinces are facing with job losses and closure of businesses due to wrong and short sighted economic policies. The assurance of the Prime Minister to the people directly could make positive changes and rebuild the faith and alienation that western Canadian provinces are currently experiencing. The Honourable Prime Minister has not shown much political maturity during his first term and needs to think about the helpless and desperate situation in many Canadian provinces and territories due to the economic down turn, wrong foreign and business policies and diplomatic failures in marinating relationship with long term trading partners.
The strong differences regarding economic, sociological and environmental policies like pipelines among different provinces are increasing by the day. At the federal level major political parties stand divided with their opinion and focus. All these cumulatively will have significant impact on the economic growth rate of the nation for sure. The deep alienation and division among Canadians within their own country is not acceptable. It will be painful to watch a great and united nation is falling apart because of their so called differences over multiple issues. Unless the major political parties could resolve the deep differences being observed across the nation now; it may get too late to firmly hold together the federal structure of the nation in the future.
Saikat Kumar Basu is a Canada and India based freelance journalist. He regularly contributes to newspapers, newsletters, bulletins, magazines and journals in Asia, Africa and the Americas.
The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of Ekurd.net or its editors.
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