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Having just spent three weeks in Nova Scotia and P.E.I., it is very tempting to talk about that wonderful part of our country, the people, the scenery, the food (especially the lobster) and the sense of Canadian history you feel as you travel those provinces. I recommend all Canadians put the Maritimes on their travel bucket list.
While there, we watched the Kamala Harris and Tim Walz speeches and I wanted to talk about a reaction I heard. Someone said to me, “If the former president wasn’t so crazy, you might not be as enthused about the Harris/Walz policies, but when you watch them, they give you a sense of just being normal.” The comment has stuck with me in the days since and I wanted to reflect on that, our desire for ‘normal’ because we are barraged with things that none of us feel are normal any longer.
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When we were in school, talking, even whispering in class could get you a smack on the hands with a ruler or even time in the hallway. Today I listened to a discussion about whether students should be allowed to have their cellphones in class and I thought, “That seems ridiculous, how can that be normal?” Can you imagine trying to teach young people in a classroom where phones are vibrating, parents or friends are calling to make arrangements and distractions are rampant? No, that is not normal.
There continues to be a raging debate in our country about the lack of housing. No doubt some of that has been the result of an abnormally open immigration policy but some is also the result of an abnormal sense of entitlement among those who believe their houses should have granite countertops, a double garage and be easy to finance. It used to be normal to struggle to buy your starter home and they were generally modest by any definition. Today, we have television shows based on how often you can flip your house. Is that normal? It wasn’t unusual, in fact it was normal, for people to buy a house and live in it for one or two decades. Normal mortgage rates for many years hovered around the six or seven per cent mark, and when rates went up to 12 and 13 per cent everyone understood that this was not normal or acceptable. It was normal to have some help from parents and relatives to make that first house purchase. Perhaps what we should be seeking is a larger sense of reality as opposed to normality but, either way, your home should not be your sole investment portfolio. Buy a house, enjoy it, work on it and live in it, that just seems normal.
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I recently read a book about the era of John Diefenbaker and Lester Pearson and their time as prime ministers. There was no love lost between these two, but their debates and commentary were focused on policy. Pearson opposed the Trans-Canada pipeline and Diefenbaker pushed it through. Sounds normal, doesn’t it? Families and spouses were not included in any political attacks and while the debates were hard, there was respect for the positions. Today, we seem to have constant personal attacks disguised as clever dialogue but far less focus on actual issues. Watching Question Period in Parliament, or discussion in our city council is almost embarrassing at times and you have to wonder if that is the best we can do in terms of leadership.
During my time in Charlottetown, we talked about various premiers and how today, it seems like each premier is more concerned about their provincial position than the benefit and good of the country. One man in Charlottetown said, “We have not had a premier with a national perspective since Alberta had Peter Lougheed.” The men that signed the British North America Act in 1867 had vision and while they certainly defended their provincial interests, they remained focused on the idea of building a nation.
Let’s bring back logic in our decision-making. Let’s calm down and act normal.
George H. Brookman is chair and company ambassador of West Canadian Digital.
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