Canada exploited by foreign investors

I find the current situation almost too ridiculous for words. We have the federal and provincial governments scrambling to meet agendas set by an American pipeline and foreign oil corporations. Our governments have been too easily stampeded by the prospects of jobs purported to be at stake. Yet these are the same corporations that have no problems letting go tens of thousands of Canadians’ livelihoods at the drop of a mere percentage point for shareholders.

These “foreign investors” that governments crawl before like slaves are, in many cases, loaned their funding by Canadian banks. The same banks that care more about their own investors’ profits than any Canadian worker and his family, and raise a terrible stink about even the public discussion of reducing the tax privileges they get.

Does it not seem unreal that two previous PC prime ministers announced to the world that Canada is the new world oil superpower, yet our oil is controlled, exploited, pumped and timetabled by foreign oil companies, and predatory trade deals? We see the world through cultural glasses created by a foreign perspective. How long will we continue as an exploited colony, squabbling among ourselves?

This reminds me of an Aesop’s fable about Tar Baby. Premier Notley and Prime Minister Trudeau resemble Briar Rabbit, kicking and punching Tar Baby and getting only more stuck, while the oil businesses, like Briar Fox behind the Texas bush, snickers all the way to the bank. All it takes is someone throwing a match into the Briar Patch and we have another firestorm.

Come on, people, let’s grow up here and realize as long as we beg foreigners to do things we should do for ourselves, we will never be a “True North strong and free.”

Don Ryane

Lethbridge